How bad is a SMART Seek Error Rate?

Question

Since a few days ago I'm getting Seek Error Rate [07h] increase and decrease of Raw Data value. It is oscillating between 0 and 2. That HDD is 7 years old and has 29000 power on hours. There are no other errors, and SMART reports good health status. It is obvious that I will change this HDD, but I can not really do it right now. So I would like to know how serious is this problem (seek error rate) and if I could continue a little more with it... until I get the money to buy a new drive :)

Answer 1

I would like to know how serious is this problem (seek error rate)

Make sure you backup your disk regularly. Replacement is only recommended for mission critical systems:

Although this parameter is not considered critical by the most hardware vendors, degradation of this parameter may indicate electromechanical problems of the disk. Regular backup is recommended. If no other (critical) parameters report a problem, hardware replacement is recommended on mission critical systems only.

Answer 2

Raw SMART values are manufacturer-dependent and require care when trying to interpret them. The normalized value is fine, so there is nothing wrong with the disk.