[Discuss] ATA Access Errors For Spinning Disk

[jbk at kjkelra.com (jbk)]

On 12/17/23 13:44, Dan Ritter wrote:
> jbk wrote:
>> I periodically get access errors for a specific spinning disk that I have
>> done these things to diagnose:
>> Changed Sata Cable
>> Switched Sata bus on MB
>> Run E2fsck on the 3 formatted ext4 partitions w/ no errors found
>> Run smartctl -a: all results within norms
>> Run smartctl -t short: No errors found
>>
>> Disk operation age is about 7.5 years with around a couple hundred starts.
>> It has been in continuous operation for over 8 years except during
>> vacations. On occasion the disk partitions will become unmounted and a mount
>> -a will remount the partitions as a different device from lets say sda to
>> sdd. I've not lost any data and I do regular backups to another device
>> that's rotated out of system.
>>
>> I seem to have always had these errors present on this MB that is maybe 4 or
>> 5 years in operation. Any thoughts on the cause of this issue? Do others see
>> this behavior on occasion on systems they manage?
>>
>> On this same system my Rocky OS on an SSD is showing no issues at all. Same
>> operation age as the spinner.
> I'm glad you've got good backups. It's going to die at an
> inconvenient time for you. That's not specific; that's just what
> computers do.
>
> Next time the errors occur, dig them out of the log and show
> them to us verbatim, please.
>
> -dsr-

DSR
Here is the device mount:

Dec 17 06:40:28 bagend kernel: ata6: SATA link up 6.0 Gbps 
(SStatus 133 SControl 300)
Dec 17 06:40:28 bagend kernel: ata6.00: ATA-8: 
ST320DM000-1BD14C, KC48, max UDMA/133
Dec 17 06:40:28 bagend kernel: scsi 6:0:0:0: Direct-Access 
ATA????? ST320DM000-1BD14 KC48 PQ: 0 ANSI: 5

Then errors which continue for ten more lines or so in the log:

Dec 17 06:40:37 bagend kernel: ata6: SATA link up 6.0 Gbps 
(SStatus 133 SControl 300)
Dec 17 06:40:38 bagend kernel: ata6.00: cmd 
60/70:00:00:08:40/00:00:01:00:00/40 tag 0 ncq dma 57344 
in#012???????? res 40/00:ff:00:00:00/00:00:00:00:00/40 Emask 
0x50 (ATA bus error)
Dec 17 06:40:38 bagend kernel: ata6.00: cmd 
60/28:08:00:08:80/00:00:01:00:00/40 tag 1 ncq dma 20480 
in#012???????? res 40/00:ff:00:00:00/00:00:00:00:00/40 Emask 
0x50 (ATA bus error)
Dec 17 06:40:38 bagend kernel: ata6.00: cmd 
60/08:10:30:08:80/00:00:01:00:00/40 tag 2 ncq dma 4096 
in#012???????? res 40/00:ff:00:00:00/00:00:00:00:00/40 Emask 
0x50 (ATA bus error)

Rich,
I wondered about disk sleep cycle but these errors are 
almost immediate during boot up.

I've had disks die on me w/o warning before most likely disk 
controller failure rather than the disk itself.

-- 
Jim KR