Power off retract cycle count

[Luis]

Hello,

Last night the "power off retract cycle count" increased to 1 for one of my WD external drives, despite the fact that I've always ejected/disconnected the drive properly and cannot think of a single reason for this count to increase. What's even stranger though, is that shortly after the count increased (probably less than a half hour) I checked the S.M.A.R.T. reading again and it was back down to 0.

As I said, I haven't changed a single thing in regards to habits, so I don't understand what even increased the count in the first place. Is it possibly just a random one-off? Can this happen sometimes, despite there being nothing wrong with the external drive? I'm just a bit confused as to what to think here. Just some added information: everything about the drive checks out fine, surface scans show absolutely nothing wrong, I've had no issues whatsoever using the drive, and all other S.M.A.R.T. readings are 100% okay. I own several drives, and I haven't had this issue on any of them.

It's just really strange, and I'm about ready to write off the whole incident, but I just thought I'd ask to be sure. The drive is in perfect health, so I think you'd understand my confusion. Especially since the "power off retract cycle count" has not increased once since then; it has stayed at 0 like it should be.

It couldn't be something like a USB cable, can it? Because the one I'm using has never given me a problem before, and it works perfectly. If, for arguments sake, it WAS a problem with a USB cable, how would that be displayed in the S.M.A.R.T. info? Under which section would any faulty USB cables display a problem? As I said, I don't think it's related to a USB cable, but I figured I'd also ask you to double-check.

Thanks so much for your help.

[hdsentinel]

Sounds so interesting.

Yes, generally the Power off retract cycle count can suggest if the disk drive powered OFF in an unusual/unexpected way.

Is it a 2.5" external disk drive, powered from the USB cable? Then yes, the cable (or the connection) itself can cause such issue: if the cable is not properly connected, then the disk drive may temporarily "vanish" from the system and this can result in increasing power off retract cycle count.
This is more common if the hard disk may not receive enough power for proper operation, for example if the 2.5" USB hard disk is connected to front-panel USB slot.

Or is it a 3.5" external disk drive with its own power supply? Is it possible that there was a temporary power loss, power fluctuation which may cause the issue? If possible, please connect such external power supplies to UPS too, just to prevent possible sudden power loss.

Do you use USB hub/extender? That can cause such/similar.

Generally cable-related problems are reported on Ultra ATA CRC Error Count attribute for internal hard disk drives and the mentioned Power off retract cycle count for external USB hard disks. It is interesting that the value reset to 0.

I'd suggest to use Report menu -> Send test report to developer option as checking the disk status and connection may give some ideas/thoughts what happened. Also if you'll encounter similar in the future and send a new developer report similarly, I can examine, compare the two reports and verify differences - which may also point on something.

[Luis]

Okay, I've sent the report. Hopefully that will help narrow down the issue.

The whole thing is so weird; like I said, I haven't had a problem again and I've used the same drive to see if I can replicate the issue. I've even used the same USB cable on different drives to see if that's the problem, and nothing went wrong. I've always used my front USB ports for everything, and it's never given me an issue. Maybe it was some strange one-off? Because I can't replicate it if I tried. There's basically zero symptoms that something was ever wrong besides from the sudden increase in "power off retract cycle count", and even that decreased without any effort on my part. It's so bizarre.

I had one last question, this one relating to the surface scans: how do I limit the READ surface scan to a specific block so that I don't have to do it all in one go? Because I don't see an option for that anywhere in the configuration tab. All I see is "sequential" and "random" and that's it, nothing to limit it to a specific section.

Thanks so much for all of your help.

[hdsentinel]

Thanks for the answer and the report.

Yes, I see it is a 5 TB USB 2.5 hard disk, powered from the USB port only.

Usually front panel USB ports can't provide so high amount of power which may be required for proper operation, so that could cause the issue.
A such 5 TB external hard disk may require much more power than a smaller, simpler USB hard disk drive, so it is possible that it is more sensitive to minor power fluctuations and that's why you only saw this issue (with same cables, same port used) only with this hard disk drive.

Now I'd not worry about this - but if you will see similar later, then it could be better to connect to rear USB 3.0 port, mounted directly on the motherboard as those ports may provide better, more stable power output for the hard disk drive.

> how do I limit the READ surface scan to a specific block so that I don't have to do it all in one go?
> Because I don't see an option for that anywhere in the configuration tab.
> All I see is "sequential" and "random" and that's it, nothing to limit it to a specific section.

This is possible only in Hard Disk Sentinel Professional version.
According the report, you have Standard version which has only limited testing functions/options.
The Professional version has additional options on the mentioned Configuration tab (which you can see before starting the test), including the option to Limit testing to specific data blocks where you can specify the first / last block to be tested.

I sent e-mail as answer to your report with option to upgrade to Pro version if you are interested.

[Luis]

I see, that might actually explain the difference as I've never had this problem with my 2TB drives.

Do you think it's okay to plug my 2TB drives into my front USB ports, though? Because I can understand 5TB maybe being a bit much, but would 2TB demand less? I've never really had an issue with those, so maybe they aren't as taxing. I'm just guessing here. I've never seen any other symptoms with those drives, unless it's more subtle than I'm guessing, although I think this kind of problem would eventually show itself if it's consistent (and bad) enough.

I purchased the PROFESSIONAL edition of HD Sentinel, thanks so much. I'm very grateful for everything you do here.

[DrFreeman]

I see, that might actually explain the difference as I've never had this problem with my 2TB drives.

Do you think it's okay to plug my 2TB drives into my front USB ports, though? Because I can understand 5TB maybe being a bit much, but would 2TB demand less? I've never really had an issue with those, so maybe they aren't as taxing. I'm just guessing here. I've never seen any other symptoms with those drives, unless it's more subtle than I'm guessing, although I think this kind of problem would eventually show itself if it's consistent (and bad) enough.

I purchased the PROFESSIONAL edition of HD Sentinel, thanks so much. I'm very grateful for everything you do here.

Capacity has nothing to do with the power demand of a drive. Ok, technically if it's the same family of drives the larger capacity ones might have more platters thus increasing the power demand at spinup. But still, corelating power demand with capacity is not really the way to go. You would have to look up info about the particular drive that is in the 2TB enclosure. I'd say always plug it into a higher power port just to eliminate the possibility of that causing any trouble.