check hard disk health with smartctl

http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/

To check health of hard disk, use command

smartctl -a /dev/hda

Where /dev/hda is device name for hard disk.

To find device name, use df -h command, for example, on a server with SATA Hard Disk

[[email protected] ~]# df -h
Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda5             9.7G  375M  8.9G   4% /
/dev/sda8             996M   37M  908M   4% /tmp
/dev/sda7             195G  476M  184G   1% /home
/dev/sdb1             227G  188M  215G   1% /backup
/dev/sda3             9.7G  2.8G  6.5G  30% /usr
/dev/sda2             9.7G  468M  8.8G   5% /var
/dev/sda1              99M   16M   78M  17% /boot
tmpfs                 3.0G     0  3.0G   0% /dev/shm
[[email protected] ~]#

This server have two hard disks, device names are

/dev/sda
/dev/sdb

To check the first hard disk for errors, use command

smartctl -d ata -a /dev/sda

We added extra "-d ata" as this is SATA hard disk. If you don't add this, smartctl will tell you to add this.

[[email protected] ~]# smartctl -d ata -a /dev/sda
smartctl version 5.36 [i686-redhat-linux-gnu] Copyright (C) 2002-6 Bruce Allen
Home page is http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Device Model:     WDC WD2500YS-01SHB1
Serial Number:    WD-WCANY3710745
Firmware Version: 20.06C06
User Capacity:    251,000,193,024 bytes
Device is:        Not in smartctl database [for details use: -P showall]
ATA Version is:   7
ATA Standard is:  Exact ATA specification draft version not indicated
Local Time is:    Thu Jan 24 01:51:27 2008 CST
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:  (0x84) Offline data collection activity
                                        was suspended by an interrupting command from host.
                                        Auto Offline Data Collection: Enabled.
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:                 (7800) seconds.
Offline data collection
capabilities:                    (0x7b) SMART execute Offline immediate.
                                        Auto Offline data collection on/off support.
                                        Suspend Offline collection upon new
                                        command.
                                        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:        (   2) minutes.
Extended self-test routine
recommended polling time:        (  92) minutes.
Conveyance self-test routine
recommended polling time:        (   6) minutes.

SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16
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   200   200   051    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  3 Spin_Up_Time            0x0003   187   186   021    Pre-fail  Always       -       5641
  4 Start_Stop_Count        0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       7
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0033   200   200   140    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  7 Seek_Error_Rate         0x000f   200   200   051    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       207
 10 Spin_Retry_Count        0x0013   100   253   051    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
 11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0013   100   253   051    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
 12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       6
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0022   127   102   000    Old_age   Always       -       23
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
197 Current_Pending_Sector  0x0012   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable   0x0010   200   200   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    0x003e   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate   0x0009   200   200   051    Pre-fail  Offline      -       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.

[[email protected] ~]#