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How to check HDD state with smartmontool

SmartMon Tools is a tool of hard disk analysis. It allows to check the most critical physical characteristics. It's in two parts:

* The smartd daemon, which check, every 30 minutes, the settings by writing the result into

/var/log/messages.

* The smartctl command is a root command which allows to display all information

Connect you as root on your server. This is important that you carry out the connection directly as root. If you connect as a simple user and next you launch the "sudo" command, the installation will fail, smartctl won't run correctly.

As indicated at the begining of this guide, the use of smartctl command must be done with root rights. Let's have a look at the different characteristics of this command. The following commands are basic commands of smartctl:

smartctl -h /dev/sda

root@seedhost:~# smartctl -h
smartctl version 5.38 [i686-pc-linux-gnu] Copyright (C) 2002-8 Bruce Allen
Home page is http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/

Usage: smartctl [options] device

============================================ SHOW INFORMATION OPTIONS =====

-h, --help, --usage
Display this help and exit

-V, --version, --copyright, --license
Print license, copyright, and version information and exit

-i, --info
Show identity information for device

-a, --all
Show all SMART information for device

To check identity information for device use command:

smartctl -i /dev/sda

root@seedhost:~# smartctl -i /dev/sda
smartctl 5.41 2011-06-09 r3365 [i686-linux-3.2.13-grsec-xxxx-grs-ipv6-32] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-11 by Bruce Allen, http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Device Model:     ST31000524AS
Serial Number:    9VPELGZW
LU WWN Device Id: 5 000c50 03f6597ba
Firmware Version: JC4B
User Capacity:    1,000,204,886,016 bytes [1.00 TB]
Sector Size:      512 bytes logical/physical
Device is:        Not in smartctl database [for details use: -P showall]
ATA Version is:   8
ATA Standard is: ATA-8-ACS revision 4
Local Time is:    Sat May 26 00:09:15 2012 CEST
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled

The use of characteristic -a will display all the information that the tools will be able to collect:

smarctl -a /dev/sda

root@seedhost:~# smartctl -a /dev/sda
smartctl 5.41 2011-06-09 r3365 [i686-linux-3.2.13-grsec-xxxx-grs-ipv6-32] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-11 by Bruce Allen, http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Device Model:     ST31000524AS
Serial Number:    9VPELGZW
LU WWN Device Id: 5 000c50 03f6597ba
Firmware Version: JC4B
User Capacity:    1,000,204,886,016 bytes [1.00 TB]
Sector Size:      512 bytes logical/physical
Device is:        Not in smartctl database [for details use: -P showall]
ATA Version is:   8
ATA Standard is: ATA-8-ACS revision 4
Local Time is:    Sat May 26 00:11:30 2012 CEST
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: (0x82) Offline data collection activity
was completed without error.
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:                ( 600) seconds.
Offline data collection
capabilities:                    (0x7b) SMART execute Offline immediate.
Auto Offline data collection on/off support.
Suspend Offline collection upon new
command.
Offline surface scan supported.
Self-test supported.
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:        (   1) minutes.
Extended self-test routine
recommended polling time:        ( 171) minutes.
Conveyance self-test routine
recommended polling time:        (   2) minutes.
SCT capabilities:              (0x103f) SCT Status supported.
SCT Error Recovery Control supported.
SCT Feature Control supported.
SCT Data Table supported.

SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 10
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      UPDATED WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate     0x000f   117   099   006    Pre-fail Always       -       139732268
3 Spin_Up_Time            0x0003   100   100   000    Pre-fail Always       -       0
4 Start_Stop_Count        0x0032   100   100   020    Old_age   Always       -       13
5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0033   100   100   036    Pre-fail Always       -       119
7 Seek_Error_Rate         0x000f   074   060   030    Pre-fail Always       -       26142317
9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   097   097   000    Old_age   Always       -       2951
10 Spin_Retry_Count        0x0013   100   100   097    Pre-fail Always       -       0
12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0032   100   100   020    Old_age   Always       -       13
183 Runtime_Bad_Block       0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
184 End-to-End_Error        0x0032   100   100   099    Old_age   Always       -       0
187 Reported_Uncorrect      0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
188 Command_Timeout         0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
189 High_Fly_Writes         0x003a   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
190 Airflow_Temperature_Cel 0x0022   066   057   045    Old_age   Always       -       34 (Min/Max 31/40)
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0022   034   043   000    Old_age   Always       -       34 (0 10 0 0)
195 Hardware_ECC_Recovered 0x001a   040   028   000    Old_age   Always       -       139732268
197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0012   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable   0x0010   100   100   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    0x003e   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
240 Head_Flying_Hours       0x0000   100   253   000    Old_age   Offline      -       266949397318555
241 Total_LBAs_Written      0x0000   100   253   000    Old_age   Offline      -       283019514
242 Total_LBAs_Read         0x0000   100   253   000    Old_age   Offline      -       2530083691

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%        13         -
# 2 Short offline       Completed without error       00%         5         -
# 3 Short offline       Completed without error       00%         5         -
# 4 Short offline       Completed without error       00%         0         -

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.

Now we must see the interpretation of the information such as the uptime of the hard disk, the temperature and, for us the most important thing, the errors. For this, we essentially look at the last 2 columns: WHEN_FAILED and RAW_VALUE and the section shown below: SMART Error Log Version: 1 No Errors Logged. An example:

5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct? 0x0033 016 016 063 Pre-fail Always 119

Here, we can see that the sectors reallocation failed. We must check this part. If the indicated number eventually grows brutaly, keep necessary measures: just do the backup of your datas and contact the support.

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