From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Aug 29 04:27:20 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 B154516A4DA for ; Tue, 29 Aug 2006 04:27:20 +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 5BD9B43D49 for ; Tue, 29 Aug 2006 04:27:20 +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 D8B5CBDC4C; Tue, 29 Aug 2006 00:27:19 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <44F3C299.2030003@digitalstratum.com> Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2006 00:29:13 -0400 From: Matthew Hagerty Organization: Digital Stratum User-Agent: Thunderbird 1.5.0.5 (Windows/20060719) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: mal content References: <44F3A211.7050907@digitalstratum.com> <8e96a0b90608281916g497196e5w74ffca9356672026@mail.gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <8e96a0b90608281916g497196e5w74ffca9356672026@mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: 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 04:27:20 -0000 mal content wrote: > On 29/08/06, Matthew Hagerty wrote: >> 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. >> > > Your setup is exactly identical to mine, even down to mount points and > disk sizes. > > Try smartmontools, most drives support S.M.A.R.T so you should have > no trouble: > > http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/cvsweb.cgi/ports/sysutils/smartmontools/ > > It's useful for identifying drives that are about to die. > > You shouldn't need to take the machine offline. > > MC Does SMART have to be enabled in the BIOS for smartmontools to work? I've always seen the SMART setting in the BIOS but it is always been defaulted to "disabled" on just about every motherboard I have ever worked with, and I never took the time to look up what it was. I'll give smartd and smartmontools a try and see what they tell me. Thanks. Matthew