I have recently bought a WD15EARS-00MVWB0, whose S.M.A.R.T. values I am monitoring constantly. Just a few moments ago I recognized that S.M.A.R.T. value C8 (Write_Error_Rate) is not equal 0 any more, but 1. Using WDLG however, I see that the write error rate are not accounted for in the attribute list and as such it passes just fine. Every other hard drive I had does not have an error like this listed. Is this value a reason for concern?
I think you will find that attribute C8 is a rolling average, not a cumulative count. See the following thread:
This article explains the SMART attributes:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.M.A.R.T.
Hard drive manufacturers implement SMART in their own non-standard, proprietary ways. The SMART attributes may even vary between models from the same manufacturer.
Some manufacturers, eg Fujitsu, use attribute C8 to record the Write Error Rate. Others such as WD use it for recording the Multi-Zone Error Rate.
A complete list of WD’s attributes can be extracted from various WD utilities.
Here are the ones I extracted from wdidle3.exe:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:S.M.A.R.T.#More_WDC_SMART_attributes
