Read smartctl output

Alain De Vos · 2026-01-01T14:16:36+0000

Anyone can explain what this means,
Thanks

Code:

ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
  1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate     0x000f   081   061   006    Pre-fail  Always       -       126884192
  3 Spin_Up_Time            0x0003   099   099   000    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0033   100   100   036    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  7 Seek_Error_Rate         0x000f   088   060   045    Pre-fail  Always       -       632544438
 10 Spin_Retry_Count        0x0013   100   100   097    Pre-fail  Always       -       0

balanga · 2026-01-01T16:49:18+0000

According to ChatGPT:

This looks like a traditional HDD (spinning disk), very likely Seagate-style SMART attributes. I’ll explain each line, then give you a clear health verdict.

For many HDD vendors (especially Seagate):

Huge RAW_VALUE numbers for read/seek errors are NORMAL

You judge health by:

VALUE vs THRESH
Whether RAW_VALUE is increasing abnormally
Critical attributes (5, 197, 198)

There is too much to post. Just past your results into ChatGPT after asking 'need explanation of the output of smartctl'

atax1a · 2026-01-01T17:04:59+0000

yeah, go ahead and trust a word-averaging machine that literally invents random concepts as to how to understand these results. i'm sure it'll help increase your understanding.

Phishfry · 2026-01-01T17:10:19+0000

You would be wrong to believe that slop.

Just look above at what is presented.

Zero Spinup time.

You Really think that is a spinner??????

Notice it said "Very likely"

Hardy har har har. CYA for machine ignorance.

Guess again bot...

How many S are in strawberry?

Alain De Vos · 2026-01-01T17:20:07+0000

google ai,

There is
one letter "s" in the word "strawberry".

The spelling of the word is S-T-R-A-W-B-E-R-R-Y.

Related Letter Counts

While there is only one "s," this question is often a test for Artificial Intelligence models because they traditionally struggle to count letters due to how they process text in "tokens" rather than individual characters.

"r": There are three "r"s in strawberry (one in "straw" and two in "berry").
"b": There is one "b".

Phishfry · 2026-01-01T17:22:18+0000

Is your presented SMART output from a spinning disk or SSD?

Alain De Vos · 2026-01-01T17:39:21+0000

camcontrol identify /dev/ada0

Code:

pass0: <ST1000LM049-2GH172 SDM1> ACS-3 ATA SATA 3.x device
pass0: 600.000MB/s transfers (SATA 3.x, UDMA6, PIO 8192bytes)

protocol              ACS-3 ATA SATA 3.x
device model          ST1000LM049-2GH172
firmware revision     SDM1
serial number         WN959Y8P
WWN                   5000c500e0749ac9
additional product id
cylinders             16383
heads                 16
sectors/track         63
sector size           logical 512, physical 4096, offset 0
LBA supported         268435455 sectors
LBA48 supported       1953525168 sectors
PIO supported         PIO4
DMA supported         WDMA2 UDMA6
media RPM             7200
Zoned-Device Commands no

Feature                      Support  Enabled   Value           Vendor
read ahead                     yes    yes
write cache                    yes    yes
flush cache                    yes    yes
Native Command Queuing (NCQ)   yes        32 tags
NCQ Priority Information       no
NCQ Non-Data Command           no
NCQ Streaming                  no
Receive & Send FPDMA Queued    no
NCQ Autosense                  no
SMART                          yes    yes
security                       yes    no
power management               yes    yes
microcode download             yes    yes
advanced power management      yes    yes    128/0x80
automatic acoustic management  no    no
media status notification      no    no
power-up in Standby            yes    no
write-read-verify              yes    no    0/0x0
unload                         yes    yes
general purpose logging        yes    yes
free-fall                      no    no
sense data reporting           no    no
extended power conditions      no    no
device statistics notification no    no
Data Set Management (DSM/TRIM) yes
DSM - max 512byte blocks       yes              8
DSM - deterministic read       no
Trusted Computing              no
encrypts all user data         no
Sanitize                       yes        overwrite,
Sanitize - commands allowed    yes
Sanitize - antifreeze lock     yes
Host Protected Area (HPA)      yes      no      1953525168/1953525168
HPA - Security                 yes      no
Accessible Max Address Config  no

