Data loss with Samsung 204UI and Smartmontools

[Psychedelic84]

Hello,

I probably need help from a moderator here. I read an article in a german tech magazine, where they said that the new Samsung 204UI Ecogreen F4 HDD lose data on special circumstances. Link: http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/SMART-Tool-beschaedigt-Daten-auf-Samsung-Festplatte-1143120.html.

They said that the combination of writing data to the disk and reading SMART information with smartmontools leads reproducible to loss of data. There is more information on the developers webiste of smartmontools: http://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/smartmontools/wiki/SamsungF4EGBadBlocks.

My problem is that I ordered a DS411j and 2 of these drives two days ago and now I want to know how save it is to use them with this hardware. Does the DSM software use smartmontools?

Thank you for answering!

Psychedelic84

[cerhardt]

Hello,

this seems to be a serious issue for me as well... I've 18 (yet boxed) Samsung 204UI harddisks for 2*RS810+2*RX410 and I'm wondering if I should send them back. The described problem occurs only if the SATA-hostadapter is set to AHCI-mode und smartmontools are being used.

Please investigate if synology devices are affected by this problem.

Thank you,
Christian

[AxelS]

Ping on this to keep it relevant since 204UI is now certified but this issue may exist. Potentially serious issue if the Synology is AHCI and is issuing SMART commands while writing.

[Flane]

Hi,

I'm worried about the same problem - HD204UI with DS410.
So I started to look a little bit around and started to look if synology really used AHCI mode.

Logging on to the diskstation via ssh, there is no generic linux ahci driver ("find . -name *ahci*" doesn't return anything).
Looking at the start-up messages with dmesg I found that the controller uses the sata_mv kernel driver, and install lspci via optware confirms that the chipset is an "Marvell Technology Group Ltd. Device 7042 (rev 02)" (see code below)

Looking at the wiki from the linux kernel at [1] this chipset and driver combination supports NCQ but, this chipset doesn't work with the generic AHCI driver. Thus I would conclude that the drives are *NOT* running in AHCI mode. But that's just how I would interpret the data that i found - I don't guarantee anything nor am I really 100% sure. But in my opinion it looks not that bad and in my understanding there is a realistic chance that the diskstations are not affected by this problem.

BUT Synology should confirm this so that we are really safe! Please help us out!

Code: Select all

0001:02:00.0 SCSI storage controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. Device 7042 (rev 02)
        Subsystem: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. Device 11ab
        Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx-
        Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx-
        Latency: 0, Cache Line Size: 32 bytes
        Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 17
        Region 0: Memory at a0000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=1M]
        Region 2: I/O ports at 1000 [size=256]
        Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 2
                Flags: PMEClk- DSI- D1- D2- AuxCurrent=0mA PME(D0-,D1-,D2-,D3hot-,D3cold-)
                Status: D0 PME-Enable- DSel=0 DScale=0 PME-
        Capabilities: [50] Message Signalled Interrupts: Mask- 64bit+ Queue=0/0 Enable-
                Address: 0000000000000000  Data: 0000
        Capabilities: [60] Express (v1) Legacy Endpoint, MSI 00
                DevCap:        MaxPayload 256 bytes, PhantFunc 0, Latency L0s <256ns, L1 <1us
                        ExtTag- AttnBtn- AttnInd- PwrInd- RBE- FLReset-
                DevCtl:        Report errors: Correctable- Non-Fatal- Fatal- Unsupported-
                        RlxdOrd- ExtTag- PhantFunc- AuxPwr- NoSnoop-
                        MaxPayload 128 bytes, MaxReadReq 512 bytes
                DevSta:        CorrErr- UncorrErr- FatalErr- UnsuppReq- AuxPwr- TransPend-
                LnkCap:        Port #0, Speed 2.5GT/s, Width x4, ASPM L0s, Latency L0 <256ns, L1 unlimited
                        ClockPM- Suprise- LLActRep- BwNot-
                LnkCtl:        ASPM Disabled; RCB 128 bytes Disabled- Retrain- CommClk-
                        ExtSynch- ClockPM- AutWidDis- BWInt- AutBWInt-
                LnkSta:        Speed 2.5GT/s, Width x4, TrErr- Train- SlotClk+ DLActive- BWMgmt- ABWMgmt-
        Capabilities: [100] Advanced Error Reporting <?>
        Kernel driver in use: sata_mv


[1] https://ata.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/SATA_hardware_features

[r00tnix]

This is interesting, i did notice that the 204UI's are off the compatibility list now.

[Flane]

Synology replied on an email from me:

We are now investigating this problem and we will announce the result on Forum.

Besides, we assume this problem is not caused by AHCI mode.

Please kindly wait for the officially announcement regarding to this issue. Thanks.

[Psychedelic84]

They're on it: viewtopic.php?f=26&t=27905&start=90