[plug] HD S.M.A.R.T monitoring under Linux

[Chris Caston]

On Tue, 2003-07-22 at 02:14, Craig Ringer wrote:
> > http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/
> > 
> > Anyone tried these or others?
> 
> I've used this tool, and the older version built into most distros 
> ('smartctl' and 'smartd'). They work very well indeed, at least at 
> spotting failing Western Digital drives - *sigh*.
> 
> Seriously, the're pretty good. I've only really used them for confirming 
> the dying status of already suspect drives, but they can tell you a lot 
> about what's wrong and sometimes help you spot failing drives. Handy.
> 

Do you often have drives fail while they are still under warranty?

> There's no point talking to most disk manufacturers about the data 
> though. You'll get the endless litany 'download our drive tools 
> from....'. Yay. 

What about RA? I'm not sure how often I actually speak to the
manufacturer but I know what you mean if some hardware fails they expect
you to be testing it with Windows.

<rant> OK for those manufacturers who have drive tools 
> that DO something, but CERTAIN manufacturer's drive tools don't do much 
> of anything and fail to spot issues with a drive that has 480 bad 
> sectors. Problem repaired my ass - there were more bad sectors when the 
> tools run finished than when it started (as reported by SMART) and the 
> number kept on growing and eating data after the drive was 'repaired'. 
> </rant>

What is the IBM/ Hitatchi util like? 
> 
> Smartctl is immensely handy, and should be the familiar tool of anybody 
> working on machines without RAID.

Thanks for the reply.
> Craig Ringer
> 
> 

I can see some good applications for it including rigging it up with
Nagios for server monitoring and adding it to Knoppix (if it isn't
already) to diagnose desktops.

I recently had a customers HD crash on my while I was in the middle of
diagnosing their machine so now I check the S.M.A.R.T readings before I
do anything.

Once bitten twice as careful.

regards,

Chris