My Passsport Ultra. S.M.A.R.T. attributes 1 and 197 slightly increased

WD External Drives WD Portable Drives
1

Dear friends!

So there is the case: I’m using WD external drives for quite a long time (totaly I own 14 of them). Recently I’ve noticed slight incresing of 01 (“Read error rate”) and 197 (“Currently Pending Sectors”) S.M.A.R.T. attributes on two of my external HDD. According to the Ashampoo HDD control RAW values (in DEC) of (01) and (197) attributes now are:

1 HDD:
(01) - 2
(197) - 2

2 HDD:
(01) - 1
(197) - 6

HDD are being used for one year at the moment.

It seems Both HDDs work fine - no screeching noise or whatever. Managet to do backup of both HDDs without any problems. Values of attributes (01) and (197) so far are stable - neither increasing nor decreasing. I’m a bit worry about (197) attribute, normally for WD it should be on zero. Last time when I’ve got (197) rise on My Passport it ended with HDD death, but that was quite different case - there were screeching, constant rising of (01), (197) and (200) attributes.

Both HDDs were tested by WD LifeGuard and WD Drive Utilities - extended test showed no problems.

So my question is - is non-zero (197) attribute is an occasion to worry?
Should I call RMA now or just watch over this two HDDs for a bit?

P.S.
Sorry for my rough English.

2

A SMART test is a general guideline related to a hard drive’s health condition, but it is by no means absolute as long as it passes. I’d recommend contacting WD’s Support team about this if you are worried about the unit:

Contact Support | WD Support?

3

So I did contact with WD Support team… Answer they gave me wasn’t realy clear, but, after all, there is no clear problem. I’ve ran Extended test few more times - it gave fine results. So I can assume there is no real problem. I just can’t get rid of that uncomfortable feeling that something is just not right :grinning:, but that definitly isn’t problem of WD Support.