This is a reconstitution and update of the original 24 August 2008 post: http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...opic=3097029.0
So, you're nervous about that $59 bargain hard drive?
Especially after your cat/dog/wife/husband/little sister knocked it off the table before you got it installed?
Modern hard disk drives incorporate Self-Monitoring Analysis and Recording Technology, aka SMART. More about that is here. Basically they have a degree of self-test capability that the user can access to help determine the health and life expectancy of a hard disk drive.
The tool I use is smartmontools. There are others -- many others. "Bonnie++" is one, and a whole suite of hard drive diagnostic tools is available on the Ultimate Boot CD as described here. However if you're simply in a hurry to discover whether your hard drive is likely to crash tomorrow, or not, here's the quick look:
1. Open a Konsole window and
Assuming the hard disk drive of interest is /dev/sda we'll do the following examination:
2. Verify the manufacturer, model, and SMART capability, and look at the current state of health (as last recorded):
Here is the output:
3. Do the short test in offline mode:
This takes a few minutes, depending on the drive model.
4. Later (by however many minutes, at least) check the self test log to see the test results:
Here it says:
5. If there is still reason for worry, and a couple of hours to do something else while the long test runs, then:
After the time is completed, review the long test results with the same command as #4 above.
Read all the capabilities of smartmontools with
and check this great article for more guidance on how to use it.
And finally, other things to do with smartmontools are here.
Now you can relax!
So, you're nervous about that $59 bargain hard drive?
Especially after your cat/dog/wife/husband/little sister knocked it off the table before you got it installed?
Modern hard disk drives incorporate Self-Monitoring Analysis and Recording Technology, aka SMART. More about that is here. Basically they have a degree of self-test capability that the user can access to help determine the health and life expectancy of a hard disk drive.
The tool I use is smartmontools. There are others -- many others. "Bonnie++" is one, and a whole suite of hard drive diagnostic tools is available on the Ultimate Boot CD as described here. However if you're simply in a hurry to discover whether your hard drive is likely to crash tomorrow, or not, here's the quick look:
1. Open a Konsole window and
Code:
sudo apt-get install smartmontools
2. Verify the manufacturer, model, and SMART capability, and look at the current state of health (as last recorded):
Code:
sudo smartctl -ia /dev/sda
Code:
dibl@ibex:~$ sudo smartctl -ia /dev/sda
smartctl version 5.38 [x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu] Copyright (C) 2002-8 Bruce Allen
Home page is [url]http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/[/url]
=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family: Maxtor DiamondMax 10 family (ATA/133 and SATA/150)
Device Model: Maxtor 6L200P0
Serial Number: L42WA14G
Firmware Version: BAH41G10
User Capacity: 203,928,109,056 bytes
Device is: In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is: 7
ATA Standard is: ATA/ATAPI-7 T13 1532D revision 0
Local Time is: Sun Aug 24 11:41:52 2008 EDT
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled
=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED
General SMART Values:
Offline data collection status: (0x02) Offline data collection activity
was completed without error.
Auto Offline Data Collection: Disabled.
Self-test execution status: ( 0) The previous self-test routine completed
without error or no self-test has ever
been run.
Total time to complete Offline
data collection: (1622) seconds.
Offline data collection
capabilities: (0x5b) SMART execute Offline immediate.
Auto Offline data collection on/off support.
Suspend Offline collection upon new
command.
Offline surface scan supported.
Self-test supported.
No Conveyance Self-test supported.
Selective Self-test supported.
SMART capabilities: (0x0003) Saves SMART data before entering
power-saving mode.
Supports SMART auto save timer.
Error logging capability: (0x01) Error logging supported.
General Purpose Logging supported.
Short self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 2) minutes.
Extended self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 82) minutes.
SCT capabilities: (0x0021) SCT Status supported.
SCT Data Table supported.
SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0027 206 204 063 Pre-fail Always - 13557
4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0032 253 253 000 Old_age Always - 619
5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 253 253 063 Pre-fail Always - 0
6 Read_Channel_Margin 0x0001 253 253 100 Pre-fail Offline - 0
7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x000a 253 252 000 Old_age Always - 0
8 Seek_Time_Performance 0x0027 243 237 187 Pre-fail Always - 48854
9 Power_On_Minutes 0x0032 223 223 000 Old_age Always - 740h+07m
10 Spin_Retry_Count 0x002b 253 252 157 Pre-fail Always - 0
11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x002b 253 252 223 Pre-fail Always - 0
12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 252 252 000 Old_age Always - 782
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032 253 253 000 Old_age Always - 0
193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0032 253 253 000 Old_age Always - 0
194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0032 038 253 000 Old_age Always - 43
195 Hardware_ECC_Recovered 0x000a 253 252 000 Old_age Always - 2784
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0008 253 253 000 Old_age Offline - 0
197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0008 253 253 000 Old_age Offline - 0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x0008 253 253 000 Old_age Offline - 0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x0008 199 199 000 Old_age Offline - 0
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate 0x000a 253 252 000 Old_age Always - 0
201 Soft_Read_Error_Rate 0x000a 253 252 000 Old_age Always - 12
202 TA_Increase_Count 0x000a 253 252 000 Old_age Always - 0
203 Run_Out_Cancel 0x000b 253 252 180 Pre-fail Always - 0
204 Shock_Count_Write_Opern 0x000a 253 252 000 Old_age Always - 0
205 Shock_Rate_Write_Opern 0x000a 253 252 000 Old_age Always - 0
207 Spin_High_Current 0x002a 253 252 000 Old_age Always - 0
208 Spin_Buzz 0x002a 253 252 000 Old_age Always - 0
209 Offline_Seek_Performnce 0x0024 240 240 000 Old_age Offline - 158
210 Unknown_Attribute 0x0032 253 252 000 Old_age Always - 0
211 Unknown_Attribute 0x0032 253 252 000 Old_age Always - 0
212 Unknown_Attribute 0x0032 253 252 000 Old_age Always - 0
SMART Error Log Version: 1
No Errors Logged
SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
Num Test_Description Status Remaining LifeTime(hours) LBA_of_first_error
# 1 Short offline Completed without error 00% 7486 -
SMART Selective self-test log data structure revision number 1
SPAN MIN_LBA MAX_LBA CURRENT_TEST_STATUS
1 0 0 Not_testing
2 0 0 Not_testing
3 0 0 Not_testing
4 0 0 Not_testing
5 0 0 Not_testing
Selective self-test flags (0x0):
After scanning selected spans, do NOT read-scan remainder of disk.
If Selective self-test is pending on power-up, resume after 0 minute delay.
Code:
sudo smartctl -t short /dev/sda
4. Later (by however many minutes, at least) check the self test log to see the test results:
Code:
sudo smartctl -l selftest /dev/sda
Code:
dibl@ibex:~$ sudo smartctl -l selftest /dev/sda smartctl version 5.38 [x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu] Copyright (C) 2002-8 Bruce Allen Home page is [url]http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/[/url] === START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION === SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1 Num Test_Description Status Remaining LifeTime(hours) LBA_of_first_error # 1 Short offline Completed without error 00% 10570 - # 2 Short offline Completed without error 00% 7486 -
5. If there is still reason for worry, and a couple of hours to do something else while the long test runs, then:
Code:
sudo smartctl -t long /dev/sda
Read all the capabilities of smartmontools with
Code:
man smartctl
And finally, other things to do with smartmontools are here.
Now you can relax!
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