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

[Mark Cooke]

On Tue, 2009-03-10 at 16:58 -0400, John Drescher wrote:
> >> 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.

I must be 'lucky' that my drives have always seen ramping-up reallocated
sectors and failed smart tests before dying, so I've been able to be
proactive about data recovery and replacement.

[ The earlier test failed cut and paste was from a currently-dying drive
in my PVR that will be winging its way back to the manufacturer as soon
as the replacement arrives from the supplier. ]

Cheers,

Mark