Now, I don't get it… The spare block scheme sounds like it does little more than save a few CPU cycles by swapping out bad blocks without generating a pop-up while it masks a possible imminently fatal problem if the bad blocks are newly developed, rather than "factory issue".
Granted that the scheme was concocted in the early days of HDDs when quality may have been lower than it is today, not to mention years before the Google report, but newly developed bad blocks must always have been recognized as a red flag, and hundreds of spare blocks sounds like an invitation to disaster.
Sounds pretty durn counterintuitive, not to mention counterproductive!
What am I missing? What benefit does the spare block scheme provide that outweighs the importance of advising users about bad blocks?
The remapping feature is entirely within the drive firmware and theoretically invisible to the operating system — or at least it should be.
DiskWarrior's daily hardware reports include
4/18/14 3:51:36 AM [0x0-0x15015].com.alsoft.diskwarriorstarter DiskWarriorDaemon: [Fri Apr 18 03:51:36 EDT 2014] : Spare blocks for ATA device 'HGST HTS725050A7E630', serial number 'TF0500WH1029ML', appear to still be available. (Total Available: 5) (Use Attempts: 0)so the remapping feature is visible in some fashion.
