Using smartmontools to detect impending hard disk failure

This document (7004508) is provided subject to the disclaimer at the end of this document.

Environment

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9

Situation

Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology System (SMART)

The smartd daemon has reported drive errors in /var/log/messages.
You notice errors after running the smartctl --all command on one or more disk devices.

Error counter log:
           Errors Corrected by           Total   Correction     Gigabytes    Total
               ECC          rereads/    errors   algorithm      processed    uncorrected
           fast | delayed   rewrites corrected invocations   [10^9 bytes] errors
read:     132089        0         0    132089     132089        850.315           0
write:         0        0         0         0          0        415.707           0

Non-medium error count:    90680

After running supportconfig -o SMART you see disk errors in the fs-smartmon.txt file.

Resolution

If no errors are detected, then there is nothing to do. If you see read, write or non-medium errors, you might consider swapping out the hard disk after backing up all data.

Additional Information

The smartmontools package contains two utility programs (smartctl and smartd) to control and monitor storage systems using the Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology System (SMART) built into most modern ATA and SCSI hard disks. In many cases, these utilities will provide advanced warning of disk degradation and failure. For additional details refer to http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/.

WARNING: To prevent system hangs from buggy devices, smartd is turned off by default or smartmontools is not installed at all. Please test smartd manually first before turning it on via the Runlevel Editor or by /sbin/chkconfig -add smartd.

Disclaimer

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