| 1 | <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> |
|---|
| 2 | <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en" xml:lang="en"> |
|---|
| 3 | <head> |
|---|
| 4 | <title>smartmontools Home Page (last updated $Date: 2006/05/19 16:50:36 $)</title> |
|---|
| 5 | <link rev="made" href="mailto:smartmontools-support@sourceforge.net" /> |
|---|
| 6 | <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" /> |
|---|
| 7 | <meta name="description" content="smartmontools Home Page" /> |
|---|
| 8 | <meta name="keywords" content="S.M.A.R.T., SMART, FreeBSD, Linux, NetBSD, Solaris, Windows, disk, monitor, monitoring" /> |
|---|
| 9 | </head> |
|---|
| 10 | <body> |
|---|
| 11 | |
|---|
| 12 | <!-- $Id: index.html,v 1.199 2006/05/19 16:50:36 chrfranke Exp $ --> |
|---|
| 13 | |
|---|
| 14 | <div align="center"> |
|---|
| 15 | <img src="smart_logo.gif" border="0" width="105" height="59" alt="SMART LOGO" /> |
|---|
| 16 | <br /> |
|---|
| 17 | <h1><font color="#3333ff">smartmontools Home Page</font></h1> |
|---|
| 18 | </div> |
|---|
| 19 | |
|---|
| 20 | <p>Welcome! This is the home page for the smartmontools package.</p> |
|---|
| 21 | |
|---|
| 22 | <font color="#ff0000"> |
|---|
| 23 | <b>NEWS:</b> |
|---|
| 24 | </font> |
|---|
| 25 | <ul> |
|---|
| 26 | <li><font color="#ff0000">Smartmontools 5.36 (stable) was released 2006-04-16, see |
|---|
| 27 | <a href="http://smartmontools.cvs.sourceforge.net/smartmontools/sm5/NEWS?revision=RELEASE_5_36&view=markup"> |
|---|
| 28 | NEWS</a> and |
|---|
| 29 | <a href="http://smartmontools.cvs.sourceforge.net/smartmontools/sm5/CHANGELOG?revision=RELEASE_5_36&view=markup"> |
|---|
| 30 | CHANGELOG</a> for details. |
|---|
| 31 | </font></li> |
|---|
| 32 | <li><font color="#ff0000">SourceForge CVS architecture has changed 2006-05-12, please read |
|---|
| 33 | notes <a href="#CVSInstall">below</a> if you install smartmontools from CVS.</font></li> |
|---|
| 34 | </ul> |
|---|
| 35 | <font color="#ff0000"> |
|---|
| 36 | Please report problems (or success!) with the new release to the |
|---|
| 37 | <a href="http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/smartmontools-support"> |
|---|
| 38 | smartmontools-support mailing list</a>. |
|---|
| 39 | </font> |
|---|
| 40 | |
|---|
| 41 | |
|---|
| 42 | <p>The smartmontools package contains two utility programs |
|---|
| 43 | (<font color="#3333ff"><b>smartctl</b></font> and |
|---|
| 44 | <font color="#3333ff"><b>smartd</b></font>) to control and monitor storage |
|---|
| 45 | systems using the Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology |
|---|
| 46 | System (SMART) built into most modern ATA and SCSI hard |
|---|
| 47 | disks.  In many cases, these utilities will provide advanced warning |
|---|
| 48 | of disk degradation and failure.</p> |
|---|
| 49 | |
|---|
| 50 | <p>Smartmontools is originally derived from the Linux <a |
|---|
| 51 | href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/smartsuite/">smartsuite |
|---|
| 52 | package</a>, and includes support for ATA/ATAPI-3 to -7 disks and SCSI |
|---|
| 53 | disk and tape devices. It should run on any modern Darwin (Mac OSX), |
|---|
| 54 | Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Solaris, OS/2, eComStation or <a |
|---|
| 55 | href="#windows">Windows</a> system. Alternatively, it can also be run |
|---|
| 56 | from one of the <a href="#bootable">bootable CDs or floppies containing |
|---|
| 57 | smartmontools</a>.</p> |
|---|
| 58 | |
|---|
| 59 | <p>For printing convenience, everything except for the <a |
|---|
| 60 | href="#sampleoutput">example output</a> is on a single page.</p> |
|---|
| 61 | |
|---|
| 62 | <hr size="2" /> |
|---|
| 63 | |
|---|
| 64 | <ul> |
|---|
| 65 | <li><a href="http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=6983"> |
|---|
| 66 | Monitoring Hard Disks with SMART (Linux Journal, January 2004, page 74)</a></li> |
|---|
| 67 | <li><a href="#howtodownload">How to download and install |
|---|
| 68 | smartmontools</a></li> |
|---|
| 69 | <li><a href="#PROBLEMS">Serious Problem Reports (system lockup, etc.)</a></li> |
|---|
| 70 | <li><a href="#FAQ">Frequently Asked Questions</a></li> |
|---|
| 71 | <li><a href="#scsi">SCSI disks and tapes (TapeAlert)</a></li> |
|---|
| 72 | <li><a href="#testinghelp">FireWire, USB, and SATA disks/tapes</a></li> |
|---|
| 73 | <li><a href="#differfromsmartsuite">How does smartmontools differ from |
|---|
| 74 | smartsuite?</a></li> |
|---|
| 75 | <li><a href="#references">Useful references on SMART and ATA/ATAPI-5, |
|---|
| 76 | -6, and -7</a></li> |
|---|
| 77 | <li><a href="#sampleoutput">Example output from smartmontools</a> |
|---|
| 78 | <b>smartctl</b> utility</li> |
|---|
| 79 | <li><a href="http://smartmontools.cvs.sourceforge.net/smartmontools/">CVS |
|---|
| 80 | repository</a> and <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/smartmontools/">SourceForge's |
|---|
| 81 | Project Page</a></li> |
|---|
| 82 | <li>Mailing List <a href="http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/smartmontools-support">Information</a> |
|---|
| 83 | and <a href="http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?forum=smartmontools-support">Archives</a> |
|---|
| 84 | (Archive has <b>Search Box</b> in top left corner). <a href="#altmail">Alternative</a> (and usually up to date) archives.</li> |
|---|
| 85 | <li>Current <a href="man/smartctl.8.html">smartctl</a>, <a href="man/smartd.8.html">smartd</a>, and <a href="man/smartd.conf.5.html">smartd.conf</a> HTML man pages generated from CVS.</li> |
|---|
| 86 | </ul> |
|---|
| 87 | |
|---|
| 88 | <hr size="2" /> |
|---|
| 89 | |
|---|
| 90 | <b><a name="howtodownload"></a>How to download and install |
|---|
| 91 | smartmontools</b> |
|---|
| 92 | |
|---|
| 93 | <p>There are different ways to get and install |
|---|
| 94 | smartmontools.  You can use any of the procedures below |
|---|
| 95 | (the fourth is for Debian Linux only).  Just after "Method 6" below are |
|---|
| 96 | some instructions for trying out smartmontools once you have completed |
|---|
| 97 | the installation. The |
|---|
| 98 | <b><a href="http://smartmontools.cvs.sourceforge.net/smartmontools/sm5/INSTALL?view=markup"> |
|---|
| 99 | INSTALL</a></b> file contains additional information. |
|---|
| 100 | </p> |
|---|
| 101 | <b>First Method (Redhat/Fedora Linux) - Install from the RPM file</b> |
|---|
| 102 | <ul> |
|---|
| 103 | <li>Download the latest binary RPM file (<tt>*.rpm</tt>) from <a href="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=64297">here</a>.  |
|---|
| 104 | Don't get the SRPM file (<tt>*.src.rpm</tt>).<br/> SuSE users: use one of the SuSE-specific RPM files.</li> |
|---|
| 105 | <li>Install it using RPM.  <i>You must be root to do this</i>: |
|---|
| 106 | <pre>su root (enter root password) |
|---|
| 107 | rpm -ivh smartmontools-5.32.i386.rpm</pre> |
|---|
| 108 | For most users, this is all that is needed.</li> |
|---|
| 109 | <li>If you receive an error message, you have probably previously |
|---|
| 110 | installed the <tt>smartsuite</tt> package, or RedHat's |
|---|
| 111 | <tt>kernel-utils</tt> package, which provide older versions of the |
|---|
| 112 | <tt>smartd</tt> and <tt>smartctl</tt> utilities.  In this case you |
|---|
| 113 | should use the <tt>--nodeps</tt> or <tt>--force</tt> arguments of rpm to |
|---|
| 114 | replace these two utilities: |
|---|
| 115 | <pre>rpm -ivh --nodeps --force smartmontools-5.32.i386.rpm</pre></li> |
|---|
| 116 | <li>If you want to remove the package (<tt>rpm -e smartmontools</tt>) |
|---|
| 117 | and your system does not have <tt>chkconfig</tt> installed, you may need |
|---|
| 118 | to use: |
|---|
| 119 | <pre>rpm -e --noscripts smartmontools</pre></li> |
|---|
| 120 | </ul> |
|---|
| 121 | |
|---|
| 122 | <b>Second Method (Linux/Solaris/FreeBSD/NetBSD/OpenBSD/Cygwin) - Install from the source tarball</b> |
|---|
| 123 | <ul> |
|---|
| 124 | <li>Download the latest source tarball from <a |
|---|
| 125 | href="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=64297">here</a>. |
|---|
| 126 | Note: you probably want the most recent stable release. Stable releases have |
|---|
| 127 | even-numbered extensions, and unstable experimental releases have |
|---|
| 128 | odd-numbered extensions.</li> |
|---|
| 129 | <li>Uncompress the tarball: |
|---|
| 130 | <pre>tar zxvf smartmontools-5.32.tar.gz</pre></li> |
|---|
| 131 | <li>The previous step created a directory called <tt>smartmontools-5.32</tt> |
|---|
| 132 | containing the code.  Go to that directory, build, and install: |
|---|
| 133 | <pre>cd smartmontools-5.32 |
|---|
| 134 | ./configure |
|---|
| 135 | make |
|---|
| 136 | make install |
|---|
| 137 | </pre></li> |
|---|
| 138 | <li> Note that the <tt>./configure</tt> step above is not possible for releases <=5.1-18, you |
|---|
| 139 | have to edit the Makefile by hand to change installation paths. For releases >=5.19, <tt>./configure</tt> |
|---|
| 140 | can take optional arguments. These optional arguments are fully explained in the |
|---|
| 141 | <a href="http://smartmontools.cvs.sourceforge.net/smartmontools/sm5/INSTALL?view=markup">INSTALL</a> |
|---|
| 142 | file. The most important one is <tt>--prefix</tt> to change the default installation directories.<p> |
|---|
| 143 | <i>Please note that the default installation location changed in versions >=5.31.</i> |
|---|
| 144 | If you don't pass any arguments to <tt>./configure</tt> all files will reside under |
|---|
| 145 | <b>/usr/local</b> to not interfere with files from your distribution. For more detailed |
|---|
| 146 | information please also refer to the |
|---|
| 147 | <a href="http://smartmontools.cvs.sourceforge.net/smartmontools/sm5/INSTALL?view=markup">INSTALL</a> |
|---|
| 148 | document. |
|---|
| 149 | </p> |
|---|
| 150 | </li> |
|---|
| 151 | <li>To compile from another directory (avoids overwriting virgin files from the smartmontools package) |
