[smartmontools-support] Sandisk SSD smart checksum error

[Aurelien Dellieux]

Hello,

i try to understand what is happening on a SanDisk SSD.
it is in an Asus ROG G752VW.
please find the log file attached.

i manage three identical laptops.
on two of them, i don't have the smart checksum error.

i don't know what to do with the one producing the error.
is the disk really faulty ?

i would be very grateful if someone can shed some light on this.

thanks in advance

Aurélien

[Dan Lukes]

Post by Aurelien Dellieux
i try to understand what is happening on a SanDisk SSD.
please find the log file attached.
i manage three identical laptops.
on two of them, i don't have the smart checksum error.

Well, only vendor can provide authoritative answer to you. But I guess
it's rather marginal bug. It seems the ATA Error Log data structure on
disk is not initialized correctly during manufacturing process.

There's just one record in the log, while index claim there are five (or
so) valid records. Thus even uninitialized portions of log are
interpreted as valid record - and it fire errors. Issue may (but may
not) disappear when another error record become written into the log.
Issue will disappear (I'm almost sure) once log become full (so just
send enough number of unknown commands to disk if you wish to 'correct'
the issue).

Post by Aurelien Dellieux
i don't know what to do with the one producing the error.
is the disk really faulty ?

In general, this bug disclose that vendor doesn't take the quality
seriously enough. But this particular bug is rather marginal issue and
can be safely ignored.

But remember - only vendor can provide authoritative answer to you. I'm
just guessing.

Dan

[Christian Franke]

Post by Aurelien Dellieux
i try to understand what is happening on a SanDisk SSD.
it is in an Asus ROG G752VW.
please find the log file attached.
i manage three identical laptops.
on two of them, i don't have the smart checksum error.

Do all three use same (which?) version of SATA driver?
Do all three use same firmware version of SSD?

Post by Aurelien Dellieux
i don't know what to do with the one producing the error.
is the disk really faulty ?

Probably not. A SMART checksum error does not imply errors in actual
written data.

Post by Aurelien Dellieux
smartctl 6.5 2016-05-07 r4318 [x86_64-w64-mingw32-win10] (sf-6.5-1)
...
Warning! SMART ATA Error Log Structure error: invalid SMART checksum.
SMART Error Log Version: 1
Warning: ATA error count 65535 inconsistent with error log pointer 3
ATA Error Count: 65535 (device log contains only the most recent five
errors)
...
Error 65535 occurred at disk power-on lifetime: 65535 hours (2730 days
+ 15 hours)
...
ER ST SC SN CL CH DH
-- -- -- -- -- -- --
ff ff ff ff ff ff ff

The above output suggests that a block of 0xff bytes is returned for the
Error Log structure. This may be a problem with the drive firmware or
the pass-through functionality of SATA driver.

Please provide outputs of:
smartctl -r ioctl,2 -i -l error ...
and
smartctl -x ...
as attachments.

If possible, also try whether the problem persists if smartctl is run
from some Live System
(https://www.smartmontools.org/wiki/LiveCDs).

Thanks,
Christian

[Aurelien Dellieux]

Hi Christian,

thanks for answering.
Please find a zip file attached.
It contains the -x output from the 3 laptops, and the ioctl output you
asked for.

I installed the Sandisk dashboard application, but it doesn't detect any
error (did a short smart test with their tool), and it does not detect any
firmware update either.

As i can see through the smartctl output, the 3 SSD drives have the same
firmware version.
The 3 laptops were bought at the same time, and were sold with Windows 10
Home pre-installed.

I will try a LiveCD as soon as possible, maybe in two weeks, as these
laptops are not mine.

thanks again for your help
Aurélien

Post by Christian Franke

Post by Aurelien Dellieux
i try to understand what is happening on a SanDisk SSD.
it is in an Asus ROG G752VW.
please find the log file attached.
i manage three identical laptops.
on two of them, i don't have the smart checksum error.

Do all three use same (which?) version of SATA driver?
Do all three use same firmware version of SSD?

Post by Aurelien Dellieux
i don't know what to do with the one producing the error.
is the disk really faulty ?

Probably not. A SMART checksum error does not imply errors in actual
written data.
smartctl 6.5 2016-05-07 r4318 [x86_64-w64-mingw32-win10] (sf-6.5-1)

Post by Aurelien Dellieux
...
Warning! SMART ATA Error Log Structure error: invalid SMART checksum.
SMART Error Log Version: 1
Warning: ATA error count 65535 inconsistent with error log pointer 3
ATA Error Count: 65535 (device log contains only the most recent five
errors)
...
Error 65535 occurred at disk power-on lifetime: 65535 hours (2730 days +
15 hours)
...
ER ST SC SN CL CH DH
-- -- -- -- -- -- --
ff ff ff ff ff ff ff

The above output suggests that a block of 0xff bytes is returned for the
Error Log structure. This may be a problem with the drive firmware or the
pass-through functionality of SATA driver.
smartctl -r ioctl,2 -i -l error ...
and
smartctl -x ...
as attachments.
If possible, also try whether the problem persists if smartctl is run from
some Live System
(https://www.smartmontools.org/wiki/LiveCDs).
Thanks,
Christian