media RPM 7200

I did not knew this

Phishfry · 2026-01-01T17:48:55+0000

My opinion is pay attention to RAW_VALUES. That information is universal. I start with POH. How long has drive been powered on.
Then look at sectors written. Do those numbers look reasonable and accurate. Thus will determine if I can rely on the information provided.
SMART is not standardized. Drives can be really inaccurate in reading. "Drive not in database".

Andriy · 2026-01-01T18:12:05+0000

Alain De Vos said:

Anyone can explain what this means,
Thanks

Code:

ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
  1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate     0x000f   081   061   006    Pre-fail  Always       -       126884192
  3 Spin_Up_Time            0x0003   099   099   000    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0033   100   100   036    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  7 Seek_Error_Rate         0x000f   088   060   045    Pre-fail  Always       -       632544438
 10 Spin_Retry_Count        0x0013   100   100   097    Pre-fail  Always       -       0

Nothing very useful for an end-user like you and me.

Phishfry · 2026-01-01T18:12:46+0000

I am willing to admit I was wrong. I assumed SSD.
Ask yourself this. How is it showing Zero spinup time yet has available information for Seek and Read? No reallocated sectors? So medium is fine?
That could be an interpretation.

I would say take this data with a grain of salt. SMART output is fine. How SMARTCTL interprets it could be a problem. Each manufacturer uses their own SMART codes.

Here is an example. I just bought a batch of premium SATADOM. New in sealed container. But SMARTCTL POH was showing 15000 on the first drive. I was pissed. Ebay duped.
So I open a second one to see how bad it was and it had exactly the same number of POH as the first. That seemed weird. exactly the same.
Then on to a third and I solved my mystery. 15000 too. These were not used. They were 0 Hours as seen by the 'read sectors'. So SMART POH numbers were wrong. Sigh of relief.

Eric A. Borisch · 2026-01-01T18:21:13+0000

This is the one of most interest:

5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 100 100 036 Pre-fail Always - 0

And it is currently zero. This is about the only parameter I look for in SMART on HDDs. When it starts to have relocated sectors, it’s time to replace. (And hopefully you’ve got redundancy and a backup.)

cracauer@ · 2026-01-01T18:24:46+0000

WTF is this thread and the AI slop in here?

Alain De Vos · 2026-01-01T18:26:05+0000

Other sources are welcome

cracauer@ · 2026-01-01T18:39:33+0000

Alain De Vos said:

Anyone can explain what this means,
Thanks

Code:

ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
  1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate     0x000f   081   061   006    Pre-fail  Always       -       126884192
  3 Spin_Up_Time            0x0003   099   099   000    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0033   100   100   036    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  7 Seek_Error_Rate         0x000f   088   060   045    Pre-fail  Always       -       632544438
 10 Spin_Retry_Count        0x0013   100   100   097    Pre-fail  Always       -       0

The two non-zero values are bit-encoded vendor-specific. You need the manufacturer's tool to decode them.

Alain De Vos · 2026-01-01T18:42:31+0000

I would have preferred ceasars cipher or rot13

Eric A. Borisch · 2026-01-01T22:32:55+0000

For most purposes, you don’t need any further decoding.

From smartctl(8), describing Value/Worst/Thresh and Raw:

Each Attribute has a "Raw" value, printed under the heading
"RAW_VALUE", and a "Normalized" value printed under the heading
"VALUE". [Note: smartctl prints these values in base-10.] In
the example just given, the "Raw Value" for Attribute 12 would
be the actual number of times that the disk has been power-cy-
cled, for example 365 if the disk has been turned on once per
day for exactly one year. Each vendor uses their own algorithm
to convert this "Raw" value to a "Normalized" value in the range
from 1 to 254. Please keep in mind that smartctl only reports
the different Attribute types, values, and thresholds as read
from the device. It does not carry out the conversion between
"Raw" and "Normalized" values: this is done by the disk's
firmware.