|---|
| 152 | replace <tt>./configure [options]</tt> by: |
|---|
| 153 | <pre> |
|---|
| 154 | mkdir objdir |
|---|
| 155 | cd objdir |
|---|
| 156 | ../configure [options] |
|---|
| 157 | </pre></li> |
|---|
| 158 | <li>To install to another destination (useful for testing and to avoid overwriting an existing smartmontools installation) |
|---|
| 159 | replace <tt>make install</tt> by: |
|---|
| 160 | <pre> |
|---|
| 161 | make DESTDIR=/home/myself/smartmontools-test install |
|---|
| 162 | </pre> |
|---|
| 163 | Use a full path: <tt>~/smartmontools-test</tt> won't work. |
|---|
| 164 | </li> |
|---|
| 165 | <li>Unless the destination directory is your home directory (or a location that you have write permission) |
|---|
| 166 | only root can do <tt>make install</tt></li> |
|---|
| 167 | </ul> |
|---|
| 168 | |
|---|
| 169 | <b><a name="CVSInstall"></a> |
|---|
| 170 | Third Method (Darwin/FreeBSD/Linux/NetBSD/OpenBSD/Solaris/Cygwin) - Install from the CVS repository</b> |
|---|
| 171 | <ul> |
|---|
| 172 | <li><p><font color="#ff0000">Due to the new the SourceForge CVS |
|---|
| 173 | architecture, the hostname for CVS access has changed from |
|---|
| 174 | <tt>cvs.sourceforge.net</tt> to <tt>smartmontools.cvs.sourceforge.net</tt>. |
|---|
| 175 | To update a copy of smartmontools checked out before 2006-05-12, change all |
|---|
| 176 | the <tt>*/CVS/Root</tt> files accordingly. |
|---|
| 177 | </font></p></li> |
|---|
| 178 | |
|---|
| 179 | <li><p>One of the really cool things about CVS is that you can get |
|---|
| 180 | <i>any</i> version of the code you want, from the first release up the |
|---|
| 181 | the most current development version.  And it's trivial, because |
|---|
| 182 | each release is <u>tagged</u> with a name like |
|---|
| 183 | <tt>RELEASE_5_1_18</tt>.  You can see what the different names are |
|---|
| 184 | by looking at the <a href="http://smartmontools.cvs.sourceforge.net/smartmontools/sm5/"> |
|---|
| 185 | CVS repository</a>.  You'll see the tag names in the little scroll |
|---|
| 186 | window where it says "Show only files with tag".  All you need to |
|---|
| 187 | do to get the latest development code is |
|---|
| 188 | (but note that the development code may be unstable, and that the |
|---|
| 189 | documentation and code may be inconsistent):</p> |
|---|
| 190 | |
|---|
| 191 | <pre>cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@smartmontools.cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/smartmontools login (when prompted for a password, just press Enter) |
|---|
| 192 | cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@smartmontools.cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/smartmontools co sm5</pre></li> |
|---|
| 193 | |
|---|
| 194 | <li>To instead get the 5.1-16 release: |
|---|
| 195 | |
|---|
| 196 | <pre>cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@smartmontools.cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/smartmontools co -r RELEASE_5_1_16 sm5</pre></li> |
|---|
| 197 | |
|---|
| 198 | <li><p>This will create a subdirectory called <tt>sm5/</tt> containing the |
|---|
| 199 | code.  Go to that directory, build, and install:</p> |
|---|
| 200 | <pre>cd sm5 |
|---|
| 201 | ./autogen.sh |
|---|
| 202 | ./configure |
|---|
| 203 | make |
|---|
| 204 | make install |
|---|
| 205 | </pre> |
|---|
| 206 | |
|---|
| 207 | <ul> |
|---|
| 208 | <li>See notes under <b>Second method - install from source tarball</b> for different options to <tt>./configure</tt> |
|---|
| 209 | and other useful remarks.</li> |
|---|
| 210 | <li>Skip <tt>./autogen.sh</tt> and <tt>./configure</tt> for tagged releases |
|---|
| 211 | <= 5.1-18 (RELEASE_5_X_Y, where X = 0 or 1 and Y = 0 to 18).</li> |
|---|
| 212 | <li>If you get the current sources (<tt>cvs co</tt> with no arguments or do <tt>cvs up |
|---|
| 213 | -A</tt>) then you <i>will</i> need those two additional steps.</li> |
|---|
| 214 | </ul></li> |
|---|
| 215 | |
|---|
| 216 | <li>To update your sources to the 5.1-18 release: |
|---|
| 217 | <pre>cd sm5 |
|---|
| 218 | cvs up -r RELEASE_5_1_18</pre></li> |
|---|
| 219 | |
|---|
| 220 | <li>To update any tagged release to the latest development code: |
|---|
| 221 | |
|---|
| 222 | <pre>cd sm5 |
|---|
| 223 | cvs up -A</pre></li> |
|---|
| 224 | </ul> |
|---|
| 225 | |
|---|
| 226 | <b>Fourth Method (Debian Linux) - Install the Debian package</b> |
|---|
| 227 | <ul> |
|---|
| 228 | <li> |
|---|
| 229 | The latest version of the smartmontools package in <i>.deb</i> format is |
|---|
| 230 | available at the <a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/smartmontools.html">Debian smartmontools |
|---|
| 231 | package page</a>. |
|---|
| 232 | This package is for the (unreleased) <a href="http://www.debian.org/releases/">unstable</a> |
|---|
| 233 | distribution.</li> |
|---|
| 234 | <li>If you're running Debian <a |
|---|
| 235 | href="http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/">stable</a> please download the |
|---|
| 236 | package from <a |
|---|
| 237 | href="http://honk.physik.uni-konstanz.de/~agx/linux-i386/debian/smartmontools/">here</a>.</li> |
|---|
| 238 | <li> |
|---|
| 239 | You can then install the package using: |
|---|
| 240 | <pre> |
|---|
| 241 | dpkg -i smartmontools_5.1.18-1.agx0_i386.deb |
|---|
| 242 | </pre> |
|---|
| 243 | But the preferred method is to add the following line to your |
|---|
| 244 | <tt>/etc/apt/sources.list</tt>: |
|---|
| 245 | <pre>deb http://honk.physik.uni-konstanz.de/~agx/linux-i386/debian smartmontools/ |
|---|
| 246 | </pre> |
|---|
| 247 | and type <pre> |
|---|
| 248 | apt-get update && apt-get install smartmontools |
|---|
| 249 | </pre> this will automatically download and install the package. |
|---|
| 250 | </li> |
|---|
| 251 | </ul> |
|---|
| 252 | |
|---|
| 253 | <b><a name="CygwinInstall"></a> |
|---|
| 254 | Fifth Method (Windows with <a href="http://www.cygwin.com/">Cygwin</a> |
|---|
| 255 | installed) - Install the Cygwin package |
|---|
| 256 | </b> |
|---|
| 257 | <ul> |
|---|
| 258 | <li>Starting with CVS snapshot 2005-11-15, smartmontools is part of |
|---|
| 259 | the <a href="http://cygwin.com/packages/">Cygwin distribution</a>. |
|---|
| 260 | A list of available smartmontools packages and their contents is |
|---|
| 261 | <a href="http://cygwin.com/packages/smartmontools/">here</a>. |
|---|
| 262 | </li> |
|---|
| 263 | <li><p>To update your installation, click on the "Install or update now!" |
|---|
| 264 | link on the <a href="http://cygwin.com/">Cygwin web page</a>. |
|---|
| 265 | This downloads <tt>setup.exe</tt> to your system. |
|---|
| 266 | Then, run setup and answer all of the questions. |
|---|
| 267 | Select smartmontools package in the "Utils" category.</p> |
|---|
| 268 | </li> |
|---|
| 269 | <li><p>The optional source package (<tt>smartmontools-*-src.tar.bz2</tt>) |
|---|
| 270 | can be used to build both the Cygwin and the Windows binary packages |
|---|
| 271 | on Cygwin. |
|---|
| 272 | Refer to the file <tt>/usr/share/doc/Cygwin/smartmontools-*.README</tt> |
|---|
| 273 | for details.</p> |
|---|
| 274 | </li> |
|---|
| 275 | </ul> |
|---|
| 276 | |
|---|
| 277 | <b><a name="WindowsInstall"></a> |
|---|
| 278 | Sixth Method (Windows) - Install the Windows package |
|---|
| 279 | </b> |
|---|
| 280 | <ul> |
|---|
| 281 | <li>Download the latest Windows package (<tt>*.win32.zip</tt>) from |
|---|
| 282 | <a href="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=64297">here</a>. |
|---|
| 283 | </li> |
|---|
| 284 | <li><p>Unzip the files into a directory of your choice. |
|---|
| 285 | A directory in the PATH is recommended for the <tt>*.exe</tt> files.</p> |
|---|
| 286 | </li> |
|---|
| 287 | </ul> |
|---|
| 288 | |
|---|
| 289 | |
|---|
| 290 | <b>After installing it using Method 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 above, you can read the |
|---|
| 291 | man pages, and try out the commands:</b> |
|---|
| 292 | |
|---|
| 293 | <pre> |
|---|
| 294 | man smartd.conf |
|---|
| 295 | man smartctl |
|---|
| 296 | man smartd |
|---|
| 297 | /usr/sbin/smartctl -s on -o on -S on /dev/hda (only root can do this) |
|---|
| 298 | /usr/sbin/smartctl -a /dev/hda (only root can do this)</pre> |
|---|
| 299 | |
|---|
| 300 | <p>Note that the default location for the manual pages are |
|---|
| 301 | <tt>/usr/share/man/man5</tt> and <tt>/usr/share/man/man8</tt>.  If |
|---|
| 302 | "<tt>man</tt>" doesn't find them, then you may need to add |
|---|
| 303 | <tt>/usr/share/man</tt> to your <tt>MANPATH</tt> environment |
|---|
| 304 | variable.</p> |
|---|
| 305 | |
|---|
| 306 | <p>The Windows package (see Method 6 above) provides preformatted man pages |
|---|
| 307 | in <tt>*.html</tt> and <tt>*.txt</tt> format.</p> |
|---|
| 308 | |
|---|
| 309 | <hr size="2" /> |
|---|
| 310 | |
|---|
| 311 | <a name="PROBLEMS"></a><b>Serious Problem Reports</b> |
|---|
| 312 | <p>If a serious problem gets reported to us, it gets added to the |
|---|
| 313 | <a href="http://smartmontools.cvs.sourceforge.net/smartmontools/sm5/WARNINGS?view=markup"> |
|---|
| 314 | WARNINGS</a> file in smartmontools. So far there are only a few problem systems listed.</p> |
|---|
| 315 | |
|---|
| 316 | <hr size="2" /> |
|---|
| 317 | |
|---|
| 318 | <a name="FAQ"></a><b>Frequently Asked Questions</b> |
|---|
| 319 | |
|---|
| 320 | <p>If your question is not here, please <a href="mailto:smartmontools-support@lists.sourceforge.net">email |
|---|
| 321 | me</a>.</p> |
|---|
| 322 | |
|---|
| 323 | <ul> |
|---|
| 324 | <li><b>Is the smartmontools File Download/Mail List/Mail Archive/CVS server broken?</b> |
|---|
| 325 | |
|---|
| 326 | <p>SourceForge is a free service, which supports a very large number of |
|---|
| 327 | users and projects. Please check the <a |
|---|
| 328 | href="http://sourceforge.net/docman/display_doc.php?docid=2352&group_id=1"> |
