Re: Balky HDs vs SMART data

[Valter Prahlad]

Il giorno 02/05/13 22.03, "Dan" ha scritto:

> Well, at least for the speed of having another place to spin up the
> drives.  As far as I can tell, these tools don't support SMART over
> firewire either.
Usually I use Drive Genius for testing HDs.
IIRC it tests also USB and Firewire drives, but you have to format the HD in
Mac format first (it doesn't work, or doesn't do many test, with FAT/NTFS
formats).

> My interest is simply to watch the flow, while processing these
> drives.  I want to see why the NAS box is refusing them while DU is
> happy with them.  If it turns out that DU is hiding hundreds of bad
> block replacements, or worse (seek errors etc), then I'd rather not
> use the drives or offer them for sale...
In Drive Genius, I use the "Scan" function to search and de-allocate bad
blocks. I think it's a good test for the HD's health, and I always check it
before installing or selling an HD.


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Re: Balky HDs vs SMART data

[Dan]

At 12:58 PM -0700 05/01/2013, Bruce Johnson wrote:
See here for supported USB devices (ID'ed by the vendor/product IDs 
as seen in System Profiler)




oOo  Somehow I missed that list in my perusing.  This is good.  The 
dock says "BlacX" on it, but by the numbers reported in System 
Profiler, it's in their list!


CROSU2 SATA Docking Station	Initio	0x13fd:0x1240 (1.04) 
	Generic / External	-d sat,12	Linux


Now I'm feelin better about going thru the labor of trying this.

Thanks!
- Dan.
--
- Psychoceramic Emeritus; South Jersey, USA, Earth.

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Re: Balky HDs vs SMART data

[Dan]

At 9:31 AM +0200 05/02/2013, Valter Prahlad wrote:
I'd suggest to go with the Firewire route. Since you have 5 drives 
to test, opening the LaCie box and running a real HD diagnostic 
tool, seems to me well worth it.


Well, at least for the speed of having another place to spin up the 
drives.  As far as I can tell, these tools don't support SMART over 
firewire either.


At 4:06 AM -0500 05/02/2013, Kris Tilford wrote:

 > It's a "better than nothing" alarm system, but I wouldn't trust it much.

I've had drives die that passed SMART right up until the moment they 
died.  I've seen drives with SMART errors that seemingly worked 
fine. I did retire some drives with many SMART errors on the 
assumption that many errors would eventually lead to failure, but, I 
never saw a HD with SMART warning errors actually fail, while I saw 
several die without any SMART warning errors beforehand. A lousy 
diagnostic for sure.


Yea.  But it's better than nothing.  Them new-fangled drives are 
designed to do their own bad block replacements in the background, 
and present only a happy face to the world.  And OS X believes it! 
(what a stupid design feature in OS X!)


The problem isn't SMART.  The problem is the OS' use of the information.

My interest is simply to watch the flow, while processing these 
drives.  I want to see why the NAS box is refusing them while DU is 
happy with them.  If it turns out that DU is hiding hundreds of bad 
block replacements, or worse (seek errors etc), then I'd rather not 
use the drives or offer them for sale...


- Dan.
--
- Psychoceramic Emeritus; South Jersey, USA, Earth.

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Re: Balky HDs vs SMART data

[Kris Tilford]

On May 2, 2013, at 2:31 AM, Valter Prahlad wrote:

> AFAIK, SMART is a lousy diagnostic anyway.

I agree. 


> It's a "better than nothing" alarm system, but I wouldn't trust it much.

I've had drives die that passed SMART right up until the moment they died.

I've seen drives with SMART errors that seemingly worked fine. I did retire 
some drives with many SMART errors on the assumption that many errors would 
eventually lead to failure, but, I never saw a HD with SMART warning errors 
actually fail, while I saw several die without any SMART warning errors 
beforehand. A lousy diagnostic for sure.



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Re: Balky HDs vs SMART data

[Valter Prahlad]

Il giorno 01/05/13 20.53, "Dan" ha scritto:

>  Nothing logged as errors, but then as-is OS X doesn't do
> SMART over USB.  
AFAIK, SMART is a lousy diagnostic anyway.
It's a "better than nothing" alarm system, but I wouldn't trust it much.

> (No, I don't have a SATA card in the Mac.  My choices for SATA are
> the external USB dock or I can crack open a LaCie D2 Quadra box for
> Firewire.)
I'd suggest to go with the Firewire route.
Since you have 5 drives to test, opening the LaCie box and running a real HD
diagnostic tool, seems to me well worth it.


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Re: Balky HDs vs SMART data

[Thomas Fritsch]

could always use a spare Sh*t beater windows PC (runnin linux or a Live-CD)
to do SMART Checks. its what i do to keep my aging G3 in line.


On Wed, May 1, 2013 at 3:58 PM, Bruce Johnson
wrote:

>
> On May 1, 2013, at 11:53 AM, Dan  wrote:
>
> >
> > The tools I found on MacUpdate seem useless; doesn't look like any of
> 'em support USB or FW.
> >
> > Bruce had recommended Smartmontools a while back, I think.  Just started
> reading thru it.  Will this work?
> > http://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/smartmontools
>
>
> Well the answer seems to be a definite 'maybe':
>
> <
> http://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/smartmontools/wiki/FAQ#SmartmontoolsforFireWireUSBandSATAdiskssystems
> >
>
> See here for supported USB devices (ID'ed by the vendor/product IDs as
> seen in System Profiler)
>
>  >
>
> --
> Bruce Johnson
> University of Arizona
> College of Pharmacy
> Information Technology Group
>
> Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs
>
>
> --
> --
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Re: Balky HDs vs SMART data

[Bruce Johnson]

On May 1, 2013, at 11:53 AM, Dan  wrote:

> 
> The tools I found on MacUpdate seem useless; doesn't look like any of 'em 
> support USB or FW.
> 
> Bruce had recommended Smartmontools a while back, I think.  Just started 
> reading thru it.  Will this work?
> http://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/smartmontools


Well the answer seems to be a definite 'maybe':



See here for supported USB devices (ID'ed by the vendor/product IDs as seen in 
System Profiler)

 

-- 
Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs


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Balky HDs vs SMART data

[Dan]

Hi all,

I've got 5 500GB SATA HDs that throw a red light when plugged into a 
Promise SmartStor NAS box.


Stuck one in a generic external usb dock, and used Disk Utility to 
zero it.  Nothing logged as errors, but then as-is OS X doesn't do 
SMART over USB.  Pushed data thru it for a while, then I moved it to 
the NAS, where it now seems ok (green light and not throwing errors 
to the log ?yet?).


I'm going to do the same to the other drives.  ug.  1.5 days to zero 
each.  But I'd like some way to view any low-level errors being 
produced.


The tools I found on MacUpdate seem useless; doesn't look like any of 
'em support USB or FW.


Bruce had recommended Smartmontools a while back, I think.  Just 
started reading thru it.  Will this work?

http://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/smartmontools

QuickSilver 2002, OS X 10.5.8.

(No, I don't have a SATA card in the Mac.  My choices for SATA are 
the external USB dock or I can crack open a LaCie D2 Quadra box for 
Firewire.)


Thx,
- Dan.
--
- Psychoceramic Emeritus; South Jersey, USA, Earth.

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