Monitor and Analyze Hard Drive Health with Smartctl in Linux

Smartctl (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology) is a command line utility or a tool in UNIX and Linux like operating system that perform SMART tasks such as printing the SMART self-test and error logs, enabling and disabling SMART automatic testing, and initiating device self-tests.

Smartctl is useful on physical Linux servers where smart disks can be checked for errors & bad sectors  and extract info regarding the disks that are used behind the Hardware RAID.

In this post we will discuss some practical examples of smartctl command, Use below steps to install smartctl , if it is not installed on your linux box.

Installation of Smartcl in Ubuntu

$ sudo apt-get install smartmontools

Installation of Smartcl in Redhat / CentOS

# yum install smartmontools

Start the Smartctl Service

For Ubuntu

$ sudo /etc/init.d/smartmontools start

For CentOS & RHEL

# service smartd start ; chkconfig smartd on

Example:1 Check Whether Smart Capability is enabled or not for the disk

root@linuxtechi:~# smartctl -i /dev/sdb
smartctl 6.2 2013-07-26 r3841 [x86_64-linux-3.13.0-32-generic] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-13, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family:     Seagate Momentus 5400.6
Device Model:     ST9320325AS
Serial Number:    5VD2V59T
LU WWN Device Id: 5 000c50 020a37ec4
Firmware Version: 0002BSM1
User Capacity:    320,072,933,376 bytes [320 GB]
Sector Size:      512 bytes logical/physical
Rotation Rate:    5400 rpm
Device is:        In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is:   ATA8-ACS T13/1699-D revision 4
SATA Version is:  SATA 2.6, 1.5 Gb/s
Local Time is:    Sun Nov 16 12:32:09 2014 IST
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled

Where ‘/dev/sdb’ is your hard disk. Last Two lines in above output shows that SMART  capability is enable for the device.

Example:2 Enable Smart Capability for the disk

root@linuxtechi:~# smartctl -s on /dev/sdb
smartctl 6.2 2013-07-26 r3841 [x86_64-linux-3.13.0-32-generic] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-13, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

=== START OF ENABLE/DISABLE COMMANDS SECTION ===
SMART Enabled.

Example:3 Disable Smart Capability for the disk

root@linuxtechi:~# smartctl -s off  /dev/sdb
smartctl 6.2 2013-07-26 r3841 [x86_64-linux-3.13.0-32-generic] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-13, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

=== START OF ENABLE/DISABLE COMMANDS SECTION ===
SMART Disabled. Use option -s with argument 'on' to enable it.

Example:4 Display Detailed Smart info for the disk

root@linuxtechi:~# smartctl -a /dev/sdb              // For IDE drive
root@linuxtechi:~# smartctl -a -d ata /dev/sdb       // For SATA drive

Example:5 Display Overall health of the Disk

root@linuxtechi:~# smartctl -H  /dev/sdb
smartctl 6.2 2013-07-26 r3841 [x86_64-linux-3.13.0-32-generic] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-13, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED
Warning: This result is based on an Attribute check.
Please note the following marginal Attributes:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
190 Airflow_Temperature_Cel 0x0022   067   045   045    Old_age   Always   In_the_past 33 (Min/Max 25/33)

Example:6 Test Hard drive using long & short option.

Long Test

root@linuxtechi:~# smartctl --test=long /dev/sdb
smartctl 6.2 2013-07-26 r3841 [x86_64-linux-3.13.0-32-generic] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-13, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

=== START OF OFFLINE IMMEDIATE AND SELF-TEST SECTION ===
Sending command: "Execute SMART Extended self-test routine immediately in off-line mode".
Drive command "Execute SMART Extended self-test routine immediately in off-line mode" successful.
Testing has begun.
Please wait 102 minutes for test to complete.
Test will complete after Sun Nov 16 14:29:43 2014

Use smartctl -X to abort test.

