How does Storage Space identify a weak drive?

BillPutnam · 07 May 2023

I had a storage space on my behemoth homegrown Windows 10 22H2 PC. I seem to have used too much power and am now about to replace the power supply. To reduce power I moved my Storage Space from internal SATA to external USB

The move from internal SATA to external USB was uneventful. The Storage Space appeared as expected. However, Storage Space identified Disk #2 as being a candidate for replacement. It did not say what was wrong with it. It also did not say whether Disk #2 was which serial number.

I have learned through bitter experience that there is no way to identify which drive is which. I would have thought that the drives would have the serial numbers embeded in firmware.
So I chatted with Western Digital. They had no solution, but referred me to their application "Dashboard" which has serveral diagnostic tests.
I could not get Dashboard to recognize the external USB enclosure, so I removed the two WD hard drives and transferred them, one at a time, to a one-drive USB enclosure. Although the PC did not recognize it, the Dashboard application still functioned. It said that both drives were just fine based on the SMART test.
So my question is "What does Storage Space know about the hard drive that the SMART test doesn't?"

Enclosure: Mediasonic PROBOX 4 Bay 3.5” SATA Hard Drive Enclosure – USB 3.0
Hard disk drives:
1. Western Digital 10TB WD Red Plus NAS WD101EFBX
2. Western Digital 10TB WD Red Plus NAS WD101EFBX
3. SEAGATE 12TB EXOS X18 ST12000NM000J
4. SEAGATE 12TB EXOS X18 ST12000NM000J

dalchina · 08 May 2023

Hi,

I have learned through bitter experience that there is no way to identify which drive is which. I would have thought that the drives would have the serial numbers embeded in firmware.

I note (from the tutorials) that the 'prepare for removal' dialogue, for example, appears to identify a specific disk by number, location and id (step 4):
Remove Disk from Storage Pool for Storage Spaces in Windows 10

How does Storage Space identify a weak drive?-1.jpg

That's shown before you elect to actually remove it.
There may be other ways, but there's one at least.

This article gives other ways in some circumstances, and goes a little way toward how faults are handled, although I don't see a statement about how a drive is marked as a candidate for replacement.
https://social.technet.microsoft.com...cal-disks.aspx

So my question is "What does Storage Space know about the hard drive that the SMART test doesn't?"

Bearing in mind the somewhat complex monitoring and actions described there, it may well be the case that a simple SMART check does not reflect the status shown by Storage Spaces.

Note that very few here - if any- seem to use Storage Spaces- based on previous threads hardly anyone else comments on this. You might be lucky of course. (I've never used it).

BillPutnam · 08 May 2023

>Note that very few here - if any- seem to use Storage Spac
So what do you recommend as an alternative?

dalchina · 08 May 2023

Thank you very much for your reply.

I would hesitate to do so.

Megahertz · 09 May 2023

You can run these small programs to diagnose your drives:
- Crystal disk info. It doesn't test the drive but extract the SMART data from the drive
- SeaTools
- Hard Disk Sentinel - HDD health and temperature monitoring