A) Installation
If you’re not sure about your admin rights, always enter the command sudo -i at the beginning of every session:sudo -iThis command will grant you the rights of a power user, so you don’t have to write the command sudo at the beginning of every command line. To install smartmontools please type the following: -Debian and Ubuntu-
apt update && apt install smartmontools-CentOS-
yum install smartmontoolsThe above commands will install smartmontools on your system. B) How to use smartmontools At first, you have to determine the label of your disks. To do so please type the following:
fdisk -lIt will look similar to this:
Disk /dev/hda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sda1 * 1 19269 154778211 83 Linux /dev/sda2 19270 19457 1510110 5 Extended /dev/sda5 19270 19457 1510078+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris system1:~#In this case the disk has the label '/dev/hda'. Apart from "hdX", you will often encounter "sdX". It does not make sense to use smartmontools to test a RAID array (/dev/md0, for example). With the information of the disks label, we can start smartctl as follows:
smartctl -a /dev/hdaThe output will look something like this:
system1:~# smartctl -a /dev/hda smartctl version 5.36 [i686-pc-linux-gnu] Copyright (C) 2002-6 Bruce Allen Home page is http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/ === START OF INFORMATION SECTION === Device Model: ST3160022ACE Serial Number: 5JS3XTZX Firmware Version: 9.01 User Capacity: 160,041,885,696 bytes Device is: Not in smartctl database [for details use: -P showall] ATA Version is: 6 ATA Standard is: ATA/ATAPI-6 T13 1410D revision 2 Local Time is: Tue Apr 8 18:58:44 2008 CEST SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability. SMART support is: Disabled SMART Disabled. Use option -s with argument 'on' to enable it. system1:~#SMART is disabled in this example. To enable it, please type:
smartctl -s on -a /dev/hdaThe output will be a detailed report of your disks current status and health, that would look similar to this:
system1:~# smartctl -s on -a /dev/hda smartctl version 5.36 [i686-pc-linux-gnu] Copyright (C) 2002-6 Bruce Allen Home page is http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/ === START OF INFORMATION SECTION === Device Model: ST3160022ACE Serial Number: 5JS3XTZX Firmware Version: 9.01 User Capacity: 160,041,885,696 bytes Device is: Not in smartctl database [for details use: -P showall] ATA Version is: 6 ATA Standard is: ATA/ATAPI-6 T13 1410D revision 2 Local Time is: Tue Apr 8 18:59:14 2008 CEST SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability. SMART support is: Disabled === START OF ENABLE/DISABLE COMMANDS SECTION === SMART Enabled. === START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION === SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED General SMART Values: Offline data collection status: (0x82) Offline data collection activity was completed without error. 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: (15556) seconds. Offline data collection capabilities: (0x5b) SMART execute Offline immediate. Auto Offline data collection on/off support. Suspend Offline collection upon new command. Offline surface scan supported. Self-test supported. No 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: ( 111) minutes. SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 10 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 059 056 006 Pre-fail Always - 163692057 3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0003 096 096 000 Pre-fail Always - 0 4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0032 100 100 020 Old_age Always - 0 5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 100 100 036 Pre-fail Always - 0 7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x000f 100 253 030 Pre-fail Always - 722959 9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 55 10 Spin_Retry_Count 0x0013 100 100 097 Pre-fail Always - 0 12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 100 100 020 Old_age Always - 37 194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 039 046 000 Old_age Always - 39 195 Hardware_ECC_Recovered 0x001a 059 056 000 Old_age Always - 163692057 197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0012 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0 198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x0010 100 100 000 Old_age Offline - 0 199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x003e 200 199 000 Old_age Always - 0 200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate 0x0000 100 253 000 Old_age Offline - 0 202 TA_Increase_Count 0x0032 100 253 000 Old_age Always - 0 SMART Error Log Version: 1 ATA Error Count: 0 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. 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. system1:~#In this example the disk is currently healthy and has no recorded errors. All important values have been highlighted in orange in this example for your convenience. To find out more about the capabilities of smartmontools, please refer to the smartctl manual page by typing:
man smartctlSome S.M.A.R.T. values you should look out for: Reallocated_Sector_Count Anything else than '0' is bad. The severity of the disk damage depends on when the drive got the reallocated sectors and how long ago. If the last bad sector was reallocated one year ago the disk is in no immediate danger, as the problem has appeared, been fixed and has not come back. If a bad sector shows up, you will likely get more over time and the general statistic is that a disk that starts to get bad sectors will be defective within six months. Current_Pending_Sector This means that sectors are awaiting an upcoming recheck to see if there really is a problem. One encounters these when the operating system is broken and the disk already has a few bad sectors. Offline_Uncorrectable The disk is most likely in a bad health state, but this only becomes certain with more writes. UDMA_CRC_Count This can be a serious problem and is generally due to defective cables. Simply replacing the cable will be sufficient since the hard disk itself is not affected. If the data cable has been checked and the error persists, there are only a couple of other options. The motherboard or disk are causing 'soft faults'. We recommend to have your server checked completely in this case. Please keep in mind that using smartmontools or memtest on a VPS will always show wrong results, due to the fact that the hardware is per definition virtualized. Rest assured that Contabo will always check the health of all disks on the VPS host-systems. You will not need to check this for yourself.
