Drive OK after high Reallocated Sector Count

claykin wrote:
Windows cannot read SMART data when the disk is connected via USB. Requires a native SATA connection and proper motherboard BIOS support

I don't know if the Windows OS itself uses SMART data (on either internal or external drives). If it's reporting this drive as healthy, it probably doesn't.

Acronis Drive Monitor will read SMART data for drives connected with USB adapters - at least it does on the PCs I have. Seatools and Lifeguard also run. Firmware updates are probably a bigger issue, that seems to be hit or miss.

claykin wrote:
...You do NOT need to run Seatools to establish a Seagate RMA.

Totally true, and worth repeating. There is some mis-information on this topic on various threads here and other forums. Seagate recognizes that some people can't run Seatools for various reasons. The Seagate link in my earlier post has "self-service" codes you can use instead of Seatools.

Of course you run a risk if you return a good drive under RMA. But this one isn't good - it would fail at this point (~3000 reallocated sectors, and fails the drive's built-in self-test), but there really is no need to spend the time.