I recently added a Seagate 400Gb SATA drive to my system, and it has been behaving strangely since I put it in. for one thing, the BIOS S.M.A.R.T. came up with a warning the last time I booted with it enabled, saying that I should backup my data and replace the disk (!). I still have not made any irreversible data transfers to this drive, and I have some time yet to take it back, but I'd like to know for sure that it needs it, or at least have some reasonable evidence of failure. What is a good program out there that exercises a disk to give some assurance of errors or lack thereof? Thanks. Mark Hull-Richter, Linux Kernel Engineer DATAllegro (datallegro.com) 85 Enterprise, Second Floor, Aliso Viejo, CA 92656 949-680-3082 - Office 949-330-7691 - fax -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos/attachments/20070412/d5ceb3cf/attachment-0004.html>
On Thu, 12 Apr 2007 at 11:15am, Mark Hull-Richter wrote> I recently added a Seagate 400Gb SATA drive to my system, and it has been > behaving strangely since I put it in. for one thing, the BIOS S.M.A.R.T. > came up with a warning the last time I booted with it enabled, saying that I > should backup my data and replace the disk (!).Run 'smartctl -a' on the disk, which should tell you exactly what SMART is complaining about. You can also run Seagate's disk testing tool (which should be somewhere on their web site) on the disk, which may give you a code to use when you RMA the disk.> I still have not made any irreversible data transfers to this drive, and I > have some time yet to take it back, but I'd like to know for sure that it > needs it, or at least have some reasonable evidence of failure. > > What is a good program out there that exercises a disk to give some > assurance of errors or lack thereof?There's always benchmarking tools (like bonnie++ and tiobench), and/or the whole system tester at <people.redhat.com/dledford/memtest.html>. -- Joshua Baker-LePain Department of Biomedical Engineering Duke University
Mark Hull-Richter wrote:> I recently added a Seagate 400Gb SATA drive to my system, and it has > been behaving strangely ... > What is a good program out there that exercises a disk to give some > assurance of errors or lack thereof?I would recommend downloading and running the manufacturer's standalone disk-checking program (in this case, SeaTools). I have seen both false and true SMART errors from BIOS.
I recently added a Seagate 400Gb SATA drive to my system, and it has been behaving strangely since I put it in. for one thing, the BIOS S.M.A.R.T. came up with a warning the last time I booted with it enabled, saying that I should backup my data and replace the disk (!). <snip> What is a good program out there that exercises a disk to give some assurance of errors or lack thereof? I like this one: freshmeat.net/projects/iogen pretty easy to use, and seems to crush systems. Mike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos/attachments/20070412/2d3fba8e/attachment-0004.html>
________________________________ From: centos-bounces at centos.org [mailto:centos-bounces at centos.org] On Behalf Of Mark Hull-Richter Sent: Thursday, April 12, 2007 1:15 PM To: CentOS mailing list Subject: [CentOS] Looking for a good disk exerciser I recently added a Seagate 400Gb SATA drive to my system, and it has been behaving strangely since I put it in. for one thing, the BIOS S.M.A.R.T. came up with a warning the last time I booted with it enabled, saying that I should backup my data and replace the disk (!). I still have not made any irreversible data transfers to this drive, and I have some time yet to take it back, but I'd like to know for sure that it needs it, or at least have some reasonable evidence of failure. What is a good program out there that exercises a disk to give some assurance of errors or lack thereof? Thanks. Mark Hull-Richter, Linux Kernel Engineer DATAllegro ( datallegro.com <datallegro.com> ) 85 Enterprise, Second Floor, Aliso Viejo, CA 92656 949-680-3082 - Office 949-330-7691 - fax sourceforge.net/projects/bonnie -- Kelly F. Hickel Senior Software Architect MQSoftware, Inc 952.345.8677 kfh at mqsoftware.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos/attachments/20070412/7abd565c/attachment-0004.html>
Mark Hull-Richter wrote:> I recently added a Seagate 400Gb SATA drive to my system, and it has > been behaving strangely since I put it in. for one thing, the BIOS > S.M.A.R.T. came up with a warning the last time I booted with it > enabled, saying that I should backup my data and replace the disk (!). > > I still have not made any irreversible data transfers to this drive, and > I have some time yet to take it back, but I'd like to know for sure that > it needs it, or at least have some reasonable evidence of failure. > > What is a good program out there that exercises a disk to give some > assurance of errors or lack thereof?If the drive supports SMART, smartctl should be able to test it and display the diagnostics. I'd try to get a replacement before the warranty expires. -- Les Mikesell lesmikesell at gmail.com
Mark Hull-Richter spake the following on 4/12/2007 11:15 AM:> I recently added a Seagate 400Gb SATA drive to my system, and it has > been behaving strangely since I put it in. for one thing, the BIOS > S.M.A.R.T. came up with a warning the last time I booted with it > enabled, saying that I should backup my data and replace the disk (!). > > I still have not made any irreversible data transfers to this drive, and > I have some time yet to take it back, but I'd like to know for sure that > it needs it, or at least have some reasonable evidence of failure. > > What is a good program out there that exercises a disk to give some > assurance of errors or lack thereof? > > Thanks. >The ultimate boot cd (ultimatebootcd.com) has all the manufacturer test and verify programs in a bootable dos cd. It comes in handy. -- MailScanner is like deodorant... You hope everybody uses it, and you notice quickly if they don't!!!!
Mark Hull-Richter wrote:> I recently added a Seagate 400Gb SATA drive to my system, and it has > been behaving strangely since I put it in. for one thing, the BIOS > S.M.A.R.T. came up with a warning the last time I booted with it > enabled, saying that I should backup my data and replace the disk (!). > > I still have not made any irreversible data transfers to this drive, and > I have some time yet to take it back, but I'd like to know for sure that > it needs it, or at least have some reasonable evidence of failure. > > What is a good program out there that exercises a disk to give some > assurance of errors or lack thereof?I found that older versions of smartmontools (even the one included with CentOS 5) do not handle newer onboard SataII controllers. In my case, one system is running CentOS 4 -- that motherboard has an Nvidia MCP northbridge (sata_nv). I ended up building kernel 2.6.20.1 to get it working better. My other machine has an Intel P965 Express northbridge. In the former case I downloaded the smartmontools-5.37.2 source and built it; in the latter I downloaded the fedora core 7 development source rpm for smartmontools (also 5.37-2). In both cases smartctl -a started working properly with the combo a newer kernel and latest version of smartmontools.