[gentoo-user] Monitor SATA with smart?

[gentoo-user] Monitor SATA with smart?

[Matthias Fechner]

Hi,

is it possible to monitor SATA disks with smart?
sys-apps/smartmontools can not read smart on that disks.

Best regards,
Matthias

-- 

"Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to
build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the universe trying to
produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the universe is winning." --
Rich Cook
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Re: [gentoo-user] Monitor SATA with smart?

[Markus Schönhaber]

Matthias Fechner wrote:

> is it possible to monitor SATA disks with smart?

Yes.

> sys-apps/smartmontools can not read smart on that disks.

It can. Try something like
smartctl -a -d ata /dev/sda
This ahould print all SMART info about the disk /dev/sda. The important part 
wrt SATA disks is "-d ata"

Regards
  mks
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[gentoo-user] Re: Monitor SATA with smart?

[Alexander Skwar]

Matthias Fechner <idefix@fechner.net> wrote:

> is it possible to monitor SATA disks with smart?

Keep in mind though, that SMART doesn't give you reliable information,
though. 

Message-ID: <544vb6F1v7oqgU1@mid.individual.net>
http://www.computerworld.com/blogs/node/5038
http://storagemojo.com/?p=383
http://www.usenix.org/events/fast07/tech/schroeder/schroeder_html/index.html
http://216.239.37.132/papers/disk_failures.pdf

Alexander Skwar

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Re: [gentoo-user] Monitor SATA with smart?

[Matthias Fechner]

Hello Markus,

* Markus Schnhaber <gentoo-user@schoenhaber.de> [18-04-07 12:26]:
> It can. Try something like
> smartctl -a -d ata /dev/sda
> This ahould print all SMART info about the disk /dev/sda. The important part 
> wrt SATA disks is "-d ata"

thx, works now fine.

Best regards,
Matthias

-- 

"Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to
build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the universe trying to
produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the universe is winning." --
Rich Cook
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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Monitor SATA with smart?

[Matthias Fechner]

Hello Alexander,

* Alexander Skwar <listen@alexander.skwar.name> [18-04-07 12:35]:
> Keep in mind though, that SMART doesn't give you reliable information,
> though. 
> 
> Message-ID: <544vb6F1v7oqgU1@mid.individual.net>
> http://www.computerworld.com/blogs/node/5038
> http://storagemojo.com/?p=383
> http://www.usenix.org/events/fast07/tech/schroeder/schroeder_html/index.html
> http://216.239.37.132/papers/disk_failures.pdf

thx a lot for your links. It was really nice and informative to read.
It's clear that smart is not reliability but it is better then
nothing. And smart protected my (backup-upped) data two times and that is
really a good rate :)

Best regards,
Matthias

-- 

"Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to
build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the universe trying to
produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the universe is winning." --
Rich Cook
-- 
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

[gentoo-user] Re: Re: Monitor SATA with smart?

[Alexander Skwar]

Matthias Fechner <idefix@fechner.net> wrote:

> Hello Alexander,
> 
> * Alexander Skwar <listen@alexander.skwar.name> [18-04-07 12:35]:
>> Keep in mind though, that SMART doesn't give you reliable information,
>> though.
>> 
>> Message-ID: <544vb6F1v7oqgU1@mid.individual.net>
>> http://www.computerworld.com/blogs/node/5038
>> http://storagemojo.com/?p=383
>> http://www.usenix.org/events/fast07/tech/schroeder/schroeder_html/index.html
>> http://216.239.37.132/papers/disk_failures.pdf
> 
> thx a lot for your links. It was really nice and informative to read.
> It's clear that smart is not reliability but it is better then
> nothing.

It really depends. The Google study (one of the links above) says,
that SMART very often does not warn you about an impending failure.
So, even though SMART reports that everything is fine, it may very
well not be fine at all. Classic case of false negative.

> And smart protected my (backup-upped) data two times and that is 
> really a good rate :)

:)

Alexander Skwar

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[gentoo-user] Re: Monitor SATA with smart?

[Sven Köhler]

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> is it possible to monitor SATA disks with smart?
> sys-apps/smartmontools can not read smart on that disks.

You have to tell smartmontools, that it's actually an ATA disk. SATA
devices show up as SCSI devices, but the protocol is still ATA.
So this can be done with the "-d ata" switch - also see /etc/smartd.conf.

BUT: recent versions of smartmontools can recognize SATA disks. No need
for -d ata anymore! smartmontools-5.37 (which is still ~x86 and ~amd64)
correctly SATA disks in all my computers.


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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Re: Monitor SATA with smart?

[Hemmann, Volker Armin]

On Mittwoch, 18. April 2007, Alexander Skwar wrote:

> It really depends. The Google study (one of the links above) says,
> that SMART very often does not warn you about an impending failure.
> So, even though SMART reports that everything is fine, it may very
> well not be fine at all. Classic case of false negative.

but when smart starts to warn, it is a good sign, that the disk is on its way 
to harddisk-hell.... 

There is no way to predict all kinds of failure - and covering at least some 
of them is better than nothing.
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