The conversion from Raw value to a quantity with physical units
is not specified by the SMART standard. In most cases, the val-
ues printed by smartctl are sensible. For example the tempera-
ture Attribute generally has its raw value equal to the tempera-
ture in Celsius. However in some cases vendors use unusual con-
ventions. For example the Hitachi disk on my laptop reports its
power-on hours in minutes, not hours. Some IBM disks track three
temperatures rather than one, in their raw values. And so on.

Each Attribute also has a Threshold value (whose range is 0 to
255) which is printed under the heading "THRESH". If the Nor-
malized value is less than or equal to the Threshold value, then
the Attribute is said to have failed. If the Attribute is a
pre-failure Attribute, then disk failure is imminent.

Each Attribute also has a "Worst" value shown under the heading
"WORST". This is the smallest (closest to failure) value that
the disk has recorded at any time during its lifetime when SMART
was enabled. [Note however that some vendors firmware may actu-
ally increase the "Worst" value for some "rate-type" Attrib-
utes.]

atax1a · 2026-01-01T22:41:53+0000

not always, some manufacturers use a bitfield for the raw value: https://www.disktuna.com/big-scary-raw-s-m-a-r-t-values-arent-always-bad-news/

gpw928 · 2026-01-01T23:18:48+0000

That looks like a Seagate disk. You might want to try smartctl -v 1,hex48 -v 7,hex48 -v195,hex48 -a /dev/ada0 to view the breakdown as it's meant to be interpreted.

It's worth reading the TrueNAS Hard Drive Troubleshooting Guide. Appendix B points to an sdx.net note on interpreting the Seagate drive data. Specifically, the first four hex digits of each hex48 value are the total number of errors. The remaining 8 hex digits are just a total operation count.

Edit: I see that atax1a has also covered this nicely.

Alain De Vos · 2026-01-01T23:34:33+0000

no read errors,

smartctl -v 1,hex48 -v 7,hex48 -v195,hex48 -a /dev/ada0

Code:

smartctl 7.5 2025-04-30 r5714 [FreeBSD 15.0-RELEASE-p1 amd64] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-25, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family:     Seagate Barracuda Pro Compute
Device Model:     ST1000LM049-2GH172
Serial Number:    WN959Y8P
LU WWN Device Id: 5 000c50 0e0749ac9
Firmware Version: SDM1
User Capacity:    1.000.204.886.016 bytes [1,00 TB]
Sector Sizes:     512 bytes logical, 4096 bytes physical
Rotation Rate:    7200 rpm
Form Factor:      2.5 inches
TRIM Command:     Available
Device is:        In smartctl database 7.5/5706
ATA Version is:   ACS-3 T13/2161-D revision 3b
SATA Version is:  SATA 3.1, 6.0 Gb/s (current: 6.0 Gb/s)
Local Time is:    Fri Jan  2 00:33:22 2026 CET
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED

General SMART Values:
Offline data collection status:  (0x00)    Offline data collection activity
                    was never started.
                    Auto Offline Data Collection: Disabled.
Self-test execution status:      (   0)    The previous self-test routine completed
                    without error or no self-test has ever
                    been run.
Total time to complete Offline
data collection:         (    0) seconds.
Offline data collection
capabilities:              (0x71) SMART execute Offline immediate.
                    No Auto Offline data collection support.
                    Suspend Offline collection upon new
                    command.
                    No Offline surface scan supported.
                    Self-test supported.
                    Conveyance Self-test supported.
                    Selective Self-test supported.
SMART capabilities:            (0x0003)    Saves SMART data before entering
                    power-saving mode.
                    Supports SMART auto save timer.
Error logging capability:        (0x01)    Error logging supported.
                    General Purpose Logging supported.
Short self-test routine
recommended polling time:      (   1) minutes.
Extended self-test routine
recommended polling time:      ( 125) minutes.
Conveyance self-test routine
recommended polling time:      (   2) minutes.
SCT capabilities:            (0x3035)    SCT Status supported.
                    SCT Feature Control supported.
                    SCT Data Table supported.

SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 10
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
  1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate     0x000f   078   061   006    Pre-fail  Always       -       0x0000037de788
  3 Spin_Up_Time            0x0003   099   099   000    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  4 Start_Stop_Count        0x0032   098   098   020    Old_age   Always       -       2423
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0033   100   100   036    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  7 Seek_Error_Rate         0x000f   088   060   045    Pre-fail  Always       -       0x000025dca7be
  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   084   084   000    Old_age   Always       -       14276 (249 183 0)
 10 Spin_Retry_Count        0x0013   100   100   097    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
 12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0032   098   098   020    Old_age   Always       -       2252
184 End-to-End_Error        0x0032   100   100   099    Old_age   Always       -       0
187 Reported_Uncorrect      0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
188 Command_Timeout         0x0032   100   001   000    Old_age   Always       -       4295033670
189 High_Fly_Writes         0x003a   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
190 Airflow_Temperature_Cel 0x0022   064   055   040    Old_age   Always       -       36 (Min/Max 25/37)
191 G-Sense_Error_Rate      0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       1
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       1249
193 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0032   001   001   000    Old_age   Always       -       400645
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0022   036   045   000    Old_age   Always       -       36 (0 15 0 0 0)
197 Current_Pending_Sector  0x0012   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable   0x0010   100   100   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    0x003e   200   187   000    Old_age   Always       -       525
240 Head_Flying_Hours       0x0000   100   253   000    Old_age   Offline      -       12359 (214 92 0)
241 Total_LBAs_Written      0x0000   100   253   000    Old_age   Offline      -       369565519119
242 Total_LBAs_Read         0x0000   100   253   000    Old_age   Offline      -       90215671537
254 Free_Fall_Sensor        0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0

SMART Error Log Version: 1
No Errors Logged

SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
No self-tests have been logged.  [To run self-tests, use: smartctl -t]

SMART Selective self-test log data structure revision number 1
 SPAN  MIN_LBA  MAX_LBA  CURRENT_TEST_STATUS
    1        0        0  Not_testing
    2        0        0  Not_testing
    3        0        0  Not_testing
    4        0        0  Not_testing
    5        0        0  Not_testing
Selective self-test flags (0x0):
  After scanning selected spans, do NOT read-scan remainder of disk.

gpw928 · 2026-01-02T01:35:08+0000

Looks pretty good to me, except for "188 Command_Timeout". See page 9 of the Seagate SMART Attribute Specification. Decimal 4295033670 is 0x100010346:

Bytes [1 - 0] = 0x0346 = Total # of command timeouts, with Max hold of FFFFh
Bytes [3 - 2] = 0x0001 = Total # of commands with > 5 second completion, including those > 7.5 seconds
Bytes [5 - 4] = 0x0001 = Total # of commands with > 7.5 second completion

So there are some command timeouts there. Maybe clean and re-seat the SATA cables?

Have you turned on the daily smart periodic stuff:

Code:

$ grep smart /etc/periodic.conf
daily_status_smart_devices="AUTO"

My disks get a regular "Short offline" self-test run by SMART. I'm not sure of the mechanism that causes this to happen regularly. Hopefully the collected wisdom can advise.

atax1a · 2026-01-02T01:57:21+0000

we use this smartd.conf:

Code:

DEFAULT -a -m smart -S on -s (S/../([123].|08|09)/6/06:001|L/../01/./03:006)
DEVICESCAN

you can use smartd -q showtests to show the next round of tests that this expression specifies. man smartd.conf has more details.

this works best if you also use these flags in rc.conf and make the directory in question:

Code:

smartd_flags="-s /var/db/smartd/ -A /var/db/smartd/"
smartd_enable="YES"