From: G. V. C. <gv...@oc...> - 2006-09-19 12:39:05
Attachments:
hdb.smart
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After having two large disks in my home server go bad, I am finally motivated to start setting up smartd there and at my day job. It's working out very well so far except for a problem with my newest disk: Seagate Barracuda 500GB - 7200rpm - 100MBps Ultra ATA/100 (ATA-6) The smartd.conf looks contains a single line: DEVICESCAN -a -m gvc -M test -s (L/../../7/01|S/../../(1|2|3|4|5|6)/01) This started a long test as expected Sunday morning (2006-09-17) but over two days later smartctl -a showed it 90% complete. I might not have noticed it but for the fact that the device throughput was terrible (I don't have the exact numbers, but I think it was only allowing around a megabit per second). When I start the test from the command line it estimates 255 runtime. I aborted the long test and performance returned to normal. This disk is in constant use as a repository for a (high-quality) MP3 stream, averaging around 180 Mbps. Output of smartctl -a on the device is attached. Here are some entries from the smartd syslog output, I would be interested in finding out how I can learn more about how to interpret these messages, even if they don't indicate anything related to the long-test performance problem. Sep 17 04:19:51 tuvok smartd[23334]: Device: /dev/hdb, SMART Usage Attribute: 195 Hardware_ECC_Recovered changed from 49 to 50 Sep 17 05:19:49 tuvok smartd[23334]: Device: /dev/hdb, SMART Usage Attribute: 190 Unknown_Attribute changed from 49 to 50 Sep 17 06:19:49 tuvok smartd[23334]: Device: /dev/hdb, SMART Prefailure Attribute: 7 Seek_Error_Rate changed from 68 to 69 --gvc |
From: Justin P. <jp...@lu...> - 2006-09-19 12:46:40
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On Tue, 19 Sep 2006, G. Vincent Castellano wrote: > After having two large disks in my home server go bad, I am finally motivated > to start setting up smartd there and at my day job. It's working out very > well so far except for a problem with my newest disk: > > Seagate Barracuda 500GB - 7200rpm - 100MBps Ultra ATA/100 (ATA-6) > > The smartd.conf looks contains a single line: > > DEVICESCAN -a -m gvc -M test -s (L/../../7/01|S/../../(1|2|3|4|5|6)/01) > > This started a long test as expected Sunday morning (2006-09-17) but over two > days later smartctl -a showed it 90% complete. I might not have noticed it > but for the fact that the device throughput was terrible (I don't have the > exact numbers, but I think it was only allowing around a megabit per second). > When I start the test from the command line it estimates 255 runtime. > > I aborted the long test and performance returned to normal. This disk is in > constant use as a repository for a (high-quality) MP3 stream, averaging > around 180 Mbps. > > Output of smartctl -a on the device is attached. > > Here are some entries from the smartd syslog output, I would be interested in > finding out how I can learn more about how to interpret these messages, even > if they don't indicate anything related to the long-test performance problem. > > Sep 17 04:19:51 tuvok smartd[23334]: Device: /dev/hdb, SMART Usage Attribute: > 195 Hardware_ECC_Recovered changed from 49 to 50 > Sep 17 05:19:49 tuvok smartd[23334]: Device: /dev/hdb, SMART Usage Attribute: > 190 Unknown_Attribute changed from 49 to 50 > Sep 17 06:19:49 tuvok smartd[23334]: Device: /dev/hdb, SMART Prefailure > Attribute: 7 Seek_Error_Rate changed from 68 to 69 > > --gvc > I noticed this as well on the Seagate 16MB/7200RPM/SATAII drives, I stopped long testing and do short tests only on those drives. Justin. |
From: G. V. C. <gv...@oc...> - 2006-09-19 12:53:26
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Justin Piszcz wrote: > >> Seagate Barracuda 500GB - 7200rpm - 100MBps Ultra ATA/100 (ATA-6) >> ... >> When I start the test from the >> command line it estimates 255 runtime. Sorry, I mean 255 minutes runtime. > > I noticed this as well on the Seagate 16MB/7200RPM/SATAII drives, I > stopped long testing and do short tests only on those drives. How can I find out more about what I'm missing by not doing the long test? I assume it's performing a surface scan. --gvc |
From: Justin P. <jp...@lu...> - 2006-09-19 13:13:31
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On Tue, 19 Sep 2006, G. Vincent Castellano wrote: > Justin Piszcz wrote: >> >>> Seagate Barracuda 500GB - 7200rpm - 100MBps Ultra ATA/100 (ATA-6) > >> ... >>> When I start the test from the >>> command line it estimates 255 runtime. > > Sorry, I mean 255 minutes runtime. >> >> I noticed this as well on the Seagate 16MB/7200RPM/SATAII drives, I >> stopped long testing and do short tests only on those drives. > > How can I find out more about what I'm missing by not doing the long test? I > assume it's performing a surface scan. > --gvc I believe you are correct, its either that or it stays around 90% (for what seems like forever for me) so I just stopped running long tests on those drives. Justin. |
