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
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
Core i3-560
Intel H55 Chipset
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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If you have additional info, please report it to the smartmontools-support mailing list.