Is my HDD failing?

[navaira]

Hi all,

I've got a seven months old Toshiba 3TB HDD in my iMac. It had overheating problems at the beginning, but somehow fixed itself (?) and the problems are gone.

I ran SMART Utility and got "Total errors: 1.169" with Overall SMART Status: "Failing". However, Disk Utility (the kidware version from El Cap) says SMART status is verified, and running First Aid tells me everything is in perfect order.

How... believable is SMART Utility? I restarted and checked again, the same result. Should I be worried or not really?

 

[MacUser2525]

Well the SMART Utility should be getting the raw data from the drive itself, if it is then your drive is well on its way to being toast. That is why the drive writes that data there so you can query it using an app to get the status to see if it is failing.

 

[laydros]

When Disk Utility says SMART status is verified, it basically means SMART is functioning, not that SMART says everything is OK. And First Aid looks at things from the data level, not the hardware level.

SMART is a really nice system that allows the hard drive to report back that things are going wrong sometimes BEFORE data loss. It sounds like you have strong warning signs. I agree with the last poster that you should consider the drive about to die, and back up everything.

The good news is with a 7 month old drive you should still have warranty coverage. Back it up and get in touch with Toshiba for a replacement.

 

[navaira]

Blast. Thanks for the explanation. RMAing the drive.