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 smartctl command 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 .
Related content
-
SMART storage device monitoring
Most storage devices have SMART capability, but can it help you predict failure? We look at ways to take advantage of this built-in monitoring technology with the smartctl utility from the Linux smartmontools package. -
S.M.A.R.T., smartmontools, and drive monitoring
Modern drives use S.M.A.R.T. (self-monitoring, analysis, and reporting technology) to gather information and run self-tests. Smartmontools is a Linux tool for interacting with the S.M.A.R.T. features of drives. But is S.M.A.R.T. the best way to predict impending drive doom? -
Predicting Drive Doom
Modern drives use S.M.A.R.T. (self-monitoring, analysis, and reporting technology) to gather information and run self-tests. Smartmontools is a Linux tool for interacting with the S.M.A.R.T. features of drives. But is S.M.A.R.T. the best way to predict impending drive doom?
-
When I/O workloads don't perform
Every now and then, you find yourself in a situation where you expect better performance from your data storage drives. Either they once performed very well and one day just stopped, or they came straight out of the box underperforming. We explore a few of the reasons why this might happen. -
A closer look at hard drives
We continue our exploration of the world of hard drives – both solid state and spinning varieties.