|---|
| 329 | SourceForge Site Status Page</a> to see the maintenance schedule and to |
|---|
| 330 | learn if SourceForge is experiencing unscheduled system outages or other |
|---|
| 331 | problems.</p> |
|---|
| 332 | |
|---|
| 333 | <p> |
|---|
| 334 | <a name="altmail"></a>Alternative mailing-list archives are provided by |
|---|
| 335 | <a href="http://gmane.org/find.php?list=smartmontools">Gmane</a> and MARC (<a |
|---|
| 336 | href="http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=smartmontools-support">smartmontools-support</a> |
|---|
| 337 | and <a |
|---|
| 338 | href="http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=smartmontools-database">smartmontools-database</a>).</p> |
|---|
| 339 | |
|---|
| 340 | </li> |
|---|
| 341 | |
|---|
| 342 | <li><b>What do I do if I have problems, or need support?  Suppose |
|---|
| 343 | I want to become a developer, or suggest some new extensions?</b> |
|---|
| 344 | |
|---|
| 345 | <p>First, search the support mailing list archives to see if your |
|---|
| 346 | question has been answered. Instructions are in the following |
|---|
| 347 | paragraph. If you don't find an answer there, then please send an |
|---|
| 348 | email to the <a |
|---|
| 349 | href="http://lists.sourceforge.net/mailman/listinfo/smartmontools-support">smartmontools-support |
|---|
| 350 | mailing list</a>. This is a moderated forum: you are not |
|---|
| 351 | required to subscribe to the list in order to post your question. |
|---|
| 352 | </p> |
|---|
| 353 | |
|---|
| 354 | <p>To search the email archives, first go to the <a |
|---|
| 355 | href="http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?forum=smartmontools-support"> |
|---|
| 356 | mailing list archive</a>. In the top left corner you will see a |
|---|
| 357 | search box: use <b>Mailing List</b> as the type of search. This tool |
|---|
| 358 | works very well.</p> |
|---|
| 359 | |
|---|
| 360 | <p>Note that from time to time SourceForge has mailing list problems |
|---|
| 361 | and you'll get a message telling you that <i>Either your mailing list |
|---|
| 362 | name was misspelled or your mailing list has not been archived yet. If |
|---|
| 363 | this list has just been created, please retry in 2-4 hours</i>. If |
|---|
| 364 | this happens, you'll have to try again later. Or use <a |
|---|
| 365 | href="#altmail">alternative</a> (and usually up to date) email |
|---|
| 366 | archives. |
|---|
| 367 | </p> |
|---|
| 368 | |
|---|
| 369 | </li> |
|---|
| 370 | |
|---|
| 371 | <li><b>What are the future plans for smartmontools?</b> |
|---|
| 372 | |
|---|
| 373 | <p>My plan is that smartmontools-5.x will support ATA/ATAPI-5 |
|---|
| 374 | disks.  Eventually, we'll do smartmontools-6.x to support |
|---|
| 375 | ATA/ATAPI-6 disks, smartmontools-7.x for the ATA/ATAPI-7 standard, and |
|---|
| 376 | so on.  The "x" will denote revision level, as bugs get found and |
|---|
| 377 | fixed, and as enhancements get added.  If it's possible to maintain |
|---|
| 378 | backwards compatibility, that would be nice, but I don't know if it will |
|---|
| 379 | be possible or practical.</p></li> |
|---|
| 380 | |
|---|
| 381 | <li><b>Why are you doing this?</b> |
|---|
| 382 | |
|---|
| 383 | <p>My research group at U. Wisconsin - Milwaukee runs a <a |
|---|
| 384 | href="http://www.lsc-group.phys.uwm.edu/beowulf/medusa/">beowulf |
|---|
| 385 | cluster</a> with 600 ATA-5 and -6 disks (300 IBM and 300 |
|---|
| 386 | Maxtor).  We have more than 50 TB of data stored on the |
|---|
| 387 | system.  I also help out with a <a |
|---|
| 388 | href="http://pandora.aei.mpg.de/merlin/"> cluster</a> at the Albert |
|---|
| 389 | Einstein Institute that has 540 IBM ATA-6 disks (65 TB |
|---|
| 390 | total). It's nice to have advanced warning when a disk is going to |
|---|
| 391 | fail.</p></li> |
|---|
| 392 | |
|---|
| 393 | <li><b>Where can I find distribution-specific bug reports?</b> |
|---|
| 394 | <p> |
|---|
| 395 | The smartmontools package supports a number of different operating |
|---|
| 396 | systems. Some of those operating systems are also distributed by |
|---|
| 397 | multiple sources, and some of these maintain a database of bug |
|---|
| 398 | reports. Here are links: |
|---|
| 399 | </p> |
|---|
| 400 | |
|---|
| 401 | <ul> |
|---|
| 402 | <li><a href="https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/buglist.cgi?bug_status=UNCONFIRMED&bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&bug_status=NEEDINFO&bug_status=MODIFIED&bug_status=CLOSED&field0-0-0=product&type0-0-0=substring&value0-0-0=smartctl&field0-0-1=component&type0-0-1=substring&value0-0-1=smartctl&field0-0-2=short_desc&type0-0-2=substring&value0-0-2=smartctl&field0-0-3=status_whiteboard&type0-0-3=substring&value0-0-3=smartctl&field0-0-4=product&type0-0-4=substring&value0-0-4=smartd&field0-0-5=component&type0-0-5=substring&value0-0-5=smartd&field0-0-6=short_desc&type0-0-6=substring&value0-0-6=smartd&field0-0-7=status_whiteboard&type0-0-7=substring&value0-0-7=smartd&field0-0-8=product&type0-0-8=substring&value0-0-8=smartsuite&field0-0-9=component&type0-0-9=substring&value0-0-9=smartsuite&field0-0-10=short_desc&type0-0-10=substring&value0-0-10=smartsuite&field0-0-11=status_whiteboard&type0-0-11=substring&value0-0-11=smartsuite&field0-0-12=product&type0-0-12=substring&value0-0-12=smartmontools&field0-0-13=component&type0-0-13=substring&value0-0-13=smartmontools&field0-0-14=short_desc&type0-0-14=substring&value0-0-14=smartmontools&field0-0-15=status_whiteboard&type0-0-15=substring&value0-0-15=smartmontools">Redhat/Fedora Bugzilla Database (Linux)</a> </li> |
|---|
| 403 | <li><a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?which=pkg&data=smartmontools&archive=no">Debian Bug Database (Linux)</a></li> |
|---|
| 404 | <li><a href="http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=UNCONFIRMED&bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&field0-0-0=product&type0-0-0=substring&value0-0-0=smartmontools&field0-0-1=component&type0-0-1=substring&value0-0-1=smartmontools&field0-0-2=short_desc&type0-0-2=substring&value0-0-2=smartmontools&field0-0-3=status_whiteboard&type0-0-3=substring&value0-0-3=smartmontools">Gentoo Bug Database (Linux)</a></li> |
|---|
| 405 | <li><a href="http://www.netbsd.org/cgi-bin/query-pr-list.pl?text=smartctl&state=open&state=feedback&state=analyzed&state=suspended">NetBSD smartctl bug database</a></li> |
|---|
| 406 | <li><a href="http://www.netbsd.org/cgi-bin/query-pr-list.pl?text=smartd&state=open&state=feedback&state=analyzed&state=suspended">NetBSD smartd bug database</a></li> |
|---|
| 407 | <li><a href="http://www.netbsd.org/cgi-bin/query-pr-list.pl?text=smartmontools&state=open&state=feedback&state=analyzed&state=suspended">NetBSD smartmontools bug database</a></li> |
|---|
| 408 | </ul> |
|---|
| 409 | <p> |
|---|
| 410 | If you can provide additional distribution or OS-specific bug-database links, please send an email to smartmontools-support. |
|---|
| 411 | </p></li> |
|---|
| 412 | |
|---|
| 413 | <li><b>I see some strange output from smartctl. What does it mean?</b> |
|---|
| 414 | |
|---|
| 415 | <p>The raw SMART attributes (temperature, power-on lifetime, and so |
|---|
| 416 | on) are stored in vendor-specific structures.  Sometime these are |
|---|
| 417 | strange.  Hitachi disks (at least some of them) store power-on |
|---|
| 418 | lifetime in minutes, rather than hours (see next question below).  IBM disks (at least some |
|---|
| 419 | of them) have three temperatures stored in the raw structure, not just |
|---|
| 420 | one.  And so on.  If you find strange output, or unknown |
|---|
| 421 | attributes, please send an email to <a href="http://lists.sourceforge.net/mailman/listinfo/smartmontools-support"> |
|---|
| 422 | smartmontools-support</a> and we'll help you try and figure it |
|---|
| 423 | out.</p></li> |
|---|
| 424 | |
|---|
| 425 | |
|---|
| 426 | <li><b>Why is my disk temperature s reported by smartd as 150 Celsius?</b> |
|---|
| 427 | <p> |
|---|
| 428 | It's not. Please read the end of the <b>smartd</b> man page (NOTES). |
|---|
| 429 | For example, in the message: <br/> |
|---|
| 430 | <b>'Device: /dev/hda, SMART Attribute: 194 Temperature_Celsius changed from 94 to 93'</b><br/> |
|---|
| 431 | the value given is the 'Normalized' not the 'Raw' Attribute value (the |
|---|
| 432 | disk temperature in this case is about 22 Celsius). The |
|---|
| 433 | <b>'-R'</b> and <b>'-r'</b> Directives modify this behavior, so that |
|---|
| 434 | the information is printed with the Raw values as well, for example: |
|---|
| 435 | <br/> |
|---|
| 436 | <b>'Device: /dev/hda, SMART Attribute: 194 Temperature_Celsius changed from 94 [Raw 22] to 93 [Raw 23]'</b><br/> |
|---|
| 437 | Here the Raw values are the actual disk temperatures in Celsius. The |
|---|
| 438 | way in which the Raw values are printed, and the names under which the |
|---|
| 439 | Attributes are reported, is governed by the various |
|---|
| 440 | <b>'-v Num,Description'</b> Directives described in the <b>smartd</b> |
|---|
| 441 | man page. Please see the <b>smartctl</b> manual page for further |
|---|
| 442 | explanation of the differences between Normalized and Raw Attribute |
|---|
| 443 | values. |
|---|
| 444 | </p> |
|---|
| 445 | </li> |
|---|
| 446 | |
|---|
| 447 | <li><b>What are the operating system requirements?</b> |
|---|
| 448 | <p> |
|---|
| 449 | Please see the first section of the |
|---|
| 450 | <a href="http://smartmontools.cvs.sourceforge.net/smartmontools/sm5/INSTALL?view=markup"> |
|---|
| 451 | INSTALL</a> file. |
|---|
| 452 | </p> |
|---|
| 453 | </li> |
|---|
| 454 | |
|---|
| 455 | <li><b>What Attributes does smartmontools not yet recognize?</b> |
|---|
| 456 | |
|---|
| 457 | <p>From Maxtor disks (99), (100), and (101). These are not used by |
|---|
