Re: Seagate ST6000DM003-2CY186 "flapping". Disconnecting and reconnecting randomly.

From: Daniel Lysfjord <lysfjord.daniel_at_smokepit.net>
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 2026 16:43:23 UTC 
On 2026-08-12 16:12, John Gaskill wrote:
> IIRC, in the early days of so called SMART technology, it's purpose was 
> to save wear and tear on
> users and machines with limited intelligence or understanding of how 
> systems worked, by
> occasionally conducting self-tests of the drive and reporting to the 
> user if problems were coming
> up shortly. Unfortunately, it didn't always work, and reported lots of 
> false "imminent deaths."

It's a way to *report* data to userspace. Self-tests and other 
thingymabobs are configurable, yes. Never seen them enabled by default. 
Though, I have never used the manufacturers software packages for 
Windows, so.. YMMV?

> 
> MTBFs in those days were shorter than now, though still quite long in 
> general absolute terms.
> 
> However, like MS bloatware overloading RAM and drives, SMART technology 
> could be wrong
> in its assessments of the hardware is it supposed to safeguard.
> 
> As disk drives increased in capacity and got less expensive, marketing 
> wars erupted and SMART
> technology seemed to be a way to get consumers to upgrade.
> 
> What you perceive as "flapping", disconnecting and reconnecting 
> randomly may simply be
> the drive going through its self-test paces which would have to take 
> awhile for a 6TB drive.

His disk disconnects from the system. An online self-test will *never* 
(bar any extremely severe bugs in the firmware) pull the drive offline.

> 
> 
>      On Tuesday, August 11, 2026 at 09:20:53 AM PDT, Daniel Lysfjord 
> <lysfjord.daniel@smokepit.net> wrote:
> 
>  On 2026-08-11 16:46, John Gaskill wrote:
>> As long as I have disabled any SMART drive technology at the UEFI/BIOS
>> level on any
>> computer I have owned, there has never been a drive failure or 
>> problem.
>> 
>> I assume your drive SMART technology functions are also disabled?
> ----8<----snip---->8------
> 
> Why would I? It's part of the drives firmware, and none of my computers
> takes any actions based on those numbers.