SMART Devices

Listing 3: SMART Capabilities

# smartctl -c /dev/sda
smartctl 7.2 2020-07-11 r5076 [x86_64-linux-5.4.0-42-generic] (CircleCI)
Copyright (C) 2002-20, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
General SMART Values:
Offline data collection status:  (0x80) Offline data collection activity
                                        was never started.
                                        Auto Offline 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 Offline 
data collection:                (49272) seconds.
Offline data collection
capabilities:                    (0x53) SMART execute Offline immediate.
                                        Auto Offline data collection on/off support.
                                        Suspend Offline collection upon new
                                        command.
                                        No 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:        (  30) minutes.
SCT capabilities:              (0x003d) SCT Status supported.
                                        SCT Error Recovery Control supported.
                                        SCT Feature Control supported.
                                        SCT Data Table supported.

Remember that most drives that are SMART capable have self-tests. In the -c output, notice that this drive is capable of both short (two-minute) and long (30-minute) tests.

Before running either the short or extended test, you should enable self-tests with the smartctlcommand in Listing 4.

Listing 4: Enabling Self-Tests

# smartctl -s on -o on -S on /dev/sda
smartctl 7.2 2020-07-11 r5076 [x86_64-linux-5.4.0-42-generic] (CircleCI)
Copyright (C) 2002-20, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

=== START OF ENABLE/DISABLE COMMANDS SECTION ===
SMART Enabled.
SMART Attribute Autosave Enabled.
SMART Automatic Offline Testing Enabled every four hours.

Normally, before running self-tests, the health of the device is checked first with the -H option (Listing 5). The result is a simple response: in this case, PASSED.