| 458 | Maxtor in SMART revision 5. They will be used in SMART revision 6, |
|---|
| 459 | but the engineering group has not yet decided what to monitor with |
|---|
| 460 | these Attributes. |
|---|
| 461 | </p> |
|---|
| 462 | </li> |
|---|
| 463 | |
|---|
| 464 | <li><b>My Maxtor/Hitachi/Fujitsu disk is only a few days old, yet smartctl reports its age (Attribute 9) as thousands of hours!</b> |
|---|
| 465 | |
|---|
| 466 | <p>On recent disks, Maxtor has started to use Attribute 9 to |
|---|
| 467 | store the power-on disk lifetime in minutes rather than hours. In this case, use |
|---|
| 468 | the:<br/> |
|---|
| 469 | <tt>-v 9,minutes</tt><br/> |
|---|
| 470 | option to correctly display hours and minutes. |
|---|
| 471 | </p> |
|---|
| 472 | <p>Some models of Fujitsu disks use Attribute 9 to store |
|---|
| 473 | the power-on disk lifetime in seconds. In that case, use the:<br/> |
|---|
| 474 | <tt>-v 9,seconds</tt><br/> |
|---|
| 475 | option to correctly display hours, minutes and seconds.</p> |
|---|
| 476 | </li> |
|---|
| 477 | |
|---|
| 478 | <li><b>The power-on timer (Attribute 9 raw value) on my Maxtor disk acts strange.</b> |
|---|
| 479 | |
|---|
| 480 | <p>There are three related problems with Maxtor's SMART firmware: |
|---|
| 481 | </p> |
|---|
| 482 | |
|---|
| 483 | <p> |
|---|
| 484 | <b>1 - </b> On some Maxtor disks, the raw value of Attribute 9 (Power |
|---|
| 485 | On Time) is <i>supposed</i> to be minutes. But it advances at an |
|---|
| 486 | unpredictable rate, always more slowly than one count per minute. |
|---|
| 487 | This is because when the disk is in idle mode, the counter stops |
|---|
| 488 | advancing. This is only supposed to happen in standby mode. This |
|---|
| 489 | will be corrected in Maxtor product lines released after October 2004. |
|---|
| 490 | </p> |
|---|
| 491 | |
|---|
| 492 | <p> |
|---|
| 493 | <b>2 - </b> In Maxtor disks that use the raw value of Attribute 9 as a |
|---|
| 494 | minutes counter, only two bytes (of the six available) are used to |
|---|
| 495 | store the raw value. So it resets to zero once every 65536=2^16 |
|---|
| 496 | minutes, or about once every 1092 hours. This is fixed in all Maxtor |
|---|
| 497 | disks manufactured after July 2003, where the raw value was extended |
|---|
| 498 | to four bytes. |
|---|
| 499 | </p> |
|---|
| 500 | |
|---|
| 501 | <p> |
|---|
| 502 | <b>3 - </b> In Maxtor disks that use the raw value of Attribute 9 as a |
|---|
| 503 | minutes counter, the hour time-stamps in the self-test and ATA error |
|---|
| 504 | logs are calculated by right shifting 6 bits. This is equivalent to |
|---|
| 505 | dividing by 64 rather than by 60. As a result, the hour time stamps |
|---|
| 506 | in these logs advance 7% more slowly than they should. Thus, if you |
|---|
| 507 | do self-tests once per week at the same time, instead of the |
|---|
| 508 | time-stamps being 168 hours apart, they are 157 hours apart. This is |
|---|
| 509 | also fixed in all Maxtor disks manufactured after July 2003. |
|---|
| 510 | </p> |
|---|
| 511 | </li> |
|---|
| 512 | |
|---|
| 513 | <li><b>The time stamps in the self-test log of my Western Digital (WD) disk |
|---|
| 514 | don't correspond to the power-on time when the test was run</b> |
|---|
| 515 | |
|---|
| 516 | <p> |
|---|
| 517 | The self-test log timestamps in many WD disks roll back to zero every |
|---|
| 518 | 1092 hours (65536 minutes). This problem is due to a WD firmware bug. |
|---|
| 519 | The power-on lifetime in hours is correctly stored in Attribute |
|---|
| 520 | 9. However when the power-on lifetime is calculated for self-test log |
|---|
| 521 | entries, the lifetime in minutes is put into a 16-bit register then |
|---|
| 522 | divided by 60. The 16-bit register overflows and wraps around every |
|---|
| 523 | 1092 hours. |
|---|
| 524 | </p> |
|---|
| 525 | |
|---|
| 526 | <p>For WD drives that exhibit this firmware bug, the relationship between |
|---|
| 527 | Attribute 9's raw value (H) and the time-stamps in the self-test log (h) are given by:<br/> |
|---|
| 528 | Let H = power on hours as shown by Attribute 9 (correct)<br/> |
|---|
| 529 | Let M = 60*H (power on minutes, correct)<br/> |
|---|
| 530 | Let m = M mod 65536 (incorrect value of power on minutes)<br/> |
|---|
| 531 | Let h = m/60 (incorrect value of power on hours, shown in self-test log) |
|---|
| 532 | </p> |
|---|
| 533 | </li> |
|---|
| 534 | |
|---|
| 535 | <li><b>The (normalized) WORST Attribute values of my Western Digital |
|---|
| 536 | (WD) disk are <u>larger</u> than the (normalized) CURRENT Attribute |
|---|
| 537 | values</b> |
|---|
| 538 | <p>Western Digital firmware initializes SMART Attributes 10, 11, and |
|---|
| 539 | 199 after either 120 spin-ups or 8 power-on hours. Until that time, |
|---|
| 540 | they have the uninitialized value 253. |
|---|
| 541 | </p> |
|---|
| 542 | </li> |
|---|
| 543 | |
|---|
| 544 | <li><b>Where can I find manufacturer-specific disk-testing |
|---|
| 545 | utilities?</b> |
|---|
| 546 | |
|---|
| 547 | <p>A good listing of such utilities can be found <a |
|---|
| 548 | href="http://www.benchmarkhq.ru/english.html?/be_hdd2.html">here</a>. |
|---|
| 549 | Unfortunately most of these are for MS operating systems, but most can |
|---|
| 550 | be run from an MS-DOS boot disk or from the UBCD (Ultimate Boot CD, |
|---|
| 551 | see <a href="#bootable">below</a>). |
|---|
| 552 | </p> |
|---|
| 553 | |
|---|
| 554 | <p>Note: if you do run one of these utilities, and it identifies the |
|---|
| 555 | meanings of any SMART Attributes that are not known to smartmontools, |
|---|
| 556 | please report them to the mailing list above. |
|---|
| 557 | </p> |
|---|
| 558 | |
|---|
| 559 | <p>These utilities have an important role to fill. If your disk has |
|---|
| 560 | bad sectors (for example, as revealed by running self-tests with |
|---|
| 561 | smartmontools) and the disk is not able to recover the data from those |
|---|
| 562 | sectors, then the disk will <i>not</i> automatically reallocate those |
|---|
| 563 | damaged sectors from its set of spare sectors, because |
|---|
| 564 | forcing the reallocation to take place may entail some loss of data. |
|---|
| 565 | Because the commands that force such reallocation are |
|---|
| 566 | <i>Vendor Specific</i>, most manufactuers provide a utility for this |
|---|
| 567 | purpose. It may cause data loss but can repair damaged sectors (at |
|---|
| 568 | least, until it runs out of replacement sectors). |
|---|
| 569 | </p> |
|---|
| 570 | </li> |
|---|
| 571 | |
|---|
| 572 | <li><b>When I run <tt>smartd</tt>, the SYSLOG <tt>/var/log/messages</tt> |
|---|
| 573 | contains messages like this:</b> |
|---|
| 574 | <pre>smartd: Reading Device /dev/sdv |
|---|
| 575 | modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module block-major-65</pre> |
|---|
| 576 | |
|---|
| 577 | <p>This is because when <tt>smartd</tt> starts, if there is no |
|---|
| 578 | configuration file, it looks for all ATA and SCSI devices to monitor |
|---|
| 579 | (matching the pattern <tt>/dev/hd[a-t]</tt> or |
|---|
| 580 | <tt>/dev/sd[a-z]</tt>).  The log messages appear because your |
|---|
| 581 | system doesn't have most of these devices.</p> |
|---|
| 582 | |
|---|
| 583 | <p>The solution is simple: use the <tt>smartd</tt> configuration file |
|---|
| 584 | <tt>/etc/smartd.conf</tt> to specify which devices to monitor.</p></li> |
|---|
| 585 | |
|---|
| 586 | <li><b>What's the story on IBM SMART disks?</b> |
|---|
| 587 | |
|---|
| 588 | <p>Apparently some of the older SMART firmware on IBM disks can |
|---|
| 589 | interfere with the regular operation of the disk.  If you have this |
|---|
| 590 | problem, here are some links:<br/> |
|---|
| 591 | <a href="http://www.geocities.com/dtla_update/">Geocities Site</a>, |
|---|
| 592 | <a href="http://www-3.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=MIGR-42215">IBM Site #1</a>, |
|---|
| 593 | <a href="http://www-1.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=psg1MIGR-42215">IBM Site #2</a><br/> |
|---|
| 594 | to an IBM Firmware Upgrade that fixes the problem. |
|---|
| 595 | </p></li> |
|---|
| 596 | |
|---|
| 597 | <li><b>How can I check that the package hasn't been tampered with?</b> |
|---|
| 598 | |
|---|
| 599 | <p>Since the <tt>smartmontools</tt> utilities run as root, you might |
|---|
| 600 | be concerned about something harmful being embedded within |
|---|
| 601 | them. Starting with release 5.19 of <tt>smartmontools</tt>, the .rpm |
|---|
| 602 | files and tarball have been GPG signed. The tarball's fingerprint is |
|---|
| 603 | given in a file on the release page with a name like |
|---|
| 604 | <tt>smartmontools-5.32.tar.gz.asc</tt>. Please verify these using |
|---|
| 605 | the |
|---|
| 606 | <a href="SmartmontoolsSigningKey_2005.txt">Smartmontools GPG Signing Key (current)</a> |
|---|
| 607 | <a href="SmartmontoolsSigningKey.txt">Smartmontools GPG Signing Key (before 2005)</a> |
|---|
| 608 | </p></li> |
|---|
| 609 | |
|---|
| 610 | <li><b>Is there a bootable standalone CD or floppy that contains smartmontools?</b> |
|---|
| 611 | |
|---|
| 612 | <p>If you have a system that is showing signs of disk trouble (for |
|---|
| 613 | example, it's unbootable and the console is full of disk error |
|---|
| 614 | messages) it can be handy to have a version of smartmontools that can |
|---|
| 615 | be run off of a bootable CD or floppy to examine the disk's SMART data and run |
|---|
| 616 | self-tests. This is also useful if you want to run Captive Self-Tests |
|---|
| 617 | (the <b><tt>-<font size="+2">C</font></tt></b> option of |
|---|
| 618 | <b><tt>smartctl</tt></b> ) on disks that can not easily be unmounted, |
|---|
| 619 | such as those hosting the Operating System files. Or you can use |
|---|
| 620 | this to run <tt>smartctl</tt> on computers that don't use Linux as the |
|---|
| 621 | day-to-day operating system.</p> |
