Monitoring hard disk health with smartd under Linux or UNIX operating systems

smartd is SMART Disk Monitoring Daemon for Linux. SMART is acronym for Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology (SMART) system built into many ATA-3 and later ATA, IDE and SCSI-3 hard drives. The purpose of SMART is to monitor the reliability of the hard drive and predict drive failures, and to carry out different types of drive self-tests.

smartd works with following operating systems:

1. Linux
2. *BSD
3. Windows
4. Solaris etc

How do I Install smartd?

However, smartd is not installed by default. Following are distribution specific steps to install smartd:

Debian Linux:
# apt-get install smartmontools
Red hat/Fedora Linux:
# rpm –ivh kernel-utils
OR
# up2date kernel-utils
OR if you are using Fedora Linux
# yum kernel-utils
FreeBSD:
# pkg_add -r -v smartmontools

Before configuring hard disk for SMART monitoring make sure your hard disk is SMART capable:
# smartctl -i /dev/hda
Output:

smartctl version 5.34 [i686-pc-linux-gnu] Copyright (C) 2002-5 Bruce Allen
Home page is http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Device Model:     SAMSUNG SV2002H
Serial Number:    0395J1FR904324
Firmware Version: RA100-04
User Capacity:    20,060,651,520 bytes
Device is:        In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is:   6
ATA Standard is:  ATA/ATAPI-6 T13 1410D revision 1
Local Time is:    Tue May  2 15:44:09 2006 IST

SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled

You can configure the smartd daemon by editing the file /etc/smartd.conf. 

In above output the lines:
SMART support is: Available – device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled

Indicates that it is SMART capable and it is enabled.

Configure SMARTD

Debian Linux

• Enable smart by editing /etc/default/smartmontools file.
• Smart Configuration file: /etc/smartd.conf
• Start/Stop smart: /etc/init.d/smartmontools start | stop

Red Hat Linux

• Enable smart by editing /etc/smartd.conf file.
• Smart Configuration file: /etc/smartd.conf
• Start/Stop smart: /etc/init.d/smartd start | stop

FreeBSD

• Enable smart by editing /etc/rc.conf file (add line smartd_enable=”YES”).
• Smart Configuration file: /etc/smartd.conf
• Start/Stop smart: /usr/local/etc/rc.d/smartd.sh start | stop

Example

You can put following directives in Smart Configuration file:
(a) Send an email to alert@nixcraft.in for /dev/sdb:
/dev/sdb -m alert@nixcraft.in
(b) Read error log:
# smartctl -l error /dev/hdb
(c) Testing hard disk (short or long test):
# smartctl -t short /dev/hdb
# smartctl -t long /dev/hdb

Caution smartd is a monitoring tool not a backup solution. Always perform data backup.

See also:

• More information on the smarttool see official home page.
• Read man page of smartd and smartd.conf for configuration help.