Looking For Software to Check A Hard Drive

[Eric Shubert]

I'd use SMART.

It's true that some USB interfaces don't play well with SMART, because 
they don't pass the commands on to the native interface (SATA/PATA) 
properly. There's a list of compatible USB devices at the SMART site, 
and also CL options you might need to use with certain 
interfaces/chipsets to make it work. Of course, newer chipsets tend to 
do a better job with this.

If you can't use SMART with the enclosure, you could do an initial test 
with the drive connected to a regular (MB) interface. You just couldn't 
continue to use SMART for monitoring once it's in the USB enclosure. 
Note, SMART is built into the HDD, so SMART data continues to be 
gathered and updated regardless of what it's connected to.

-- 
-Eric 'shubes'

On 12/18/2010 06:10 PM, ChasM Marshall wrote:
>
> Hiya,
> Found a passel of S.M.A.R.T. stuff for Linux/Unix/Mac.
> I think Bonnie++ is best for file systems (soft errors).
>
> ----- http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6983
> In this article, I explain how to use smartmontools' smartctl utility
> and smartd dæmon to monitor the health of a system's disks. See
> smartmontools.sourceforge.net for download and installation instructions
> and consult the WARNINGS file for a list of problem disks/controllers.
> Additional documentation can be found in the man pages (man smartctl and
> man smartd) and on the Web page.
> -----http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net
>
> Prolly by now you can simply:
> $ man smartctl
> or
> $ man smartd
> Then when ya know what it does:
> $smartctl -a /dev/<your_drive>
>
> "Gotchas" will be dependant on your specific USB implementation.
> USB used to be pretty dumb-and-confused with ATA or SCSI adapters.
> I should mention that mobo BIOS settings can also be shut off too.
> For some of the Linux distros I've installed, that's just a polite request.
>
> I happen to keep a couple of failing drives around just to reliably see the
> error messages. Some distros will blow up, some will give errors,
> but some, (Microsoft's) just work...
>
> (-: Chas.M. :-)
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Date: Sat, 18 Dec 2010 16:16:00 -0700
> Subject: Re: Looking For Software to Check A Hard Drive
> From: mark at phillipsmarketing.biz
> To: plug-discuss at lists.plug.phoenix.az.us
>
>
>
> On Sat, Dec 18, 2010 at 2:15 PM, Stephen <cryptworks at gmail.com
> <mailto:cryptworks at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>     Look for Bonnie++ its for hdd testing
>
> I found it, but I can't find a way to specify which hard drive to test.
> Based on reading the man page and some googleing, I think it only tests
> the drive with the root file system. I don't see an option to tell
> Bonnie to test a usb drive. If you know of one, please let me know.
>
> Mark
>
>     On Dec 18, 2010 12:56 PM, "Mark Phillips"
>     <mark at phillipsmarketing.biz <mailto:mark at phillipsmarketing.biz>> wrote:
>      > I have an older hard drive (WD1200VE - 120 GB) that use to be in
>     my laptop,
>      > but I ran out of room so I replaced it with a larger drive. I
>     have the
>      > WD1200 in one of those nifty ez-upgrade USB drive enclosures and
>     it mounts
>      > and works just fine. I need some portable back up space, so I
>     thought I
>      > would use this drive. However, I would like to test it
>     (thoroughly, whatever
>      > that means) to see if it has any problems before I use it as a
>     backup drive.
>      > I am looking for either a command line tool or gui that I can run
>     on a
>      > Debian machine to exercise the drive and find any errors. An
>     automated test
>      > suite that I can setup and run in the background (ie does not
>     suck up the
>      > whole machine to run it) for a few hours/days to test the drive,
>     log errors,
>      > fix those errors that can be fixed, etc. Any recommendations? I
>     don't care
>      > about the data on the drive now, as I have sucked it all off to
>     my new hard
>      > drive.
>      >
>      > Thanks!
>      >
>      > Mark
>
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