|---|
| 622 | |
|---|
| 623 | <p><a name="bootable"></a>Here is a list of such bootable CDs:</p> |
|---|
| 624 | <ul> |
|---|
| 625 | <li><a href="http://www.lnx-bbc.org/">LNX-BBC Bootable CD</a> </li> |
|---|
| 626 | <li><a href="http://www.stresslinux.org/">Stresslinux Bootable CD</a></li> |
|---|
| 627 | <li><a href="http://www.tux.org/pub/people/kent-robotti/looplinux/rip/">RIP (Recovery Is Possible) Bootable CD</a></li> |
|---|
| 628 | <li><a href="http://www.sysresccd.org/">SystemRescueCd</a></li> |
|---|
| 629 | <li><a href="http://www.gpstudio.com/stux/">STUX Bootable CD</a></li> |
|---|
| 630 | <li><a href="http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html">Knoppix Bootable CD</a> |
|---|
| 631 | (Version 3.6 contains smartmontools 5.32, older versions contain |
|---|
| 632 | <a href="#differfromsmartsuite">smartsuite</a>)</li> |
|---|
| 633 | <li><a href="http://www.grml.org/">Grml Bootable CD</a> |
|---|
| 634 | (Knoppix and Debian based CD without KDE and OpenOffice but about 800 |
|---|
| 635 | <a href="http://www.grml.org/features/list.html">packages</a> added)</li> |
|---|
| 636 | <li><a href="http://smartlinux.sourceforge.net/">S.M.A.R.T. Linux</a> |
|---|
| 637 | (a bootable FLOPPY containing smartmontools!)</li> |
|---|
| 638 | <li><a href="http://ubcd.sourceforge.net/">Ultimate Boot CD</a> |
|---|
| 639 | (The "Full" version of UBCD 3.0 contains |
|---|
| 640 | <a href="http://www.inside-security.de/insert_en.html">INSERT</a> with smartmontools 5.32 |
|---|
| 641 | <a href="http://ubcd.sourceforge.net/insert/start.html#TOCChanges">added</a>)</li> |
|---|
| 642 | <li><a href="http://www.911cd.net/forums/lofiversion/index.php/t13459.html">Smartctl Plugin</a> |
|---|
| 643 | for <a href="http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/">BartPE bootable live windows CD</a></li> |
|---|
| 644 | </ul> |
|---|
| 645 | <p> |
|---|
| 646 | Please let me know if there are others, and I will add them to this |
|---|
| 647 | list. |
|---|
| 648 | </p> |
|---|
| 649 | </li> |
|---|
| 650 | |
|---|
| 651 | <li><b>Can I monitor ATA disks behind SCSI RAID controllers?</b> |
|---|
| 652 | |
|---|
| 653 | <p> |
|---|
| 654 | From release 5.1-18, smartmontools fully supports 3ware SCSI RAID |
|---|
| 655 | controllers that use ATA disks internally. To pass commands through |
|---|
| 656 | the 3ware controller, use the smartmontools <b>-d 3ware,N</b> option |
|---|
| 657 | or Directive. |
|---|
| 658 | </p> |
|---|
| 659 | <p> |
|---|
| 660 | 3ware Linux device drivers (<tt>3w-xxxx</tt>) versions <b>1.02.00.036</b> |
|---|
| 661 | and earlier do not return the SMART HEALTH STATUS (smartmontools |
|---|
| 662 | <b>-H</b>) of the disks. In addition, the ENABLE AUTOMATIC OFFLINE and |
|---|
| 663 | ENABLE ATTRIBUTE AUTOSAVE commands (smartmontools <b>-o on</b> and |
|---|
| 664 | <b>-S on</b>) can not be passed through the driver to the disks. |
|---|
| 665 | Later driver versions support <i>all</i> of these commands. You may: |
|---|
| 666 | </p> |
|---|
| 667 | <ul> |
|---|
| 668 | <li>use version <b>1.02.00.037</b> or greater of the <tt>3w-xxxx</tt> driver, or</li> |
|---|
| 669 | <li><a href="3w-xxxx.txt">patch</a> earlier 3ware <tt>3w-xxxx</tt> drivers so that |
|---|
| 670 | these commands reach the disks, or</li> |
|---|
| 671 | <li> use an <b>unpatched</b> earlier <tt>3w-xxxx</tt> driver (which won't pass these |
|---|
| 672 | commands to the disks but will instead print |
|---|
| 673 | harmless warning messages to SYSLOG).</li> |
|---|
| 674 | </ul> |
|---|
| 675 | <p> |
|---|
| 676 | To see if your system's <tt>3w-xxxx</tt> driver has been patched, give the |
|---|
| 677 | command:<br/> |
|---|
| 678 | <tt>smartctl -H -S on -o on -d 3ware,? /dev/sd?</tt> |
|---|
| 679 | <br/> |
|---|
| 680 | If you |
|---|
| 681 | have an unpatched kernel, you'll see warning messages prompting you to |
|---|
| 682 | patch the kernel.</p> |
|---|
| 683 | <p> |
|---|
| 684 | The 3ware <tt>3w-xxxx</tt> version 1.02.00.037 driver first appeared |
|---|
| 685 | in kernel version 2.6.0-test5-bk11 on 24 September 2003 and in kernel |
|---|
| 686 | version 2.4.23-bk2 on 3 December 2003. It was officially released on |
|---|
| 687 | the 3ware web site on December 19, 2003 as part of their |
|---|
| 688 | driver/firmware/utility package version 7.7.0. |
|---|
| 689 | </p> |
|---|
| 690 | |
|---|
| 691 | <p> |
|---|
| 692 | Note (added 29 July 2004): starting with smartmontools (experimental) |
|---|
| 693 | release 5.33, one can also access SMART data from drives behind 3ware |
|---|
| 694 | controllers using the (character) devices /dev/twe0-15. This should |
|---|
| 695 | work correctly even with older versions of the 3w-xxxx driver. One can |
|---|
| 696 | also access SMART data from drives behind 3ware 9000-series |
|---|
| 697 | controllers (3w-9xxx driver) using the (character) devices |
|---|
| 698 | /dev/twa0-15. |
|---|
| 699 | </p> |
|---|
| 700 | |
|---|
| 701 | </li> |
|---|
| 702 | |
|---|
| 703 | <li><a name="windows"></a><b>Does it work on Windows?</b> |
|---|
| 704 | |
|---|
| 705 | <p>Yes, finally it does. A windows port of smartctl 5.26 by |
|---|
| 706 | <a href="http://sourceforge.net/users/chrfranke/">Christian Franke</a> |
|---|
| 707 | was first checked in 2004/02/23 on CVS branch |
|---|
| 708 | <a href="http://smartmontools.cvs.sourceforge.net/smartmontools/sm5/?pathrev=RELEASE_5_26_WIN32_BRANCH"> |
|---|
| 709 | RELEASE_5_26_WIN32_BRANCH</a> and has been merged to the CVS trunk later.</p> |
|---|
| 710 | |
|---|
| 711 | <p>The <a href="http://www.cygwin.com/">Cygwin</a> environment can be |
|---|
| 712 | used to built both Cygwin and Windows (using <a href="http://www.mingw.org/">MinGW</a>) |
|---|
| 713 | versions of smartctl and smartd. |
|---|
| 714 | Installation instructions for binary distributions can be found |
|---|
| 715 | <a href="#CygwinInstall">here</a> and <a href="#WindowsInstall">here</a>.</p> |
|---|
| 716 | |
|---|
| 717 | <p>Some code showing how to access SMART data under Windows 98, NT 4, |
|---|
| 718 | 2000, and XP can be found <a |
|---|
| 719 | href="ftp://ftp.heise.de/pub/ct/listings/0207-218.zip">here</a>. |
|---|
| 720 | An example program from Microsoft can be found |
|---|
| 721 | <a href="http://download.microsoft.com/download/winddk/sample3/9x/W9X/EN-US/SmartApp.exe"> |
|---|
| 722 | here</a> (the related knowledge base article 208048 is no longer available). |
|---|
| 723 | Reference information about the I/O requests to access SMART data is |
|---|
| 724 | <a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/storage/hh/storage/k307_8c974d08-3752-4442-82a5-cc13835ba482.xml.asp"> |
|---|
| 725 | here</a> and |
|---|
| 726 | <a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/storage/hh/storage/k307_2b043284-934c-4440-a4a4-6078f1bc845d.xml.asp"> |
|---|
| 727 | here</a>. |
|---|
| 728 | A related newsgroup thread (with pointers to additional documentation, |
|---|
| 729 | etc.) is <a |
|---|
| 730 | href="http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&th=18cdac9d90f6bda1&rnum=1">here</a>. |
|---|
| 731 | </p> |
|---|
| 732 | </li> |
|---|
| 733 | |
|---|
| 734 | <li><b>Why did the release version scheme change?</b> |
|---|
| 735 | |
|---|
| 736 | <p>It was non-standard. So with the move to GNU Autoconf and GNU |
|---|
| 737 | Automake it changed from 5.X-Y (where X and Y are one or more digits) |
|---|
| 738 | to 5.Y. Starting with the first release, and moving forward in time, the releases are |
|---|
| 739 | numbered as follows:<br/> |
|---|
| 740 | <tt> |
|---|
| 741 | 5.0-1, |
|---|
| 742 | 5.0-2, |
|---|
| 743 | ..., |
|---|
| 744 | 5.0-45, |
|---|
| 745 | 5.1-1, |
|---|
| 746 | ..., |
|---|
| 747 | 5.1-18, |
|---|
| 748 | 5.19, |
|---|
| 749 | 5.20, |
|---|
| 750 | ... |
|---|
| 751 | </tt> |
|---|
| 752 | </p> |
|---|
| 753 | </li> |
|---|
| 754 | |
|---|
| 755 | <li><a name="FAQ-database"></a><b>My ATA drive is not in the smartctl/smartd database. Does this break anything? How do I get it added?</b> |
|---|
| 756 | <p> |
|---|
| 757 | If your drive is not in the database, then the |
|---|
| 758 | <i>names</i> of the Attributes (displayed in the <tt>ATTRIBUTE_NAME</tt> column of |
|---|
| 759 | <tt>smartctl -A /dev/hd?</tt>) and the <i>format</i> of the the raw Attribute |
|---|
| 760 | values shown in the <tt>RAW_VALUE</tt> column may be incorrect. This |
|---|
| 761 | is mostly cosmetic: the essential drive health monitoring/testing |
|---|
| 762 | functionality of <b>smartmontools</b> does <i>not</i> depend upon the |
|---|
| 763 | database. |
|---|
| 764 | </p> |
|---|
| 765 | |
|---|
| 766 | <p> |
|---|
| 767 | <b> |
|---|
| 768 | If your drive is not in the database, pleaes check <a |
|---|
| 769 | href="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=64297">here</a> |
|---|
| 770 | to be sure that you are using the latest smartmontools release. Each |
|---|
| 771 | new release has additional drives added to the database. Please do |
|---|
| 772 | not submit a new drive for the database without checking to see if it |
|---|
| 773 | is already in the database of the current smartmontools release |
|---|
| 774 | version. |
|---|
| 775 | </b> |
|---|
| 776 | </p> |
|---|
| 777 | |
|---|
| 778 | <p> |
|---|
| 779 | <b> If your drive is not in the database of the current release,</b> |
|---|
| 780 | to have it added to the database, first use the command:<br/> |
|---|
| 781 | <tt>smartctl -t short /dev/hd?</tt><br/> to run a short self-test on |
|---|
| 782 | the drive, and wait a few minutes for the test to complete. Then |
|---|
| 783 | email the entire output from:<br/> <tt>smartctl -a /dev/hd?</tt><br/> |
|---|
| 784 | to <a |
|---|
| 785 | href="https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/smartmontools-database">smartmontools-database</a> |
|---|
| 786 | as a plain-text ASCII email attachment (file type: ".txt"). The timestamp |
