Topic: SMART self-tests on a schedule?

[DanB35]

I see from http://wiki.contribs.org/Monitor_Disk_Health that SME does have SMART monitoring, though it isn't at all clear what it monitors.  That service is enabled on my server, but I see that neither of its drives has had a SMART self-test in the last 12,000 hours of operation--since I installed them in this server.  Is there a facility in SME to schedule SMART self-tests.  No doubt it can be done with a cron job, but if there's something more integrated into the system I seem to have missed it.

[janet]

DanB35

If your drives support SMART, then as long as it is enabled in SME server, your drives should be being monitored.

As the Howto says:
Errors are emailed to admin if and when they are found.
To manually check disks you can intervene with command line.

I recall seeing messages appearing in the /var/log/messages log file about SMART errors & corrections which happened automatically.

There "should be" nothing for you to do, you should not need to run cron jobs.

Perhaps if you told us more about how you determined the 12,000 hours without a self test.

[DanB35]

SMART monitors various drive parameters (and I presume the smartd service in SME then notifies the admin user if/when those parameters go out of tolerance), but SMART self-tests are a separate matter, and are logged on the drive itself.  Here's the SMART data from one of my drives:

Code: [Select]

[root@e-smith ~]# smartctl -a /dev/sda
smartctl 5.43 2012-06-30 r3573 [x86_64-linux-2.6.32-573.7.1.el6.x86_64] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-12 by Bruce Allen, http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family:     Western Digital AV-GP (Adv. Format)
Device Model:     WDC WD20EURS-63S48Y0
Serial Number:    WD-WCAZAF450072
LU WWN Device Id: 5 0014ee 2072ee95c
Firmware Version: 51.0AB51
User Capacity:    2,000,398,934,016 bytes [2.00 TB]
Sector Sizes:     512 bytes logical, 4096 bytes physical
Device is:        In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is:   8
ATA Standard is:  Exact ATA specification draft version not indicated
Local Time is:    Sun Nov  1 08:34:25 2015 EST
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED

General SMART Values:
Offline data collection status:  (0x00) Offline data collection activity
was never started.
Auto Offline Data Collection: Disabled.
Self-test execution status:      (   0) The previous self-test routine completed
without error or no self-test has ever
been run.
Total time to complete Offline
data collection: (39480) seconds.
Offline data collection
capabilities: (0x7b) SMART execute Offline immediate.
Auto Offline data collection on/off support.
Suspend Offline collection upon new
command.
Offline surface scan supported.
Self-test supported.
Conveyance Self-test supported.
Selective Self-test supported.
SMART capabilities:            (0x0003) Saves SMART data before entering
power-saving mode.
Supports SMART auto save timer.
Error logging capability:        (0x01) Error logging supported.
General Purpose Logging supported.
Short self-test routine
recommended polling time: (   2) minutes.
Extended self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 380) minutes.
Conveyance self-test routine
recommended polling time: (   5) minutes.
SCT capabilities:        (0x3035) SCT Status supported.
SCT Feature Control supported.
SCT Data Table supported.

SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
  1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate     0x002f   200   200   051    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  3 Spin_Up_Time            0x0027   174   171   021    Pre-fail  Always       -       6266
  4 Start_Stop_Count        0x0032   096   096   000    Old_age   Always       -       4635
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0033   200   200   140    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  7 Seek_Error_Rate         0x002e   100   253   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   078   078   000    Old_age   Always       -       16330
 10 Spin_Retry_Count        0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
 11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
 12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       515
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       28
193 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0032   199   199   000    Old_age   Always       -       4606
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0022   115   107   000    Old_age   Always       -       35
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
197 Current_Pending_Sector  0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable   0x0030   100   253   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate   0x0008   200   200   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0

SMART Error Log Version: 1
No Errors Logged

SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
Num  Test_Description    Status                  Remaining  LifeTime(hours)  LBA_of_first_error
# 1  Short offline       Completed without error       00%     16329         -
# 2  Extended offline    Completed without error       00%      4345         -
# 3  Conveyance offline  Completed without error       00%      4339         -
# 4  Short offline       Completed without error       00%      4339         -

SMART Selective self-test log data structure revision number 1
 SPAN  MIN_LBA  MAX_LBA  CURRENT_TEST_STATUS
    1        0        0  Not_testing
    2        0        0  Not_testing
    3        0        0  Not_testing
    4        0        0  Not_testing
    5        0        0  Not_testing
Selective self-test flags (0x0):
  After scanning selected spans, do NOT read-scan remainder of disk.
If Selective self-test is pending on power-up, resume after 0 minute delay.

As you'll note, parameter 9, power on hours, reads 16330, while the last long SMART test was at 4345 hours of runtime.  Thus, (roughly) 12000 hours.

The long and short self-tests both actively check portions of the drive for issues, which aren't otherwise monitored by the SMART parameters.  See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.M.A.R.T.#Self-tests for more information about the self-tests.

[Stefano]

DanB35:

smart is working as expected on all servers of mine.. on one of them I get, everyday, via logwatch:

Code: [Select]

--------------------- Smartd Begin ------------------------

 
 /dev/sda [SAT] :
    Usage: Power_On_Hours (9) changed to
      88,
    Usage: Seek_Error_Rate (7) changed to
      200, 100,
 
 /dev/sdb [SAT] :
    Usage: Power_On_Hours (9) changed to
      88,
 
I'm quite sure that if a serious error will happen, I'll get a mail in minutes..

[janet]

DanB35

The 12,000 hrs ago was when you last manually ran tests.

From online sources it seems you run the more advanced tests if & when you get advised that there are problems with your drive

[DanB35]

So I take it that the answer to my question is no, SME does not have a facility to schedule SMART self-tests of the drives, other than manually entering a cron job, or (better) manually messing around with smartd.conf.

Janet, SMART self tests are only run when commanded by the host.  I manually ran the tests 12000 hours ago, and SME hasn't commanded any since then.  The self-tests and attribute monitoring are different things; it appears that SME does the latter when smartd is enabled, but it does not do the former.

The FreeNAS folks are pretty fanatical about data integrity, and recommend regular SMART self-tests religiously (suggested schedules vary a bit, but generally call for short tests every 1-3 days, and long tests every 1-4 weeks).  I've seen multiple threads in their forums where a user had a defective drive, but that fact wasn't obvious until a SMART self-test was run--the attribute monitoring didn't pick it up before then.

It'd be pretty simple to add a line to smartd.conf to run the test.  Templating it so the user can control the schedule will be a bit trickier--I'll see what I can manage.