Is it a good idea to enable S.M.A.R.T. on external HDDs?

[linmint0001]

I would like your opinion on whether it is a good idea to enable S.M.A.R.T. monitoring on external hard disk drives. I am trying to understand how S.M.A.R.T. functions and I am unsure of how it will work on Linux Mint. Will Linux Mint automatically scan the external HDD when it is mounted, or does the monitoring only works when I run the diagnostic commands from the Terminal? If the monitoring system only works when the commands are issued from the Terminal, is it better to just enable S.M.A.R.T. for the test and then turn it off or is it best to leave it on by default? Above all, I want to avoid damage to the external HDDs, as they contain the backup of my data.

Any help will be greatly appreciated!!!

[rickNS]

Will Linux Mint automatically scan the external HDD when it is mounted,

Yes Mint takes care of it for you. No intervention required. SMART data can be found in the "disks". The information may not be there immediately the first time you plug in a drive for the first time.

[AZgl1500]

To my understanding, that is just a feature in the HHD's interface, and has nothing to do with your OS.

So, turning it on will allow the HDD to report back to your OS that it is starting to suffer some bad blocks.

And, it has the advantage of marking blocks as "Bad" and that will keep the OS from trying to store good data in a bad block.

I always turned it on, and never wondered about it again.

[WharfRat]

External hard disk drives attached via usb are not supported:

[rickNS]

Funny it seems to work for me, disks utility. Attached 250GB via USB.

[AZgl1500]

It is working for my 6 TB Seagate USB on USB 3.0

[WharfRat]

AZgl1500 and rickNS,

How are they attached

Maybe it's the dock that I'm using

[AZgl1500]

AZgl1500 and rickNS,

How are they attached

Maybe it's the dock that I'm using

I'm not using the 6 TB drive in a dock, it was factory supplied with a 120 VAC wall wart for power, and a cable to plug into the PC. I also have a dock in the office, I will try that in a bit and see how that works.


I always make a point of using the exact USB cable that comes with the USB HDD, I label those suckers with Dymo tape.... dinky little toy USB cables do NOT transfer data properly.

My Seagate is new to me, purchased about 4 months ago, and I plugged the factory USB cable into my laptop's 3.0 USB port.

I have previously used the same drive/cable combo on a USB 2.0 port but the transfer rate suffered severely.

I just now plugged it into the USB 2.0 port and it still works for me


.

[rickNS]

AZgl1500 and rickNS,

How are they attached

Maybe it's the dock that I'm using

Standard backup type HDD, attached to always powered USB 2.0 port.
I could double check, but pretty sure I have had an old HDD attached to combo USB/ESATA port, and SMART info was available on that as well.

[phd21]

Hi linmint0001, & Everyone Else,

I just read your post and the good replies to it. Here are my thoughts on this as well.

Usually, if the drive supports SMART, then it is already on. But if for some reason it is not on and the drive supports SMART, then you can use "smartctl" to turn it on. The drive has to be active and "mounted" as well.

My WD USB external drive shows up in my SMART apps like gSmartcontrol and the SMART was enabled by default. I have it connected to a 4-port self-powered USB v2 hub. The odd thing is that my KDE Partition Manager editor does not show the SMART status on the USB connected drives, only the internal drives?

...

gSmartcontrol

[WharfRat]

Well, I have to stand corrected.

I attached the same drive with a SATA to USB 2.0 adapter and

So it appears to be the dock

[Pippin]

Depends on dock/used controller/firmware:
https://www.smartmontools.org/wiki/TocSupport

[WharfRat]

Depends on dock/used controller/firmware:
https://www.smartmontools.org/wiki/TocSupport

It has to be the dock.

I plugged in a Western Digital Technologies, Inc. My Book Essential and SMART shows as enabled.

This is the dock in question

[Pippin]

Since Gsmartcontrol on Mint is old, one can update drivedb.h
https://www.smartmontools.org/wiki/Down ... vedatabase

Code: Select all

# ls -l /var/lib/smartmontools/drivedb
total 328
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 180455 Jan 30 16:18 drivedb.h
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 149670 Feb  6  2016 drivedb-old.h

[phd21]

Hi WharfRat,

Looks like a nice dock with USB and eSata connections, but I wonder why it does not allow SMART? Did you try a different USB port and or use an eSata port?

You could contact the manufacturer and ask them, or return it for another. Perhaps it can be updated?

I installed smartmontools from the Software Manager or Synaptic Package Manager (SPM), but I then updated the smartmontools using their source code and compiling to a newer stable version (not necessary).


FYI: The regular way to update the Smartmontools drive database was changed or is not working for me (sudo update-smart-drivedb), but this worked for me:
Updating Smartmontools Drive Database
https://www.thomas-krenn.com/de/wiki/Sm ... ualisieren

To install this using console terminal, type in, or copy & paste, each line below one by one:
Click "Select All" above command, right click the highlighted command, select Copy (or Ctrl+Insert), click in the console terminal window, and right click paste (or Shift+Insert), repeat for each command.

Code: Select all

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mirror/smartmontools/master/drivedb.h

2018-03-17 11:05:26 (385 KB/s) - ‘drivedb.h’ saved [177945/177945]

Code: Select all

sudo mv /var/lib/smartmontools/drivedb/drivedb.h /var/lib/smartmontools/drivedb/drivedb.h.old

Code: Select all

sudo mv drivedb.h /var/lib/smartmontools/drivedb/

Code: Select all

sudo chown -c root:root /var/lib/smartmontools/drivedb/drivedb.h

changed ownership of '/var/lib/smartmontools/drivedb/drivedb.h' from user69:user69 to root:root

Then logout and log back in, or restart...

FYI: If anyone wants a mini-program (bash script file) to be able to run smartmon database updates, here is mine.
I called it "1-smartmon-update.sh" and have it in my Home folder and I run it using the command below, and it will ask for your password while running this.
Give your user permission to run the script file one time.

Code: Select all

chmod a+x 1-smartmon-update.sh

Console terminal command to run this script file.

Code: Select all

bash 1-smartmon-update.sh

Create a new text file like "1-smartmon-update.sh" in your Home folder and copy the text in the code box below and paste that into the new text file (script file) and save it, exit the text editor, then open a console terminal prompt to run it using the command above.

Code: Select all

#!/bin/bash
#
# Update the smartmon database
#
echo
clear
echo Current smartmon database date
echo
ls -l /var/lib/smartmontools/drivedb
echo
echo
echo Updating the smartmon database
echo
echo
#
rm drivedb.h
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mirror/smartmontools/master/drivedb.h
sudo mv /var/lib/smartmontools/drivedb/drivedb.h /var/lib/smartmontools/drivedb/drivedb.h.old
sudo mv drivedb.h /var/lib/smartmontools/drivedb/
sudo chown -c root:root /var/lib/smartmontools/drivedb/drivedb.h
echo
echo Finished updating the smartmon database
echo
echo
ls -l /var/lib/smartmontools/drivedb
echo

Hope this helps ...

[WharfRat]

Thanks phd21 and Pippin

I downloaded the newer drivedb.h and it now shows as enabled

Other suggestion prior to utilizing drivedb.h made no difference.

Mystery solved - thanks a lot guys...

[phd21]

Hi WharfRat,

You are welcome from all of us that replied ...

[linmint0001]

Thank you very much to all of you for replying to my post! I certainly learned a lot about this topic and I now feel reassured that enabling S.M.A.R.T. on my external hard drives will be helpful. I appreciate your time and help!

[phd21]

Hi linmint0001,

You are very welcome form all of us that replied.

I personally think it is always smart to use SMART for drives that support it.