|---|
| 787 | in the self-test log will help us to determine whether Attribute 9 is |
|---|
| 788 | being used to store the lifetime in hours, minutes, or seconds. |
|---|
| 789 | </p> |
|---|
| 790 | <p> |
|---|
| 791 | If you need to use any of the vendor-specific display options |
|---|
| 792 | (<tt>-v</tt> options) with the drive, or if any of the Attributes are |
|---|
| 793 | behaving strangely, please include that information as well. |
|---|
| 794 | </p> |
|---|
| 795 | </li> |
|---|
| 796 | |
|---|
| 797 | <li><b>My ATA drive is failing its self-tests, but its SMART health status is 'PASS'. What's going on?</b> |
|---|
| 798 | |
|---|
| 799 | <p> |
|---|
| 800 | If your ATA drive supports self-tests, you should run them on a |
|---|
| 801 | regular basis, for example one per week: |
|---|
| 802 | <br/><tt>smartctl -t long /dev/hd?</tt><br/> |
|---|
| 803 | After the test has completed, you should examine the results with: |
|---|
| 804 | <br/><tt>smartctl -l selftest /dev/hd?</tt><br/> |
|---|
| 805 | </p> |
|---|
| 806 | |
|---|
| 807 | <p> |
|---|
| 808 | If the drive fails a self-test, but still has 'PASS' SMART health |
|---|
| 809 | status, this usually means that there is a corrupted sector on the |
|---|
| 810 | disk, which can not be read. If the disk were able to read that |
|---|
| 811 | sector of data, even once, then the disk firmware would mark the |
|---|
| 812 | sector as 'bad' and then allocate a spare sectors to replace it. But |
|---|
| 813 | if the disk can't read the sector even once, then it won't reallocate |
|---|
| 814 | the sector, in hopes of being able, at some time in the future, to |
|---|
| 815 | read the data from it. See <a |
|---|
| 816 | href="http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/BadBlockHowTo.txt">BadBlockHowTo</a> |
|---|
| 817 | for instructions about how to force this sector to reallocate (Linux |
|---|
| 818 | only). |
|---|
| 819 | </p> |
|---|
| 820 | <p> |
|---|
| 821 | The disk still has passing health status because the firmware has not |
|---|
| 822 | found other signs of trouble, such as a failing servo. |
|---|
| 823 | </p> |
|---|
| 824 | <p> |
|---|
| 825 | Such disks can often be repaired by using the disk manufaturer's 'disk |
|---|
| 826 | evaluation and repair' utility. Beware: this may force reallocation |
|---|
| 827 | of the lost sector and thus corrupt or destroy any file system on the |
|---|
| 828 | disk. See <a |
|---|
| 829 | href="http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/BadBlockHowTo.txt">BadBlockHowTo</a> |
|---|
| 830 | for generic Linux instructions. |
|---|
| 831 | </p> |
|---|
| 832 | |
|---|
| 833 | </li> |
|---|
| 834 | |
|---|
| 835 | <li><b>smartd is warning that my ATA disk has unreadable or uncorrectable or pending sectors. What's going on?</b> |
|---|
| 836 | |
|---|
| 837 | <p> |
|---|
| 838 | Disk drives store data in blocks (sectors) of 512 bytes. Each 512 |
|---|
| 839 | bytes has additional bytes appended to it (usually 40 to 60) which are |
|---|
| 840 | used internally by the disk firmware for error checking/detection and |
|---|
| 841 | correction. These are called ECC bytes. |
|---|
| 842 | </p> |
|---|
| 843 | <p> |
|---|
| 844 | Sometimes the data in a sector gets corrupted. This can happen |
|---|
| 845 | because a speck of dust scratched the disk, or because the disk was |
|---|
| 846 | powered down while writing data to that sector, or for other reasons. |
|---|
| 847 | Usually the ECC bytes can be used to correct the corrupted data. |
|---|
| 848 | However if the ECC bytes are inconsistent or can't be used to correct |
|---|
| 849 | the bad data, then the 512 bytes of data are lost. Such a sector is |
|---|
| 850 | called unreadable or uncorrectable. |
|---|
| 851 | </p> |
|---|
| 852 | <p> |
|---|
| 853 | If your disk has an unreadable sector, this means that some of your |
|---|
| 854 | data can't be retrieved. You can force the disk to replace the |
|---|
| 855 | unreadable sector with a spare good sector, but only at the price of |
|---|
| 856 | losing the 512 bytes of data forever. |
|---|
| 857 | </p> |
|---|
| 858 | <p> |
|---|
| 859 | Disks with uncorrectable sectors can often be repaired by using the |
|---|
| 860 | disk manufaturer's 'disk evaluation and repair' utility (see previous |
|---|
| 861 | FAQ entry). Beware: this may force reallocation of the lost sector |
|---|
| 862 | and thus corrupt or destroy any file system on the disk. See <a |
|---|
| 863 | href="http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/BadBlockHowTo.txt">BadBlockHowTo</a> |
|---|
| 864 | for generic Linux instructions. |
|---|
| 865 | </p> |
|---|
| 866 | <p> |
|---|
| 867 | Normally when an uncorrectable sector is found, the disk puts this |
|---|
| 868 | onto a 'pending sector list' to indicate that it should be replaced |
|---|
| 869 | with a spare good sector. However this replacement won't take place |
|---|
| 870 | until either the disk can read the data on the bad sector, or is |
|---|
| 871 | commanded to write new data to that bad sector. |
|---|
| 872 | </p> |
|---|
| 873 | |
|---|
| 874 | </li> |
|---|
| 875 | |
|---|
| 876 | |
|---|
| 877 | <li><b>My computer's BIOS has a SMART enable/disable setting. What |
|---|
| 878 | does it do, and how should I set it?</b> |
|---|
| 879 | <p> |
|---|
| 880 | Some type of BIOS can check the SMART health status of a disk at |
|---|
| 881 | bootup: the equivalent of '<tt>smartctl -H /dev/hd?</tt>'. This one-time check on |
|---|
| 882 | bootup is done if the BIOS SMART setting is set to 'ENABLE', and is |
|---|
| 883 | not done if the setting is set to 'DISABLE'. |
|---|
| 884 | </p> |
|---|
| 885 | |
|---|
| 886 | <p> |
|---|
| 887 | If this one-time check is done, and the disk's health status is found |
|---|
| 888 | to be 'FAIL', then typically the BIOS will display an error message |
|---|
| 889 | and refuse to boot the machine. |
|---|
| 890 | </p> |
|---|
| 891 | |
|---|
| 892 | <p> |
|---|
| 893 | For the proper functioning of smartmontools, either BIOS setting may |
|---|
| 894 | be used. |
|---|
| 895 | </p> |
|---|
| 896 | </li> |
|---|
| 897 | |
|---|
| 898 | |
|---|
| 899 | <li><b>My Fedora Core Linux system displays the startup message: smartd [FAILED]</b> |
|---|
| 900 | <p> |
|---|
| 901 | Fedora Core is distributed with a smartd configuration file |
|---|
| 902 | /etc/smartd.conf that monitors the first IDE disk /dev/hda. If this |
|---|
| 903 | device does not exist (or lacks SMART capability) you will get the |
|---|
| 904 | error message above. Look in SYSLOG (/var/log/messages) for |
|---|
| 905 | additional details about what is going wrong. |
|---|
| 906 | </p> |
|---|
| 907 | <p> |
|---|
| 908 | The solution: If your system has only SCSI disks, or has IDE disk(s) |
|---|
| 909 | on a non-primary controller, just edit /etc/smartd.conf to reflect the |
|---|
| 910 | correct location of the drive(s). Please also read the 'smartd.conf' |
|---|
| 911 | man page for additional information. |
|---|
| 912 | </p> |
|---|
| 913 | </li> |
|---|
| 914 | |
|---|
| 915 | <li><b>Attribute 194 (Temperature Celsius) behaves strangely on my Seagate disk</b> |
|---|
| 916 | <p> |
|---|
| 917 | Some Seagate disks store the current temperature Celsius in both the |
|---|
| 918 | RAW and NORMALIZED Attribute 194 values, and the maximum lifetime |
|---|
| 919 | temperature in Celsius in the WORST value. Since cooler is better, |
|---|
| 920 | this means that in this case, <i>lower</i> NORMALIZED Attribute values |
|---|
| 921 | are farther from failure, and that over time the WORST Attribute |
|---|
| 922 | values get <i>larger</i>, not <i>smaller</i> (as with other |
|---|
| 923 | Attributes). |
|---|
| 924 | </p> |
|---|
| 925 | </li> |
|---|
| 926 | |
|---|
| 927 | <li><b>What's this smartctl message mean?: Warning: ATA error count 9 inconsistent with error log pointer 5</b> |
|---|
| 928 | <p> |
|---|
| 929 | The ATA error log is stored in a circular buffer, and the ATA |
|---|
| 930 | specifications are unambiguous about how the entries should be |
|---|
| 931 | ordered. This warning message means that the disk's firmware does not |
|---|
| 932 | strictly obey the ATA specification regarding the ordering of the |
|---|
| 933 | error log entries in the circular buffer. Smartmontools will correct |
|---|
| 934 | for this oversight, so this warning message can be safely ignored by |
|---|
| 935 | users. (On the other hand, firmware engineers: please read the ATA |
|---|
| 936 | specs more closely then fix your code!). |
|---|
| 937 | </p> |
|---|
| 938 | </li> |
|---|
| 939 | </ul> |
|---|
| 940 | |
|---|
| 941 | <hr size="2" /><a name="scsi"></a><b>SCSI disks and tapes |
|---|
| 942 | (TapeAlert)</b> |
|---|
| 943 | <p>Smartmontools for SCSI disks and tapes (including medium changers) is |
|---|
| 944 | discussed on a separate <a href="smartmontools_scsi.html">page</a>. |
|---|
| 945 | </p> |
|---|
| 946 | |
|---|
| 947 | <hr size="2" /><a name="testinghelp"></a><b>FireWire, USB, and SATA |
|---|
| 948 | disks/systems</b> |
|---|
| 949 | <p>As for USB and FireWire (ieee1394) disks and tape drives, the news |
|---|
| 950 | is not good. They appear to Linux as SCSI devices but their |
|---|
| 951 | implementations do not usually support those SCSI commands needed by |
|---|
| 952 | smartmontools. The ieee1394 consortium recently certified the <span |
|---|
| 953 | style="font-style: italic;">first</span> external enclosure (containing |
|---|
| 954 | a ATA disk and a protocol bridge) as being compliant to the relevant |
|---|
| 955 | standards. Such devices have already been on the market for about 3 |
|---|
| 956 | years and they tend to only support the bare minimum of commands |
|---|
| 957 | needed for device operation (i.e. SMART support is an unsupported |
|---|
| 958 | extra).<br /> |
|---|
| 959 | </p> |
|---|
