Sergey Kubushyn wrote:
In sci.electronics.repair Arno wrote:
In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage Sergey Kubushyn
wrote:
In sci.electronics.repair Arno wrote:
In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage Sergey Kubushyn
wrote: [...]
That suicide also can happen when some old file that was not
accessed for ages is read. That attempt triggers the suicide
chain.

Yes, that makes sense. However you should do surface scans on
RAIDed disks regularly, e.g. by long SMART selftests. This will
catch weak sectors early and other degradation as well.

I know but I simply didn't think all 3 drives can fail... I
thought I have enough redundancy because I put not 2 but 3 drives
in that RAID1... And I did have something like a test with
regular weekly full backup that reads all the files (not the
entire disk media but at least all the files on it) and that was
that backup that triggered disk suicide.

Anyway lesson learned and I'm taking additional measures now. It
was not a very good experience loosing some of my work...

Yes, I can imagine. I have my critical stuff also on a 3 way RAID1,
but with long SMART selftests every 2 weeks and 3 different drives,
two from WD and one from Samsung. One additional advantage of the
long SMART selftest is that with smartd you will get a warning
email on every failing test, i.e. one every two weeks. For
additional warning you can also run a daily short test, e.g..

No matter what you do you can not prevent an occasional disaster
One MUST remember that "backup" in not a noun but a verb in
imperative.

Indeed.

BTW, I took a look at brand new WDC WD5000YS-01MPB1 drives, right
out of the sealed bags with silica gel and all 4 of those had
their contacts already oxidized with a lot of black stuff. That
makes me very suspicious that conspiracy theory might be not all
that crazy--that oxidation seems to be pre-applied by the
manufacturer.

Urgh. These bags are airtight. No way the problem happened on your
side then. My two weeks old WD5000AADS-00S9B0 looks fine on the top
of the PCB. I think I will have a look underneath later.

Those 4 were fine on the top of PCB. Black stuff was underneath, on
those pads contacting with springy heads pins.

Mine is fine on both sides. However there is a quite a bit of contact
area that looks and feels silver-plated to me, most notably areound
the screws and on the bottom the contacts to the head assembly.

That makes me wonder why are they silver-plated. It is definitely not
the best material longevitywise, especially for such low-level signals.

Likely just some fool's reaction to the price of gold.

It makes me even more suspicious and adds to the conspiracy theory.

Nope.