DC S3500 has extremely high SMART "Program Fail (Chip)" ID 175. Is this normal or failing?

[CGile]

I have a 120GB DC S3500 SSD as the system disk in an X-99 based server running Windows Server 2012R2. The disk is directly connected to the motherboard, no RAID. I have not noticed any problems, but the SMART attribute for ID 175 "Program Fail (Chip)" is 1.7E10 and increasing rapidly. Attribute 171 "Program Fail Count" is zero (says this is "unknown" below but GUI of GMSmartCtrl has the label). SSD is less than 1 year old and has 900 hrs uptime. Please can someone let me know if this is indicative of an impending failure and needs to be replaced or not? Full details below

thanks very much

CMG

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

smartctl 5.43 2012-06-30 r3573 [i686-w64-mingw32-2012(64)] (sf-5.43-1)

Copyright (C) 2002-12 by Bruce Allen, http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===

Device Model: INTEL SSDSC2BB120G4

Serial Number: BTWL3363025U120LGN

LU WWN Device Id: 5 5cd2e4 04b48b0c6

Firmware Version: D2010355

User Capacity: 120,034,123,776 bytes [120 GB]

Sector Size: 512 bytes logical/physical

Device is: Not in smartctl database [for details use: -P showall]

ATA Version is: 8

ATA Standard is: ATA-8-ACS revision 4

Local Time is: Wed Mar 25 20:53:13 2015 GMTST

SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.

SMART support is: Enabled

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===

SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED

General SMART Values:

Offline data collection status: (0x02) Offline data collection activity

was completed without error.

Auto Offline Data Collection: Disabled.

Self-test execution status: ( 0) The previous self-test routine completed

without error or no self-test has ever

been run.

Total time to complete Offline

data collection: ( 18) seconds.

Offline data collection

capabilities: (0x79) SMART execute Offline immediate.

No Auto Offline data collection support.

Suspend Offline collection upon new

command.

Offline surface scan supported.

Self-test supported.

Conveyance Self-test supported.

Selective Self-test supported.

SMART capabilities: (0x0003) Saves SMART data before entering

power-saving mode.

Supports SMART auto save timer.

Error logging capability: (0x01) Error logging supported.

General Purpose Logging supported.

Short self-test routine

recommended polling time: ( 1) minutes.

Extended self-test routine

recommended polling time: ( 2) minutes.

Conveyance self-test routine

recommended polling time: ( 2) minutes.

SCT capabilities: (0x003d) SCT Status supported.

SCT Error Recovery Control supported.

SCT Feature Control supported.

SCT Data Table supported.

SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 1

Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:

ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE

5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0032 098 098 000 Old_age Always - 0

9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 907

12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 28

170 Unknown_Attribute 0x0033 100 100 010 Pre-fail Always - 0

171 Unknown_Attribute 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0

172 Unknown_Attribute 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0

174 Unknown_Attribute 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 11

175 Program_Fail_Count_Chip 0x0033 100 100 010 Pre-fail Always - 17390502538

183 Runtime_Bad_Block 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0

184 End-to-End_Error 0x0033 100 100 090 Pre-fail Always - 0

187 Reported_Uncorrect 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0

190 Airflow_Temperature_Cel 0x0022 079 073 000 Old_age Always - 21 (Min/Max 13/27)

192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 11

194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 21

197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0

199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x003e 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0

225 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 17449

226 Load-in_Time 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0

227 Torq-amp_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 97

228 Power-off_Retract_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 3214

232 Available_Reservd_Space 0x0033 100 100 010 Pre-fail Always - 0

233 Media_Wearout_Indicator 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0

234 Unknown_Attribute 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0

241 Total_LBAs_Written 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 17449

242 Total_LBAs_Read 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 18778

SMART Error Log Version: 1

No Errors Logged

SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1

Num Test_Description Status Remaining LifeTime(hours) LBA_of_first_error

# 1 Extended offline Completed without error 00% 885 -

# 2 Short offline Completed without error 00% 885 -

SMART Selective self-test log data structure revision number 1

SPAN MIN_LBA MAX_LBA CURRENT_TEST_STATUS

1 0 0 Not_testing

2 0 0 Not_testing

3 0 0 Not_testing

4 0 0 Not_testing

5 0 0 Not_testing

Selective self-test flags (0x0):

After scanning selected spans, do NOT read-scan remainder of disk.

If Selective self-test is pending on power-up, resume after

[jbenavides · Accepted solution]

Hello CMG,

The drive seems to be working correctly, the confusion is due to a reporting issue in the tool you are using to monitor the SMART counters.

According to the http://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents/product-specifications/ssd-dc-s3500-spec... Intel® Solid-State Drive DC S3500 Series Specifications, in page 22, the SMART counter 175 (Hexadecimal AF) presents the test results for Power-Loss Protection Failure. It has a high number due to the nature of the test and the information contained in the RAW value:

Bytes 0-1: Last test result as microseconds to discharge cap.

Bytes 2-3: Minutes since last test.

Bytes 4-5: Lifetime number of tests.

Normalized value: set to 1 on test failure or 11 if the capacitor has been tested in an excessive temperature condition, otherwise 100.

In the output you provided, it seems that the Normalized Value is "100", which indicates that the drive is "OK".

The smartctl version you are using does not appear to present the information from the DC S3500 correctly, as confirmed when you compare to the specifications document linked above.

Intel® has a proprietary monitoring and management tool for Data Center SSD's, we recommend you to use this tool to monitor SMART sensor information from the drive.

The application and User Guide can be downloaded in the following location:

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/23931/Intel-Solid-State-Drive-Data-Center-Tool Intel® Solid-State Drive Data Center Tool, version 2.2.1

[CGile]

Ah, thank you very much for the rapid and comprehensive response Jonathan.

I'm glad to find my SSD healthy. I chose this model as I read about the superior protection for power loss. This was tested the other day when a workman cut through a power cable!

[jbenavides]

Hello CMG,

We are glad to be of assistance, and we appreciate your confidence in our products. Feel free to contact us if you have any further inquiries.

[CFran6]

Hi CMG,

The smartctl version you are using is too old:

----

smartctl 5.43 2012-06-30 r3573 [i686-w64-mingw32-2012(64)] (sf-5.43-1)

...

Device Model: INTEL SSDSC2BB120G4

...

Device is: Not in smartctl database ...

----

The DC S3500 series was added to drive database in http://www.smartmontools.org/changeset/3848 r3848. With this entry, smartctl prints the name and value of attribute 173 properly.

Please update http://sourceforge.net/projects/smartmontools/files/smartmontools/6.3/ update the smartmontools package. If you want to keep the old version for some reason, you could also http://www.smartmontools.org/wiki/Download# Updatethedrivedatabase update the drive database separately.

Try also Device Statistics:

smartctl -l devstat ...

or

smartctl -x ...

Device Statistics is, unlike SMART Attributes, vendor and device independent. Note that Device Statistics is not yet supported by Intel SSD Toolbox.

Regards,

Christian Franke

smartmontools.org