[smartmontools-support] Unusual degree of variation in "Extended self-test routine recommended polling time"?

[James Masterson]

Hello—

I recently received a batch of 6 brand new HGST He8 drives and when running
an initial long self-test on them, I noticed that the extended self-test
routine recommended polling time exhibit a very large degree of
variability.

for f in /dev/sd[u-z]; do sudo smartctl -i $f | grep "Model"; done
Device Model:     HGST HUH728080ALN600
Device Model:     HGST HUH728080ALN600
Device Model:     HGST HUH728080ALN600
Device Model:     HGST HUH728080ALN600
Device Model:     HGST HUH728080ALN600
Device Model:     HGST HUH728080ALN600

for f in /dev/sd[u-z]; do sudo smartctl -a $f | grep -A1 "Extended
self-test"; done
Extended self-test routine
recommended polling time:    (1367) minutes.
Extended self-test routine
recommended polling time:    (1217) minutes.
Extended self-test routine
recommended polling time:    (1242) minutes.
Extended self-test routine
recommended polling time:    (1133) minutes.
Extended self-test routine
recommended polling time:    (1167) minutes.
Extended self-test routine
recommended polling time:    (1083) minutes.


In the past, I've seen small (1 - 5 minute) variations in other brands'
disks' reported self-test polling durations, but never anything like this.
What could account for such a massive variability? Has anyone else seen
something like this?

Thank you,
James
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://listi.jpberlin.de/pipermail/smartmontools-support/attachments/20170804/d578b038/attachment.html>