[mythtv-users] Needs second opinion, is my HD failing?

[John Drescher]

>> Good point. I have not thought of that before even though I manage
>> several hundred hard drives. I'd better start looking at that. At home
>> all of my spinning drives appear to be good. Looks like having a
>> (realloc sector) value other than 0 is not normal with seagate 7200.10
>> and 7200.11 drives.
>
> Anything more than 0 is a concern - what you can do to help easy your
> mind about a (small) non-zero count is get the drive to do an internal
> SMART test.  This leaves the drive accessible for recordings while the
> test is done (but high io load means the test takes longer to complete).
>
> For IDE disks:
>
>  smartctl -t long /dev/wonky_hd
>
> For SATA:
>
>  smartctl -t long -d ata /dev/wonky_hd
>
>
I have done this quite a few times. I have yet to see a failed test.

[snip]

>
> Nearly final note - configure smartd to email you when critical SMART
> parameters change.  That might be a very useful early warning.
>
I will check in to that. Seems a lot better than the smart pass or
fail as I have yet to see a drive be marked bad by smart but I have
had dozens go bad between home and work.

John