= Using smartctl with Samsung F4 !EcoGreen drives may result in bad blocks =

'''WARNING: Do not use smartmontools with these drives! '''

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2010-11-24: Here are the details as reported to us by German c't magazine:

* Affected disk: SAMSUNG !SpinPoint F4 !EcoGreen 2TB

{{{Device Model: SAMSUNG HD204UI}}}[[BR]]
{{{Firmware Version: 1AQ10001}}}

* Problem: If the system writes to this disk and {{{smartctl -a}}} (5.40) is used at the same time, write errors are reported and bad blocks appear on the disk.

This was reported by a reader and could be reproduced in c't magazine lab on the following system:

Windows 7 x64 Ultimate[[BR]]
Core i3-560[[BR]]
Intel H55 Chipset[[BR]]
SATA-AHCI-Driver: Intel Rapid Storage Technology (RST) 9.6

* It could also be reproduced under Linux (Fedora 14) if AHCI is enabled and the following commands are run in parallel:
{{{
# badblocks -svw -b 4096 /dev/sdd 4000000
# smartctl -a /dev/sdd 
}}}

* It could not be reproduced if the Intel Chipset is set to IDE mode.

* It could not be reproduced on another System with an AMD Chipset even if AHCI and NCQ are enabled.
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