blk_update_request: critical medium error

For the first time yesterday I had these messages in my syslog

Quote:

Sep 17 08:38:26 green kernel: [ 102.679336] EXT4-fs (sdg1): warning: mounting fs with errors, running e2fsck is recommended Sep 17 08:39:16 green kernel: [ 152.216443] blk_update_request: critical medium error, dev sdg, sector 1279266832 Sep 17 08:39:19 green kernel: [ 155.492690] blk_update_request: critical medium error, dev sdg, sector 1279266840

This went on for the next 12 hours reporting problems with various sectors.

Also see these

Quote:

Sep 17 09:28:38 green kernel: [ 3114.295660] blk_update_request: critical medium error, dev sdg, sector 1233196480 Sep 17 09:28:38 green kernel: [ 3114.295678] EXT4-fs warning (device sdg1): htree_dirblock_to_tree:959: inode #38536708: lblock 0: comm rsync: error -5 reading directory block

Finally ended with this set of messages

Quote:

Sep 17 21:15:31 green kernel: [45528.266340] blk_update_request: critical medium error, dev sdg, sector 1279266912 Sep 17 21:15:31 green kernel: [45528.266358] EXT4-fs error (device sdg1): __ext4_get_inode_loc:4110: inode #39980743: block 159908108: comm rsync: unable to read itable block Sep 17 21:15:39 green kernel: [45536.397583] blk_update_request: critical medium error, dev sdg, sector 1279266560 Sep 17 21:15:39 green kernel: [45536.397601] EXT4-fs error (device sdg1): __ext4_get_inode_loc:4110: inode #39980034: block 159908064: comm rsync: unable to read itable block

The disk then burst into life and started doing what it was supposed to do - rsync and encryption as the first stage of backing up to the cloud.

The disk is a WD 1TB Green SATA 6Gb/s 64MB 3.5" Hard Drive more than 5 years old. Though could be older.

I'm currently copying the contents to another external hard drive. No error messages being reported in syslog.

Once I've secured and validated the data and no errors have been reported should I do

1. e2fsck
2. and maybe smartctl

Would it be sensible to cut my losses NOW and replace the hard drive.

Alex