SMART Hard Drive monitoring

From LinuxNewbie

Excerpts from: http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6983

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To begin, give the command smartctl -a /dev/hda, using the correct path to your disk, as root. If SMART is not enabled on the disk, you first must enable it with the -s on option. You then see output similar to the output shown in Listings 1-5.

Listing 1 lists model/firmware information about the disk-this one is an IBM/Hitachi GXP-180 example. Smartmontools has a database of disk types. If your disk is in the database, it may be able to interpret the raw Attribute values correctly.

Listing 1: Output of smartctl -i /dev/hda

Device Model:     IC35L120AVV207-0
Serial Number:    VNVD02G4G3R72G
Firmware Version: V24OA63A
Device is:        In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is:   6
ATA Standard is:  ATA/ATAPI-6 T13 1410D revision 3a
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled

Listing 2 shows the results of the health status inquiry. This is the one-line Executive Summary Report of disk health; the disk shown here has passed. If your disk health status is FAILING, back up your data immediately. The remainder of this section of the output provides information about the disk's capabilities and the estimated time to perform short and long disk self-tests.


Listing 2: Output of smartctl -Hc /dev/hda

SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED
General SMART Values:
Off-line data collection status: (0x82) Offline data collection activity
                                        was completed without error.
                                        Auto Off-line Data Collection:
Enabled.
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 off-line
data collection:                 (2855) seconds.
Offline data collection
capabilities:                    (0x1b) SMART execute Offline immediate.
                                        Automatic timer ON/OFF support.
                                        Suspend Offline collection upon new
                                        command.
                                        Offline surface scan supported.
                                        Self-test supported.
                                        No Conveyance Self-test supported.
                                        No 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:        (   1) minutes.
Extended self-test routine
recommended polling time:        (  48) minutes.

Listing 3 is a log of the disk errors. This particular disk has been error-free, and the log is empty. Typically, one should worry only if disk errors start to appear in large numbers. An occasional transient error that does not recur usually is benign. The smartmontools Web page has a number of examples of smartctl -a output showing some illustrative error log entries. They are timestamped with the disk's power-on lifetime in hours when the error occurred, and the individual ATA commands leading up to the error are timestamped with the time in milliseconds after the disk was powered on. This shows whether the errors are recent or old.

Listing 3: Output of smartctl -l error /dev/hda

SMART Error Log Version: 1
No Errors Logged

You can run smartctl -t short /dev/hda and smartctl -t long /dev/hda for the short and long self test. These are not supposed to corrupt data and can run on mounted filesystems without problems.

The entries in Listing 4 all are self-tests that completed without errors; the LifeTime column shows the power-on age of the disk when the self-test was run. If a self-test finds an error, the Logical Block Address (LBA) shows where the error occurred on the disk. The Remaining column shows the percentage of the self-test remaining when the error was found. If you suspect that something is wrong with a disk, I strongly recommend running a long self-test to look for problems.

Listing 4: Output of smartctl -l selftest /dev/hda

SMART Self-test log, version number 1
Num  Test_Description    Status       Remaining  LifeTime(hours)
LBA_of_first_error
# 1  Extended off-line   Completed          00%      3525         -
# 2  Extended off-line   Completed          00%      3357         -
# 3  Short off-line      Completed          00%      3059         -

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