Hitachi 2TB HDD dying already ?

[FS]

So I plugged in a brand new Hitachi Deskstar 5K3000 ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822145475 ) into my new setup yesterday. Made 2 partitions, chose MBR as I it was already selected and I didn't know much about GPT. Then I ran HDTach and PCWizard HDD benchmark and it said 100% for performance and health just like SpeedFan SMART reader though the Ultra DMA CRC bar was not completely to the right ... it read '8' when I hovered the pointer over it.

Then I copied ~250GB of data onto it and left the pc running over night ... no activity whatsoever going on on this new drive after the copy process. When I took a look at the SMART reading in the morning, I was shocked to see that 2 more bars had moved a lot to the left and the performance/health had already gone down to 91%(less than my 5+ years old IDE and SATA drives that I am still using). Should I go ahead and return this HDD or it's a keeper ?

 

[Elixer]

Use CrystalDiskInfo, and see what it says.

 

[FS]

It uses same S.M.A.R.T info yet has little detail/info to offer compared to the pic I posted.

Anyway, here's a screenshot of CrystalDiskinfo:

 

[miji]

Likely a problem with your sata cable.

 

[alexruiz]

Likely a problem with your sata cable.

I would say bingo.

The Hitachi drives I have are really picky about SATA cables. One of my deskstars 7K1000.C was as slow as 20 MB/sec reading...

 

[FS]

I have a few extra SATA cable lying around that I can use but I used this particular SATA cable because it came with the mobo and was labeled as "specially designed for 6Gbit/sec speeds". I always thought that SATA cables were not designed according to speed and any one of them should be able to handle SATA1, SATA2, SATA3 speeds but I don't know how true that is. I'll give another (regular) SATA cable a shot and see if it makes a difference ... let alone the sequential/average speed, even the burst would be less than what a regular cable should be able to handle.

 

[Barfo]

Use CrystalDiskInfo, and see what it says.

I was going to install this and found it contains adware/spyware called OpenCandy. Any other programs like this that don't contain spyware?

 

[FS]

^ I am using the stand alone/without installer version and no spyware/adware so far. Also, you might want to try Speedfan ... you'll get the temps + what you see in the 1st pic I posted.

PS: I just used a different SATA cable and everything still looks the same. Was I suppose to see any changes ? Why was using a different cable recommended ?

 

[Elixer]

I was going to install this and found it contains adware/spyware called OpenCandy. Any other programs like this that don't contain spyware?

If you get it from the source, then no, there is no spyware at all.
http://crystalmark.info/download/CrystalDiskInfo-e.html

If you are really paranoid, the guy does release the source code as well, so you can compile it yourself.

 

[Ross Ridge]

There's nothing wrong with your drive or cable. The raw value of 0 indicates that you've had zero UltraDMA CRC errors.

The only problem you're having is with the software that you were using in your original screenshot. Presumably because it didn't have your drive in its database, it had to guess what a normal "current" value for this atrribute is for your particular drive. It guessed wrong.

 

[FS]

^ Thanks for the response. I think I'll go ahead with the rebate then.