S.M.A.R.T. Tests

S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology) is a monitoring system for computer hard disk drives to detect and report on various indicators of reliability. When a failure is anticipated by S.M.A.R.T., the drive should be replaced. Most modern ATA, IDE and SCSI-3 hard drives support S.M.A.R.T.--refer to your drive's documentation if you are unsure.

Figure 4.6a shows the configuration screen that appears when you click System → S.M.A.R.T. Tests → Add S.M.A.R.T. Test. The tests that you create will be listed under View S.M.A.R.T. Tests. After creating your tests, check the configuration in Services → S.M.A.R.T., then click the slider to ON for the S.M.A.R.T. service in Services → Control Services. The S.M.A.R.T. service will not start if you have not created any volumes.

NOTE: to prevent problems, do not enable the S.M.A.R.T. service if your disks are controlled by a RAID controller as it is the job of the controller to monitor S.M.A.R.T. and mark drives as Predictive Failure when they trip.

Figure 4.6a: Adding a S.M.A.R.T. Test

Table 4.6a summarizes the configurable options when creating a S.M.A.R.T. test.

Table 4.6a: S.M.A.R.T. Test Options

Setting	Value	Description
Disk	list	highlight disk(s) to monitor
Type	drop-down menu	select type of test to run; see smartctl(8) for a description of each type of test (note that some test types will degrade performance or take disk(s) offline)
Short description	string	optional
Hour	slider or hour selections	if use the slider, test occurs every N hours; if use hour selections, test occurs at the highlighted hours
Day of month	slider or day selections	if use the slider, test occurs every N days; if use day selections, test occurs on the highlighted days
Month	checkboxes	select the months when you wish the test to occur
Day of week	checkboxes	select the days of the week when you wish the test to occur

You can verify which tests will run and when by typing smartd -q showtests within Shell.