| 960 | <p>Smartmontools should work correctly with SATA drives under both |
|---|
| 961 | Linux 2.4 and 2.6 kernels, <i>if</i> you use the standard IDE drivers |
|---|
| 962 | in <tt>drivers/ide</tt>. If you use the new <tt>libata</tt> drivers, |
|---|
| 963 | it won't work correctly because <tt>libata</tt> doesn't yet support |
|---|
| 964 | the needed ATA-passthrough ioctl() calls. Jeff Garzik, the |
|---|
| 965 | <tt>libata</tt> developer, says that this support will be added to |
|---|
| 966 | libata in the future. When this happens, we'll add support to |
|---|
| 967 | smartmontools for a new SATA/libata device type <tt>'-d sata'</tt>. |
|---|
| 968 | Typically, to force an SATA disk to run using the standard |
|---|
| 969 | (non-libata) drivers, you must use the BIOS to select "legacy mode" |
|---|
| 970 | for the controller. If the IDE driver doesn't support your particular |
|---|
| 971 | SATA controller, or the controller doesn't have a legacy interface, |
|---|
| 972 | then only libata can be used. Unless the hard disk controller on the |
|---|
| 973 | system motherboard is Intel, VIA or nVidia, standard IDE drivers may |
|---|
| 974 | not work |
|---|
| 975 | </p> |
|---|
| 976 | <p>Note: an unofficial <a |
|---|
| 977 | href="http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&safe=off&threadm=2yY8S-4ps-33%40gated-at.bofh.it&rnum=1&prev=/groups%3Fq%3DLinville%2520ioctls%2520SMART%26num%3D100%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26safe%3Doff%26sa%3DN%26tab%3Dwg"> |
|---|
| 978 | patch to libata</a> that allows smartmontools to be used |
|---|
| 979 | with the standard '-d ata' device type was posted to the linux |
|---|
| 980 | kernel mailing list at the end of August 2004. The patch is included in the |
|---|
| 981 | <a href="http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/jgarzik/libata/">libata-dev |
|---|
| 982 | patchset</a> that can be applied to a recent Linux kernel (>= 2.6.9). With a |
|---|
| 983 | SATA disk driven by a libata driver, smartmontools can now be used by specifying both the |
|---|
| 984 | device type 'ata' and the SCSI device corresponding to this disk, for example, |
|---|
| 985 | <tt>smartctl -i -d ata /dev/sda</tt>. |
|---|
| 986 | The patch is still under development and it is probably best to make sure that |
|---|
| 987 | the disk is idle before trying smartmontools. |
|---|
| 988 | </p> |
|---|
| 989 | |
|---|
| 990 | |
|---|
| 991 | <hr size="2" /><a name="differfromsmartsuite"></a><b>How does |
|---|
| 992 | smartmontools differ from smartsuite?</b> |
|---|
| 993 | |
|---|
| 994 | <p>The smartsuite code was originally developed as a Senior Thesis by |
|---|
| 995 | Michael Cornwell at the Concurrent Systems Laboratory (now part of the |
|---|
| 996 | <a href="http://ssrc.soe.ucsc.edu/">Storage Systems Research |
|---|
| 997 | Center</a>), Jack Baskin School of Engineering, University of |
|---|
| 998 | California, Santa Cruz. |
|---|
| 999 | You can find some information about the original smartsuite project here: |
|---|
| 1000 | <a href="http://www.ucsc.edu/news_events/press_releases/archive/99-00/09-99/smart_software.htm">Press Release 1</a>, |
|---|
| 1001 | <a href="http://www.santa-cruz.com/archive/1999/September/22/local/stories/5local.htm">Press Release 2</a>, |
|---|
| 1002 | <a href="http://www.ucsc.edu/currents/99-00/09-27/smart.html">Press Release 3</a>. |
|---|
| 1003 | </p> |
|---|
| 1004 | |
|---|
| 1005 | <p> |
|---|
| 1006 | <a href="http://csl.cse.ucsc.edu/smart.shtml">According to UCSC</a> |
|---|
| 1007 | smartsuite is no longer maintained; the last release was in 2001. |
|---|
| 1008 | </p> |
|---|
| 1009 | |
|---|
| 1010 | <p>Smartmontools was derived directly from smartsuite.  It differs |
|---|
| 1011 | from smartsuite in that it supports the ATA/ATAPI-5 standard.  So |
|---|
| 1012 | for example <tt>smartctl</tt> from smartsuite has no facility for |
|---|
| 1013 | printing the SMART self-test logs, and doesn't print timestamp |
|---|
| 1014 | information in the most usable way.  The <tt>smartctl</tt> utility |
|---|
| 1015 | in smartmontools has added functionality for this (<tt>-q, -l selftest,-S, |
|---|
| 1016 | -T, -v and -m</tt> options), updated documentation, and also fixes small |
|---|
| 1017 | technical bugs in smartsuite. [One example: smartsuite does not actually use the |
|---|
| 1018 | ATA SMART RETURN STATUS command to find out the health status of a disk. It instead tries to infer this from the |
|---|
| 1019 | SMART Attribute values.]  See the |
|---|
| 1020 | <a href="http://smartmontools.cvs.sourceforge.net/smartmontools/sm5/CHANGELOG?view=markup">CHANGELOG</a> |
|---|
| 1021 | file in CVS for a summary of what's been done.  The <tt>smartd</tt> |
|---|
| 1022 | utility differs from the smartsuite <tt>smartd</tt> in major ways.  |
|---|
| 1023 | First, it prints somewhat more informative error messages to the syslog. |
|---|
| 1024 |   Second, on startup it looks for a configuration file |
|---|
| 1025 | <tt>/etc/smartd.conf</tt>, and if <tt>smartd</tt> finds this file, it |
|---|
| 1026 | monitors the list of devices therein, rather than querying all IDE and |
|---|
| 1027 | SCSI devices on your system.  (If the configuration file does not |
|---|
| 1028 | exist, then it does query all IDE and SCSI devices.)  Also, it's |
|---|
| 1029 | a well-behaved daemon and doesn't leave open file descriptors and other |
|---|
| 1030 | detrius behind.  In addition, the <tt>smartmontools</tt> version of |
|---|
| 1031 | <tt>smartd</tt> can be instructed (via Directives in the configuration |
|---|
| 1032 | file) to monitor for changes in a number of different disk properties: |
|---|
| 1033 | the SMART status, failure or prefailure attributes going below |
|---|
| 1034 | threshold, new errors appearing in the ATA Error Log or the SMART |
|---|
| 1035 | Self-Test Log, and so on. <tt>smartd</tt> can also send an email warning or run a |
|---|
| 1036 | user-specified executable if it detects a problem with the disk. |
|---|
| 1037 | </p> |
|---|
| 1038 | |
|---|
| 1039 | <p>The other principle difference is that smartmontools is an |
|---|
| 1040 | OpenSource development project, meaning that we keep the files in CVS, |
|---|
| 1041 | and that other developers who wish to contribute can commit changes to |
|---|
| 1042 | the archive. If you would like to contribute, please write to to <a |
|---|
| 1043 | href="http://lists.sourceforge.net/mailman/listinfo/smartmontools-support">smartmontools-support</a>.</p> |
|---|
| 1044 | |
|---|
| 1045 | <p>But the bottom line is that the code in smartmontools is derived |
|---|
| 1046 | directly from smartsuite and is similar.  The smartsuite package |
|---|
| 1047 | can be found <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/smartsuite/">here</a>.</p> |
|---|
| 1048 | |
|---|
| 1049 | <hr size="2" /><a name="references"></a><b><big>Useful references on |
|---|
| 1050 | SMART and the ATA/ATAPI standards</big></b> |
|---|
| 1051 | |
|---|
| 1052 | <p><big>If you are having trouble understanding the output of smartctl |
|---|
| 1053 | or smartd, please first read the manual pages installed on your |
|---|
| 1054 | system:</big></p> |
|---|
| 1055 | |
|---|
| 1056 | <pre> |
|---|
| 1057 | man 8 smartctl |
|---|
| 1058 | man 8 smartd |
|---|
| 1059 | man 5 smartd.conf |
|---|
| 1060 | </pre> |
|---|
| 1061 | |
|---|
| 1062 | <p> |
|---|
| 1063 | Here are on-line versions of the smartmontools man pages:<br/> <a |
|---|
| 1064 | href="man/smartctl.8.html">smartctl manual page</a><br/> <a |
|---|
| 1065 | href="man/smartd.8.html">smartd manual page</a><br/> <a |
|---|
| 1066 | href="man/smartd.conf.5.html">smartd.conf manual page</a><br/> Note |
|---|
| 1067 | that these are the manual pages for the <b><i>current version</i></b> |
|---|
| 1068 | of smartmontools in the developers CVS repository; they might not |
|---|
| 1069 | correspond to the (possibly older) version of smartmontools installed |
|---|
| 1070 | on <i>your</i> system. So the manual pages installed on your system |
|---|
| 1071 | should be regarded as definitive for your installation.</p> |
|---|
| 1072 | |
|---|
| 1073 | <p><big>If you'd like to know more about SMART, then the following |
|---|
| 1074 | references may be helpful:</big></p> |
|---|
| 1075 | |
|---|
| 1076 | <ul> |
|---|
| 1077 | <li><a href="http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=6983">Monitoring Hard Disks with SMART (Linux Journal, Jan 2004)</a></li> |
|---|
| 1078 | <li><a href="http://lea-linux.org/cached/index/Hardware-hard_plus-smart.html">Soyez Smart (Francais) from GNU Linux Magazine France n�68,</a></li> |
|---|
| 1079 | <li><a href="http://www.linux-user.de/ausgabe/2004/10/056-smartmontools/">Vorbeugen statt Crash (Deutsch)</a> |
|---|
| 1080 | from <a href="http://www.linux-user.de/ausgabe/2004/10">LinuxUser 2004/10</a></li> |
|---|
| 1081 | <li><a href="http://www.linux-magazine.com/issue/49/Monitoring_Hard_Disks_with_smartmontools.pdf">Crash Prevention |
|---|
| 1082 | (English version of above)</a> from <a href="http://www.linux-magazine.com/issue/49">Linux Magazine Dec 2004</a></li> |
|---|
| 1083 | <li><a href="http://www.wikipedia.org/">Wikipedia</a> articles about SMART: |
|---|
| 1084 | <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-Monitoring%2C_Analysis_and_Reporting_Technology">English</a>, |
|---|
| 1085 | <a href="http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-Monitoring%2C_Analysis_and_Reporting_Technology">Deutsch</a>, |
|---|
| 1086 | <a href="http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMART">Español</a>, |
|---|
| 1087 | <a href="http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-Monitoring%2C_Analysis_and_Reporting_Technology">Italiano</a>, |
|---|
| 1088 | <a href="http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-Monitoring%2C_Analysis_and_Reporting_Technology">Japanese</a>, |
|---|
