From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S263394AbTJZSdu (ORCPT ); Sun, 26 Oct 2003 13:33:50 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S263396AbTJZSdt (ORCPT ); Sun, 26 Oct 2003 13:33:49 -0500 Received: from mcomail04.maxtor.com ([134.6.76.13]:65289 "EHLO mcomail04.maxtor.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S263394AbTJZSds (ORCPT ); Sun, 26 Oct 2003 13:33:48 -0500 Message-ID: <785F348679A4D5119A0C009027DE33C105CDB39B@mcoexc04.mlm.maxtor.com> From: "Mudama, Eric" To: "'Norman Diamond'" , "'Hans Reiser '" , "'Wes Janzen '" , "'Rogier Wolff '" , "'John Bradford '" , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, nikita@namesys.com, "'Pavel Machek '" , "'Justin Cormack '" , "'Russell King '" , "'Vitaly Fertman '" , "'Krzysztof Halasa '" Subject: RE: Blockbusting news, results get worse Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2003 11:33:48 -0700 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2653.19) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org > -----Original Message----- > From: Norman Diamond [mailto:ndiamond@wta.att.ne.jp] > > > 4. When writing ZEROES to the bad sector, the drive reports SUCCESS. > But it lies. Subsequent attempts to read still fail. > Subsequent writing of > zeroes appears to succeed again. Subsequent attempts to read > still fail. *That* is the fundamental problem with the drive. If it knows it has had trouble with that block in the past, and it gets a new write, it should know that is a troublesome area and verify that it was able to put the new block in the old location. If it can verify that, then there's no need to reallocate it at all, since the write most likely cured whatever was wrong. If it can't verify it, then it should need to reallocate and verify at the new location. > They said that they warranty Toshiba disk drives for 1 year. So > if a customer buys a Toshiba disk drive with firmware that > was defective on the day of purchase and defective on the dates > of design and manufacture, but if the customer doesn't detect > the defective firmware until 366 days later, the customer still > gets shafted. In theory, I don't see the problem with this. It isn't realistic for a vendor to warranty a product forever, and this is why OEMs do large qualifications on drives themselves before they purchase a single unit, since they know they'll bear the brunt of the support headache if the product fails. That being said, there are three options: 1. Pay a premium for longer warranty. I know this is available in both IDE and SCSI, not sure if it is available in notebook drives. 2. Do qualification tests yourself during the first year of operation. Hi/low temperature/humidity/air pressure, random command generator, and make sure the drive never miscompares or has a hard error it can't "fix". (Writing a zero and reading non-zero is a miscompare) 3. Look at what products are being shipped in large volume from OEMs, and buy the same product yourself. Dell or HP or IBM can't afford to ship products that don't have the lowest in-the-field failure rates, so buying what they buy would make sense since they'll run their own tests like #2. --eric