How do I test if my Linux server SCSI / SATA hard disk going bad?
One of our regular sends us a question:
How can I test if my hard disk is going bad? I see few errors in /var/log/messages file.
I/O errors in /var/log/messages indicates that something is wrong with the hard disk and it may be failing.
Next thing is check hard disk for error using smartctl command, which is control and monitor utility for SMART disks.
smartctl controls the Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology (SMART) system built into many ATA-3 and later ATA, IDE and SCSI-3 hard drives. The purpose of SMART is to monitor the reliability of the hard drive and predict drive failures, and to carry out different types of drive self-tests.
smartctl is a command line utility designed to perform SMART tasks such as printing the SMART self-test and error logs, enabling and disabling SMART automatic testing, and initiating device self-tests.
Make sure S.M.A.R.T. support is enabled in the BIOS.
Next run following command to see if your hard disks support S.M.A.R.T technology:
# smartctl -i /dev/sdb
Now enable SMART:
# smartctl -s on -d ata /dev/sdb
Output:
smartctl version 5.33 [x86_64-redhat-linux-gnu] Copyright (C) 2002-4 Bruce Allen Home page is http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/ === START OF ENABLE/DISABLE COMMANDS SECTION === SMART Enabled.
Now run overall-health self-assessment test:
# smartctl -d ata -H /dev/sdb
Output:
smartctl version 5.33 [x86_64-redhat-linux-gnu] Copyright (C) 2002-4 Bruce Allen Home page is http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/ === START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION === SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED
You can read more data from hard disk by typing following command:
# smartctl -d ata -a /dev/sdb
Output:
smartctl version 5.33 [x86_64-redhat-linux-gnu] Copyright (C) 2002-4 Bruce Allen
Home page is http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/
=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Device Model: WDC WD2500YS-01SHB0
Serial Number: WD-WCANY1729333
Firmware Version: 20.06C03
User Capacity: 251,000,193,024 bytes
Device is: Not in smartctl database [for details use: -P showall]
ATA Version is: 7
ATA Standard is: Exact ATA specification draft version not indicated
Local Time is: Wed Jul 4 15:04:38 2007 CDT
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: (7800) 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: ( 2) minutes.
Extended self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 92) minutes.
Conveyance self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 6) minutes.
SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16
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 200 200 051 Pre-fail Always - 0
3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0003 190 187 021 Pre-fail Always - 5500
4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 24
5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 200 200 140 Pre-fail Always - 0
7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x000f 200 200 051 Pre-fail Always - 0
9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 092 092 000 Old_age Always - 6382
10 Spin_Retry_Count 0x0013 100 253 051 Pre-fail Always - 0
11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0013 100 253 051 Pre-fail Always - 0
12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 23
194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 127 096 000 Old_age Always - 23
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0
197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0012 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x0010 200 200 000 Old_age Offline - 0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x003e 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate 0x0009 200 200 051 Pre-fail Offline - 0
SMART Error Log Version: 1
No Errors Logged
SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
No self-tests have been logged. [To run self-tests, use: smartctl -t]
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.
A note about RAID controller
To look at ATA disks behind 3ware SCSI RAID controllers, use syntax such as:
# smartctl -a -d 3ware,2 /dev/sda
# smartctl -a -d 3ware,0 /dev/twe0
Extended self-test of drive
You need to begin an extended self-test of drive /dev/hdc. You can issue this command on a running system. The results can be seen in the self-test log visible with the ´-l selftest´ option after it has completed.
# smartctl -d ata -t long /dev/sdb
If any one of these test reports error, replace hard disk and restore data from backup.
See also
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Tags: ata ide, drive failures, error logs, hard disk, hard drive, hard drives, log messages, reporting technology, scsi_3, self test, self tests, smart disks, smart self, smart system, something is wrong
Don’t expect too much from SMART : Failure Trends in a Large Disk Drive Population http://www.usenix.org/events/fast07/tech/full_papers/pinheiro/pinheiro.pdf
We present data collected from detailed observations of a large disk drive population in a production Internet services deployment
… models based on SMART parameters alone are unlikely to be useful for predicting individual drive failures. …
Bruno,
Yes, no tool is perfect; admin must use on his/her experience while diagnosing a problem. I’m downloading and reading PDF.
Appreciate your post.
Really Thanks a lot for such usefull information. Thanks for sharing that.
Cheers..!!
The
badblocksutility, part of the e2fs suite of tools, is good way to test a drive. It is probably more through than the on-drive smart diagnostics, when run in write mode. The down side of write mode is that it destroys any existing data — although this can be an advantage if you wish to throughly remove all data from a drive.badblocksworks on non-smart capable drives as well.Badblocks has both “non-destructive” and “destructive” modes of testing (write vs read).
read the man page to avoid data loss. (I learnt the hard way:)