| 1089 | <a href="http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.M.A.R.T.">Nederlands</a>, |
|---|
| 1090 | <a href="http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.M.A.R.T._%28informatyka%29">Polski</a>, |
|---|
| 1091 | <a href="http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A2%D0%B5%D1%85%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%B3%D0%B8%D1%8F_SMART">Russian</a>, |
|---|
| 1092 | <a href="http://sk.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.M.A.R.T">Slovenčina</a> |
|---|
| 1093 | </li> |
|---|
| 1094 | <li>The <a href="http://www.t13.org/project/d1321r3-ATA-ATAPI-5.pdf"> ATAPI/ATA-5 |
|---|
| 1095 | Revision 3 specification</a> (start with Section 8.41)</li> |
|---|
| 1096 | <li>The <a href="http://www.t13.org/docs2002/d1410r3b.pdf"> ATAPI/ATA-6 |
|---|
| 1097 | Revision 3b specification</a></li> |
|---|
| 1098 | <li>The ATAPI/ATA-7 specification (Draft 4b) |
|---|
| 1099 | <a href="http://www.t13.org/docs2004/d1532v1r4b-ATA-ATAPI-7.pdf">Volume 1 (has SMART documentation)</a>, |
|---|
| 1100 | <a href="http://www.t13.org/docs2004/d1532v2r4b-ATA-ATAPI-7.pdf">Volume 2</a>, |
|---|
| 1101 | <a href="http://www.t13.org/docs2004/d1532v3r4b-ATA-ATAPI-7.pdf">Volume 3</a></li> |
|---|
| 1102 | <li>The <a href="http://www.t13.org/docs2005/D1699r1f-ATA8-ACS.pdf">ATAPI/ATA-8 Command Set |
|---|
| 1103 | specification (Draft 1f)</a></li> |
|---|
| 1104 | <li><a href="http://www.t13.org/#FTP_site">Other revisions |
|---|
| 1105 | of the ATAPI/ATA Specs</a></li> |
|---|
| 1106 | <li>SCSI References: |
|---|
| 1107 | <ul> |
|---|
| 1108 | <li>The <a href="http://www.t10.org">homepage of the T10 project</a>.</li> |
|---|
| 1109 | <li>The <a href="ftp://ftp.t10.org/t10/drafts/s2/">SCSI-2 draft</a> by the T10 project.</li> |
|---|
| 1110 | <li>See also other subdirectories <a href="ftp://ftp.t10.org/t10/drafts/">here</a>.</li> |
|---|
| 1111 | </ul> |
|---|
| 1112 | </li> |
|---|
| 1113 | <li> |
|---|
| 1114 | The original SMART specification is SFF-8035i from the <a href="http://www.sffcommittee.com/ns/"> |
|---|
| 1115 | Small Form Factors (SFF) Committee</a>.  |
|---|
| 1116 | <ul> |
|---|
| 1117 | <li> |
|---|
| 1118 | Here is the SFF <a href="ftp://ftp.seagate.com/sff/INF-8035.TXT"> "link"</a> |
|---|
| 1119 | (they have "expired" the document). |
|---|
| 1120 | </li> |
|---|
| 1121 | <li> |
|---|
| 1122 | Version 1.0 of <a href="ftp://ftp3.ds.pg.gda.pl/people/macro/S.M.A.R.T./SFF-8035i.pdf"> |
|---|
| 1123 | SFF-8035i "Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology (S.M.A.R.T.)". </a> |
|---|
| 1124 | </li> |
|---|
| 1125 | <li> |
|---|
| 1126 | Revision 2.0 of <a href="ftp://ftp3.ds.pg.gda.pl/people/macro/S.M.A.R.T./8035R2_0.PDF"> |
|---|
| 1127 | SFF-8035i "Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology (S.M.A.R.T.)". </a> |
|---|
| 1128 | </li> |
|---|
| 1129 | <li> |
|---|
| 1130 | Revision 1.4 of <a href="ftp://ftp3.ds.pg.gda.pl/people/macro/S.M.A.R.T./8055.PDF"> |
|---|
| 1131 | SFF-8055i "S.M.A.R.T. Applications Guide for the ATA and SCSI Interfaces" </a> |
|---|
| 1132 | </li> |
|---|
| 1133 | </ul> |
|---|
| 1134 | </li> |
|---|
| 1135 | <li>From the <a href="http://cmrr.ucsd.edu/smart/">UCSD SMART Project</a>: |
|---|
| 1136 | <ul> |
|---|
| 1137 | <li><a href="http://cmrr.ucsd.edu/smart/tech_papr/HamerlySmartPaper.pdf">Bayesian |
|---|
| 1138 | Approaches to Failure Prediction for Disk Drives</a></li> |
|---|
| 1139 | <li><a href="http://cmrr.ucsd.edu/smart/tech_papr/SmtPapTransReliFinalWeb.pdf">Improved |
|---|
| 1140 | Disk-Drive Failure Warnings</a></li> |
|---|
| 1141 | </ul> |
|---|
| 1142 | </li> |
|---|
| 1143 | <li>From the Seagate Corporation: |
|---|
| 1144 | <ul> |
|---|
| 1145 | <!-- <li><a href="http://www.seagate.com/newsinfo/docs/disc/drive_reliability.pdf" target="_blank"> |
|---|
| 1146 | Estimating Drive Reliability in Desktop Computers and Consumer Electronics Systems</a></li> --> |
|---|
| 1147 | <li><a href="http://www.seagate.com/docs/pdf/whitepaper/enhanced_smart.pdf" target="_blank">Enhanced SMART - Get SMART For Reliability</a></li> |
|---|
| 1148 | <li><a href="http://www.seagate.com/docs/pdf/whitepaper/smart_u8.pdf" target="_blank">Playing it SMART</a></li> |
|---|
| 1149 | <li><a href="http://www.seagate.com/docs/pdf/whitepaper/Enhanced_DST_Tech_Paper.pdf" target="_blank">Enhanced Drive Self-Test</a></li> |
|---|
| 1150 | </ul> |
|---|
| 1151 | </li> |
|---|
| 1152 | <li><u>Specifying Reliability in the Disk Drive Industry: No More |
|---|
| 1153 | MTBF's</u>, Jon G. Elerath (IBM Storage Systems Division) in |
|---|
| 1154 | <i>Proceedings of the IEEE 2000 Annual Reliability and Maintainability |
|---|
| 1155 | Symposium, pg 194, 0-7803-5848-1/00/$10.00.</i></li> |
|---|
| 1156 | <li><a href="http://smartlinux.sourceforge.net/smart/">Zbigniew Chlondowski's SMART Information Site.</a> |
|---|
| 1157 | This includes a useful list of <a href="http://smartlinux.sourceforge.net/smart/attributes.php">Attributes |
|---|
| 1158 | and their meanings.</a> |
|---|
| 1159 | </li> |
|---|
| 1160 | </ul> |
|---|
| 1161 | |
|---|
| 1162 | <hr size="2" /><a name="sampleoutput"></a><b>Example output |
|---|
| 1163 | from smartmontools smartctl utility:</b> |
|---|
| 1164 | |
|---|
| 1165 | <ul> |
|---|
| 1166 | <li><a href="examples/MAXTOR-0.txt">MAXTOR 4K080H4</a> 80 GB 5400 RPM</li> |
|---|
| 1167 | <li><a href="examples/MAXTOR-1.txt">MAXTOR 4K080H4</a> 80 GB 5400 RPM (has failing SMART status - reallocated sector count)</li> |
|---|
| 1168 | <li><a href="examples/MAXTOR-2.txt">MAXTOR 4K080H4</a> 80 GB 5400 RPM (has had failing SMART test in the past. Look at the Seek Error Rate)</li> |
|---|
| 1169 | <li><a href="examples/MAXTOR-7.txt">MAXTOR 4K080H4</a> 80 GB 5400 RPM (has failing SMART status, some failed self-tests)</li> |
|---|
| 1170 | <li><a href="examples/MAXTOR-8.txt">MAXTOR 4K080H4</a> 80 GB 5400 RPM (has failing SMART status - calibration retry count)</li> |
|---|
| 1171 | <li><a href="examples/MAXTOR-9.txt">MAXTOR 4K080H4</a> 80 GB 5400 RPM (has failing SMART status - calibration retry count)</li> |
|---|
| 1172 | <li><a href="examples/MAXTOR-10.txt">MAXTOR 4K080H4</a> 80 GB 5400 RPM (failing self-tests. Note Current_Pending_Sector raw value and Uncorrectable (UNC) read errors)</li> |
|---|
| 1173 | <li><a href="examples/MAXTOR-3.txt">MAXTOR 6L080J4</a> 80 GB 7200 RPM</li> |
|---|
| 1174 | <li><a href="examples/MAXTOR-4.txt">MAXTOR 6L080J4</a> 80 GB 7200 RPM</li> |
|---|
| 1175 | <li><a href="examples/Maxtor-5.txt">Maxtor 98196H8</a> 80 GB 5400 RPM</li> |
|---|
| 1176 | <li><a href="examples/MAXTOR-6.txt">Maxtor 4R080J0</a> Note: Attribute 9 (lifetime) stored in minutes!</li> |
|---|
| 1177 | <li><a href="examples/IC35L120AVVA07-0-0.txt">IBM IC35L120AVVA07 (GXP 120 series)</a> 120 GB 7200 RPM (note 3 temperatures)</li> |
|---|
| 1178 | <li><a href="examples/IC35L120AVVA07-0-1.txt">IBM IC35L120AVVA07 (GXP 120 series)</a> 120 GB 7200 RPM (note 3 temperatures)</li> |
|---|
| 1179 | <li><a href="examples/IC35L120AVV207-0.txt">IBM IC35L120AVV207 (GXP 180 series)</a> 120 GB 7200 RPM (note 3 temperatures)</li> |
|---|
| 1180 | <li><a href="examples/IC35L120AVV207-1.txt">IBM IC35L120AVV207 (GXP 180 series)</a> (failing SMART status and self-tests)</li> |
|---|
| 1181 | <li><a href="examples/HITACHI_DK23BA-20-0.txt">HITACHI_DK23BA-20</a> Hitachi 20 GB Laptop Disk</li> |
|---|
| 1182 | <li><a href="examples/HITACHI_DK23AA-12B.txt">HITACHI_DK23AA-12B</a> Really sick failing Hitachi Laptop Disk</li> |
|---|
| 1183 | <li><a href="examples/TOSHIBA-0.txt">TOSHIBA MK2018GAS</a> Toshiba 20 GB Laptop Disk</li> |
|---|
| 1184 | <li><a href="examples/TOSHIBA-MK6021GAS.txt">TOSHIBA MK6021GAS</a> Toshiba 60 GB Laptop Disk (note 3 temperatures)</li> |
|---|
| 1185 | <li><a href="examples/FUJITSU1.txt">Fujitsu MHR2040AT</a> Fujitsu Laptop Disk (has failing SMART status - write error count)</li> |
|---|
| 1186 | <li><a href="examples/FUJITSU_MHR2020AT.txt">Fujitsu MHR2020AT</a> Fujitsu Laptop Disk (has failing SMART status and self-tests)</li> |
|---|
| 1187 | <li><a href="examples/WD2500JB.txt">Western Digital WD2500JB</a> Western Digital Disk (failing SMART status and self-tests)</li> |
|---|
| 1188 | </ul> |
|---|
| 1189 | |
|---|
| 1190 | <hr size="2" /> |
|---|
| 1191 | |
|---|
| 1192 | Maintained by: <a href="mailto:smartmontools-support@lists.sourceforge.net">Bruce Allen</a><br /> |
|---|
| 1193 | Copyright (C) 2002-5 Bruce Allen<br /> |
|---|
| 1194 | Last updated: <tt>$Date: 2006/05/19 16:50:36 $</tt><br /> |
|---|
| 1195 | CVS tag: <tt>$Id: index.html,v 1.199 2006/05/19 16:50:36 chrfranke Exp $</tt> |
|---|
| 1196 | |
|---|
| 1197 | <hr size="2" /> |
|---|
| 1198 | |
|---|
| 1199 | <div align="center">Hosted by</div> |
|---|
| 1200 | |
|---|
| 1201 | <div align="center"><a href="http://sourceforge.net/"><img style="border:0;width=:88px;height:31px" |
|---|
| 1202 | src="http://sourceforge.net/sflogo.php?group_id=64297&type=5" alt="SourceForge.net" /></a></div> |
|---|
| 1203 | |
|---|
| 1204 | <br /> |
|---|
| 1205 | |
|---|
| 1206 | <div align="center"><a href="http://validator.w3.org/check/referer"><img style="border:0;width=:88px;height:31px" |
|---|
| 1207 | src="http://www.w3.org/Icons/valid-xhtml10.png" alt="Valid XHTML 1.0!" /></a></div> |
|---|
| 1208 | |
|---|
| 1209 | <br /> |
|---|
| 1210 | |
|---|
| 1211 | <div align="center"><a href="http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fsmartmontools.sourceforge.net"> |
|---|
| 1212 | Validate XHTML 1.0 Transitional.</a></div> |
|---|
| 1213 | |
|---|
| 1214 | <br /> |
|---|
| 1215 | |
|---|
| 1216 | <div align="center"><a href="http://validator.w3.org/checklink?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fsmartmontools.sourceforge.net&hide_type=all&depth=&check=Check">Check/Validate all links on this page.</a></div> |
|---|
| 1217 | |
|---|
| 1218 | </body> |
|---|
| 1219 | </html> |
|---|
