Harmful HDDs

SAMSUNG HD204UI (smartctl info)

sudo smartctl --info /dev/sde
smartctl 5.41 2011-06-09 r3365 [x86_64-linux-3.8-trunk-amd64] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-11 by Bruce Allen, http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family:     SAMSUNG SpinPoint F4 EG (AFT)
Device Model:     SAMSUNG HD204UI
Serial Number:    S2H7J1BZ******
LU WWN Device Id: 5 0024e9 0041c2688
Firmware Version: 1AQ10001
User Capacity:    2,000,398,934,016 bytes [2.00 TB]
Sector Size:      512 bytes logical/physical
Device is:        In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is:   8
ATA Standard is:  ATA-8-ACS revision 6
Local Time is:    Sun Mar 17 19:49:51 2013 EST

==> WARNING: Using smartmontools or hdparm with this
drive may result in data loss due to a firmware bug.
****** THIS DRIVE MAY OR MAY NOT BE AFFECTED! ******
Buggy and fixed firmware report same version number!
See the following web pages for details:
http://www.samsung.com/global/business/hdd/faqView.do?b2b_bbs_msg_id=386
http://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/smartmontools/wiki/SamsungF4EGBadBlocks

Due to firmware bug those hard disks sometimes don't save the data as written hence silent corruption occurs.

See also