From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Aug 29 02:08:32 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8D9C416A4DD for ; Tue, 29 Aug 2006 02:08:32 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from matthew@digitalstratum.com) Received: from mail.mundomateo.com (static-24-56-193-117.chrlmi.cablespeed.com [24.56.193.117]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4233443D45 for ; Tue, 29 Aug 2006 02:08:32 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from matthew@digitalstratum.com) Received: from [10.0.81.14] (unknown [10.0.81.1]) by mail.mundomateo.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 79EC4BDC4E for ; Mon, 28 Aug 2006 22:08:31 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <44F3A211.7050907@digitalstratum.com> Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2006 22:10:25 -0400 From: Matthew Hagerty Organization: Digital Stratum User-Agent: Thunderbird 1.5.0.5 (Windows/20060719) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: Hard disk going-bad detection X-BeenThere: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: matthew@digitalstratum.com List-Id: Technical Discussions relating to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2006 02:08:32 -0000 Greetings, I have a hard drive that every now and then makes a sound like the head is moving from one extreme to the other, then parking. It is hard to explain, kind of a towk-kok-click with a metallic ring to it. If you have heard a drive do this before, you know the sound. I heard a drive do this to me a few months ago and it failed shortly thereafter. I have 3 drives in the system so it is very hard to know which drive it is, so in an attempt to get a new drive before the one fails out right, is there any way I can test the drives in place? One drive is primarily my system disk (20G), the second (120G) has /usr mounted on it, and the third (120G) is mounted, rsync'd, umounted every night to make a backup of the other two. So, the backup drive I can test no problem, even destructively if necessary. However, the two that make up the active system I would like to be able to test without disrupting normal operation if possible? But, I'll take the box offline for a bit if necessary. Any insight would be greatly appreciated. Thank you, Matthew