As per recent AI-based research conducted by ULINK, SMART 197 or Current Pending Sector Count is among the top 5 threshold alerts for predicting unresponsive drives. A SMART 197 error indicates that there are pending sectors on your hard drive. These sectors are waiting to be reallocated because they might be bad or unreadable.
Here’s how this error impacts your storage drive:
Data Integrity Risk
Pending sectors often indicate potential data loss. If the drive can’t read from these sectors, the data stored there may be lost or corrupted. If you try to access a file stored on a pending sector, it could lead to errors or failures in reading the data.
Drive Instability
A high count of pending sectors suggests that the drive may be degrading and heading toward failure. Sectors that remain in a “pending” state are waiting to be reallocated to spare sectors, but they can cause inconsistent read/write operations until resolved.
Performance Impact
Drives with a high number of pending sectors may experience degraded performance because the drive may be repeatedly attempting to read from unstable sectors. This process can lead to delays and increased read/write times.
Risk of Imminent Failure
While some pending sectors may eventually be recovered, if the count continues to rise or remains high, it’s a strong indicator of looming hardware failure. If sectors can’t be recovered, they will likely be reallocated to spare sectors, but a drive with excessive reallocated sectors may soon fail.
A SMART 197 error is a strong indicator of drive health issues, and taking immediate action can help prevent data loss and avoid further complications. Do a complete backup of your data as soon as possible and track the error data. If the count of pending sectors continues to be high, consider replacing the drive.
ULINK DA Drive Analyzer makes monitoring the health of your drives much simpler. It can send you alerts and notifications for drive health issues like SMART 197. Using Explainable AI, it provides you with a detailed and easy-to-understand analysis of the errors that can help you make an informed decision about the future course of action.
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