How to check hard drive health on FreeBSD

[cyrille]

"How do I read my hard disk/SSD health using smartctl command on FreeBSD operating system? How can I hard drive health on FreeBSD and find out if my disk is dying?"

How to check hard drive health on FreeBSD - nixCraft

FreeBSD hard drives health checkup. Learn how to check hard drive health on FreeBSD using smartctl to test If FreeBSD server's hard disk is dying.

www.cyberciti.biz

A post in NixCraft yesterday

 

[bjs]

Install sysutils/smartmontools... Then read smartctl (8)

 

[cyrille]

Yes I kknow, thx
just to share this publication....

 

[ralphbsz]

My answer would be: Exactly like on most other operating systems: Use smartctl and the other smartmontools. The only part that is FreeBSD specific is: how to install the package (pkg versus yum), and the naming convention for disks (/dev/ada versus /dev/sd).

 

[stratacast1]

Definitely sysutils/smartmontools as bjs said. Originally when I was new to ZFS, I was ignorant and thought ZFS would detect disk failures and put my pool in a degraded state. I think it does when the disk has a complete failure. It didn't when one of my drives had bad sectors. I would suggest some sort of an alert system for it too so you get an email/sms/whatever when a drive is failing.

 

[BaronBS]

And when I have a zpool inside a geli encrypted disk?

 

[hruodr]

GSmartControl is a nice, self explanatory, graphical interface for smartctl.

 

[Deleted member 56028]

And when I have a zpool inside a geli encrypted disk?

sysutils/smartmontools doesn't care what filesystem is on the disk.

 

[BaronBS]

sysutils/smartmontools doesn't care what filesystem is on the disk.

Yeah, but for example:
I would need to run the tool on /dev/da0 or /dev/da0.eli (with the geli encryption open)?

Edit.: We know each other from Gentoo community, once you help me with a package on your Gentoo Overlay. I used another nickname at that time.

 

[yuripv79]

I would need to run the tool on /dev/da0 or /dev/da0.eli (with the geli encryption open)?

Same answer applies, smartctl talks directly to the drive hardware using specific set of commands, it does not care what filesystem is on the disk, partition layout or any other type of data (including your geli provider) that is on disk, so it should be /dev/da0.

 

[Deleted member 56028]

I would need to run the tool on /dev/da0 or /dev/da0.eli (with the geli encryption open)?

The physical device is /dev/da0 so it's the right one, /dev/da0.eli is the encrypted device, let's say it's a virtual one.

Edit.: We know each other from Gentoo community, once you help me with a package on your Gentoo Overlay. I used another nickname at that time.

I still try to keep the overlay alive, accepting patches and such.