Checking the S.M.A.R.T status of a drive on linux

skdump

d

sudo apt-get install gnome-disk-utility

The commandline version of the libatasmart library used by Gnome Disks is called skdump part of the libatasmart-bin package which is not installed by default. Install by using:

sudo apt-get install libatasmart-bin

Next run the following command to see the SMART information by running the following command in the terminal (replacing /dev/sda by the path to your drive):

sudo skdump /dev/sda

smartctl

Back in [2014.03.26 10:26:06], this looks like a good tool:

sudo apt-get install smartmontools

sudo smartctl -i /dev/sda

If this command fails, you may need to let smartctl know what type of hard drive interface you’re using:

sudo smartctl -d TYPE -i /dev/sda

where TYPE is usually one of ata, scsi, or sat (for serial ata).

Now that smartctl can access the drive, let’s turn on some features. Run the following command:

sudo smartctl -s on -o on -S on /dev/sda

-s on: This turns on S.M.A.R.T. support or does nothing if it’s already enabled. -o on: This turns on offline data collection. Offline data collection periodically updates certain S.M.A.R.T. attributes. Theoretically this could have a performance impact. However, from the smartctl man page: Normally, the disk will suspend offline testing while disk accesses are taking place, and then automatically resume it when the disk would otherwise be idle, so in practice it has little effect.

-S on: This enables “autosave of device vendor-specific Attributes”.

Next, let’s check the overall health:

sudo smartctl -H /dev/sda

This command should return:

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED

If it doesn’t return PASSED, you should immediately backup all your data. Your hard drive is probably failing.

Make sure that the drive supports self-tests and see time estimates for each test:

sudo smartctl -c /dev/sda

Make sure “Self-test supported” appears in the “Offline data collection capabilities” section. Also, look for output similar to:

Short self-test routine recommended polling time: ( 2) minutes. Extended self-test routine recommended polling time: ( 127) minutes. These are rough estimates of how long the short and long self-test’s will take respectively. Let’s run the short test:

sudo smartctl -t short /dev/sda

The time it takes to run varies by hardware. You can run:

sudo smartctl -l selftest /dev/sda

to check results. Unfortunately, there’s no way to check progress, so just keep running that command until the results show up. A successful run will look like:

=== 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 without error       00%     21472         -

Now, do the same for the long self-test:

sudo smartctl -t long /dev/sda

The long test can take a significant amount of time. You might want to run it overnight and check for the results in the morning. If either test fails, you should immediately backup all your data and read the last section of this guide.

Via: http://blog.shadypixel.com/monitoring-hard-drive-health-on-linux-with-smartmontools/