From: Mario 'B. H. <Mario.Holbe@TU-Ilmenau.DE> - 2006-09-19 18:48:26
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G. Vincent Castellano <gv...@oc...> wrote: > Device Model: ST3500641A > Extended self-test routine > recommended polling time: ( 255) minutes. This is indeed strange, my 320GB 7200.10 (not .9 as yours, though) report 115 minutes extended self-test routine recommended polling time. My 250GB 7200.8 report 84 minutes. Relativizing those values leads to far less than 255 minutes. Perhaps this is a firmware issue in the (bigger?) .9 series? Did you try to contact the Seagate support about it? regards Mario -- We are the Bore. Resistance is futile. You will be bored. |
From: G. V. C. <gv...@oc...> - 2006-09-19 18:58:30
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Mario 'BitKoenig' Holbe wrote: > G. Vincent Castellano <gv...@oc...> wrote: >> Device Model: ST3500641A >> Extended self-test routine >> recommended polling time: ( 255) minutes. > > This is indeed strange, my 320GB 7200.10 (not .9 as yours, though) > report 115 minutes extended self-test routine recommended polling time. > My 250GB 7200.8 report 84 minutes. Relativizing those values leads to > far less than 255 minutes. Perhaps this is a firmware issue in the > (bigger?) .9 series? Did you try to contact the Seagate support about > it? Ahh, hmm... yes, 255 is a 'rather odd' number. Is Seagate going to be willing to talk to a (non-commercial) end-user who has problems interfacing to their hardware with third-party software? Is there anything I can to do to optimize my chances for success in pursuing such a venture (aside from getting my facts straight and doing my due diligence)? --gvc |
From: Mario 'B. H. <Mario.Holbe@TU-Ilmenau.DE> - 2006-09-19 18:53:52
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G. Vincent Castellano <gv...@oc...> wrote: > How can I find out more about what I'm missing by not doing the long test? I > assume it's performing a surface scan. Yes, it does. And the full surface scan *should* be the main difference between the long and the short selftest (the latter just randomly scans some sectors typically). But you can never be sure about that, since the actions performed by the various selftests are not standardized, afaik. regards Mario -- Whenever you design a better fool-proof software, the genetic pool will always design a better fool. |
From: Mario 'B. H. <Mario.Holbe@TU-Ilmenau.DE> - 2006-09-19 19:19:33
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G. Vincent Castellano <gv...@oc...> wrote: > Is Seagate going to be willing to talk to a (non-commercial) end-user who has > problems interfacing to their hardware with third-party software? Well, I never had a reason to contact Seagate support so far, so I don't know. Perhaps Bruce can tell more. However, I belive to remember that in some situations Bruce did already suggest to contact Seagate support and provide them with smartctl output. So perhaps there is a chance :) > Is there anything I can to do to optimize my chances for success in pursuing Well, as always... be polite, try to describe your problem as clear and straightforward as possible and as detailed as needed :) regards Mario -- As a rule, the more bizarre a thing is, the less mysterious it proves to be. -- Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle |
From: G. V. C. <gv...@oc...> - 2006-09-20 15:19:55
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Mario 'BitKoenig' Holbe wrote: > G. Vincent Castellano <gv...@oc...> wrote: >> Is Seagate going to be willing to talk to a (non-commercial) end-user who has >> problems interfacing to their hardware with third-party software? > > Well, I never had a reason to contact Seagate support so far, so I don't > know. Perhaps Bruce can tell more. However, I belive to remember that in > some situations Bruce did already suggest to contact Seagate support and > provide them with smartctl output. So perhaps there is a chance :) Seagate support says there is no firmware update for this model and suggests that I use their toolset to assess the drive. This is reasonable, but I'm not motivated enough to take the machine down right now. I'll follow up when I have more data. Thanks for the help, I'll be deploying smartmontools all over the company network and I expect I'll have more to talk about later. --gvc |