Originally Posted By: artie505
Does OS X pop up an I/O error when a spare block is used?

If it did there would be absolutely no point in remapping and address to a spare data block. The remapping feature is entirely within the drive firmware and theoretically invisible to the operating system — or at least it should be.

FWIW back in the day I have seen 10 GB hard drives with up to 100 spare data blocks. But in those days it was assumed that every driver shipped with at least one or two bad data blocks.

Last edited by joemikeb; 04/17/14 06:02 PM.


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