SMART [was Re: The state of 64-bit Desktop Linux]

[D. Hugh Redelmeier]

| From: D. Hugh Redelmeier <hugh-pmF8o41NoarQT0dZR+AlfA at public.gmane.org>

| | From: Marc Lanctot <lanctot-yfeSBMgouQgsA/PxXw9srA at public.gmane.org>

| | > I recently had an interesting experience.  My hard drive was dying.
| | > It would cause system slowdowns (I think) because of retrying.  No
| | > symptoms but speed.  SMART scanning found some problems.  Touch wood,
| | > the system seems much better with a new drive.
| | 
| | Is SMART an acronym for some program or used for emphasis? I wonder if it is
| | disk activity. What did you use to find this?
| 
| Yeah, it is an acronym.  Try "man startctl".
| http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-Monitoring,_Analysis,_and_Reporting_Technology

As mentioned by William O'Higgins Witteman, s/startctl/smartctl/

SMART is hard to figure out from the LINUX command documentation.

Here's what I have used:

/usr/sbin/smartctl -a /dev/sda
	Tells you lots of stuff.

/usr/sbin/smartctl -t long /dev/sda
	Starts a long test self-test.
	The test is done autonomously by the drive.
	This apparently does not interfere with the computer using the
	drive for other purposes.
	Takes hours.

/usr/sbin/smartctl -l selftest /dev/sda
	reports the result of self-tests.

I recently found a problem with a Seagate drive.  After that, I used
stand-alone test software (SeaTools for DOS) to figure out more.
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