OR We can redirect test output to a log file , as shown below

root@linuxtechi:~# smartctl --test=long /dev/sdb > /var/log/long.text

Short Test

root@linuxtechi:~# smartctl --test=short /dev/sdb
smartctl 6.2 2013-07-26 r3841 [x86_64-linux-3.13.0-32-generic] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-13, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

=== START OF OFFLINE IMMEDIATE AND SELF-TEST SECTION ===
Sending command: "Execute SMART Short self-test routine immediately in off-line mode".
Drive command "Execute SMART Short self-test routine immediately in off-line mode" successful.
Testing has begun.
Please wait 1 minutes for test to complete.
Test will complete after Sun Nov 16 12:51:45 2014

Use smartctl -X to abort test.

OR

root@linuxtechi:~# smartctl --test=short /dev/sdb > /var/log/short.text

Note : Short test will take maximum 2 minutes whereas in long test there is no time restriction because it read & verify every segment of the entire disk.

Example:7 To View Drive’s Self Test result

root@linuxtechi:~# smartctl -l selftest /dev/sdb
smartctl 6.2 2013-07-26 r3841 [x86_64-linux-3.13.0-32-generic] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-13, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
Num  Test_Description    Status                  Remaining  LifeTime(hours)  LBA_of_first_error
# 1  Short offline       Completed: read failure       90%       492         210841222
# 2  Extended offline    Completed: read failure       90%       492         210841222

Example:8 Calculate Estimate time to perform test

root@linuxtechi:~# smartctl -c  /dev/sdb
smartctl 6.2 2013-07-26 r3841 [x86_64-linux-3.13.0-32-generic] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-13, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
General SMART Values:
Offline data collection status:  (0x00)    Offline data collection activity
                    was never started.
                    Auto Offline Data Collection: Disabled.
Self-test execution status:      ( 121)    The previous self-test completed having
                    the read element of the test failed.
Total time to complete Offline 
data collection:         (    0) seconds.
Offline data collection
capabilities:              (0x73) 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.
                    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:      ( 102) minutes.
Conveyance self-test routine
recommended polling time:      (   2) minutes.
SCT capabilities:            (0x103b)    SCT Status supported.
                    SCT Error Recovery Control supported.
                    SCT Feature Control supported.
                    SCT Data Table supported.

Example:9 Display Error logs of the disk

root@linuxtechi:~# smartctl -l error  /dev/sdb

Sample Output

smartctl 6.2 2013-07-26 r3841 [x86_64-linux-3.13.0-32-generic] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-13, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART Error Log Version: 1
ATA Error Count: 5
    CR = Command Register [HEX]
    FR = Features Register [HEX]
    SC = Sector Count Register [HEX]
    SN = Sector Number Register [HEX]
    CL = Cylinder Low Register [HEX]
    CH = Cylinder High Register [HEX]
    DH = Device/Head Register [HEX]
    DC = Device Command Register [HEX]
    ER = Error register [HEX]
    ST = Status register [HEX]
Powered_Up_Time is measured from power on, and printed as
DDd+hh:mm:SS.sss where DD=days, hh=hours, mm=minutes,
SS=sec, and sss=millisec. It "wraps" after 49.710 days.

Commands leading to the command that caused the error were:
  CR FR SC SN CL CH DH DC   Powered_Up_Time  Command/Feature_Name
  -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --  ----------------  --------------------
  25 da 08 e7 e5 a5 4c 00      00:30:44.515  READ DMA EXT
  25 da 08 df e5 a5 4c 00      00:30:44.514  READ DMA EXT
  25 da 80 5f e5 a5 4c 00      00:30:44.502  READ DMA EXT
  25 da f0 5f e6 a5 4c 00      00:30:44.496  READ DMA EXT
  25 da 10 4f e6 a5 4c 00      00:30:44.383  READ DMA EXT

Read AlsoTop 5 tools to Monitor Your Linux Disk Usage and Partitions

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