So, you're nervous about that $59 hard drive that seemed such a bargain at the time? 
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 it is (for my /dev/sde):
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 (for /dev/sde):
If there is still reason for worry, and a couple of hours to do something else while the long test runs, then:
5.
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.
Now you can relax!
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/sde
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.
3. Do the short test in offline mode:
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/sde 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 -
If there is still reason for worry, and a couple of hours to do something else while the long test runs, then:
5.
Code:
sudo smartctl -t long /dev/sda
Read all the capabilities of smartmontools with
Code:
man smartctl
Now you can relax!
...and > 
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