e2fsprogs - badblocks function - most recent update

[wpshooter]

e2fsprogs is described as follows:

"This package contains programs for creating, checking, and maintaining ext2/3/4-based file systems. It also includes the "badblocks" program, which can be used to scan for bad blocks on a disk or other storage device."

Is the badblocks function of e2fsprogs a function of the Mint disk utility ? And if so, is it new per this version of e2fsprogs or has that badblocks function been part of disk utility in previous versions ?

Thanks.

[wpshooter]

Does no one have knowledge regarding this badblocks function ?

[Hoser Rob]

If you had used your search engine and read the changelogs you could have had such knowledge by now.

[rene]

badblocks has been part of e2fsprogs for literally always and/but isn't these days very useful any more other than as a stress-test. Already in pre-SATA IDE days HDDs had an internal reservoir of spare sectors which the drive's firmware would swap in to replace actually bad sectors. Externally bad sectors would only show up once this reservoir had already run out which always was to say that the drive would be expected to be developing even more shortly since seemingly something fundamental was wrong -- and in these SSD times with enormous amounts of "spare sectors" for over-provisioning it most certainly does.

I.e., nice that you just now discovered badblocks but it's a very old and by now mostly obsolete program (and it's standard use is/was invocation via fsck). For SATA you should check SMART parameter 5 in sudo smartctl -A /dev/sdz for the correct SATA-device /dev/sdz or the SMART value display in the, as you call it, "Mint disk utility". Again anything other than 0 there is cause for serious worry and indication that the drive's about to die anyway. For NVMe I know the nvme command-line tool can display drive health and including information on number of spare sectors left; still/again, if anything other than 0 "bad blocks" would be visible externally the drive's expected to be basically a doorstop.

badblocks is from the time of of (actual) SCSI, old IDE and MFM-type drives where an externally visible bad sector would/could be exactly that, and could be worked around on the software level by simply excluding it. These days no more; it's an in that context obsolete tool.

[wpshooter]

If it is an obsolete tool, then why are we / did I see an update come thru for it via update manager ?

Does not seem logical to be updating software that is obsolete.

Thanks.

[rene]

I was fairly careful to specify that badblocks was obsolete in an actual recording of bad blocks context; that it's really only useful as a stress test these days, i.e., something that causes writes so actively causes bad sectors to retire (as then viewable via e.g. that mentioned SMART route).

Your reply also otherwise does not make great sense: installed software will/may have bugs that want fixing as long as that software installed in the first place.

In any case: it's as above. If you expect to know better, best of luck with that.