Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology (S.M.A.R.T., often written as SMART) is a monitoring system included in computer hard disk drives (HDDs) and solid-state drives (SSDs). Its primary function is to detect and report various indicators of drive reliability with the intent of anticipating imminent hardware failures.
I regularly backup my system to an external hard disk but I’ve recently grown concerned that it might be failing. Fortunately there’s a bunch of useful open source tools, that should help me determine what’s going on.
We’ll be using smartmontools which is already available on PantherX.
guix package -i smartmontools
Once it’s installed, you simply point it at the disk (list available disks with lsblk):
smartctl /dev/sda
smartctl 7.2 2020-12-30 r5155 [x86_64-linux-5.19.5] (Guix)
Copyright (C) 2002-20, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org
sda: Unknown USB bridge [0x059f:0x10c4 (0x003)]
Please specify device type with the -d option.
Use smartctl -h to get a usage summary
This doesn’t work; Let’s check the smartmontools website for supported USB devices. I couldn’t find my specific device (0x059f:0x10c4) but several other Lacie HDD’s with the option: -d sat.
Let’s give that a try:
sudo smartctl --all /dev/sda -d sat
smartctl 7.2 2020-12-30 r5155 [x86_64-linux-5.19.5] (Guix)
Copyright (C) 2002-20, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org
=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family: Seagate Mobile HDD
Device Model: ST2000LM007-1R8174
Serial Number: ZDZHZLQD
LU WWN Device Id: 5 000c50 0dc0eaac6
Firmware Version: EB01
User Capacity: 2,000,398,934,016 bytes [2.00 TB]
Sector Sizes: 512 bytes logical, 4096 bytes physical
Rotation Rate: 5400 rpm
Form Factor: 2.5 inches
TRIM Command: Available
Device is: In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is: ACS-3 T13/2161-D revision 3b
SATA Version is: SATA 3.1, 6.0 Gb/s (current: 6.0 Gb/s)
Local Time is: Sun Oct 16 11:05:19 2022 WEST
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: (0x00) Offline data collection activity
was never started.
Auto Offline Data Collection: Disabled.
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: ( 0) seconds.
Offline data collection
capabilities: (0x71) SMART execute Offline immediate.
No Auto Offline data collection support.
Suspend Offline collection upon new
command.
No 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: ( 334) minutes.
Conveyance self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 2) minutes.
SCT capabilities: (0x3035) SCT Status 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 081 065 006 Pre-fail Always - 226628847
3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0003 100 100 000 Pre-fail Always - 0
4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0032 100 100 020 Old_age Always - 40
5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 100 100 036 Pre-fail Always - 0
7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x000f 072 060 045 Pre-fail Always - 14697043
9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 402 (11 98 0)
10 Spin_Retry_Count 0x0013 100 100 097 Pre-fail Always - 0
12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 100 100 020 Old_age Always - 39
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 068 051 040 Old_age Always - 32 (Min/Max 24/32)
191 G-Sense_Error_Rate 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 3
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 3
193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 298
194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 032 049 000 Old_age Always - 32 (0 17 0 0 0)
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 - 77 (93 159 0)
241 Total_LBAs_Written 0x0000 100 253 000 Old_age Offline - 2899409178
242 Total_LBAs_Read 0x0000 100 253 000 Old_age Offline - 12923505
254 Free_Fall_Sensor 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 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.
So far so good. No obvious issues at least:
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED
Let’s try triggering a self-check:
# ~ 1 minute
sudo smartctl --test=short /dev/sda -d sat
# ~ 334 minutes
sudo smartctl --test=long /dev/sda -d sat
To get the test results, run sudo smartctl --all /dev/sda -d sat again after 1++ minute, and look for:
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% 402 -
# 2 Extended offline Aborted by host 90% 402 -
I did not let the extended test complete, but the “short” test didn’t reveal any issues.
So it looks like my hard disk is not failing after all. That’s good news - If you’re not as fortunate and do find issues, I urge you to un-mount and remove the drive immediately, until you have a replacement disk, to which you can try to backup the failing disk.
Always ensure that you have minimum 2, if not 3 copies of your important data. For ex.:
Do not use cloud backup until absolutely necessary. It’s encrypted today, but might easily be decrypted tomorrow.
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