How to check whether the hard drive on a cheap dedicated server is damaged or has bad sectors?

Raksmart, QN, VirMach and other foreign merchants are promoting cheap servers, which are very cost-effective. One thing to be aware of is that many cheap independent servers are used for Chia mining. The hard disk loss is very large, which seriously affects the life of the hard disk. It is very easy. damage. Therefore, you should pay special attention when buying low-end and cheap dedicated servers. Although the hard drive is broken, you can ask the merchant to replace the hard drive, but it is more troublesome.

We can quickly check the hard disk status through a few pieces of code. It is only applicable to independent servers and cannot be used on VPS and VDS, because VPS and VDS storage are virtualized, not physical hard disks.

Just like we check whether the hard drive is damaged on a PC, S.M.A.R.T is also used on a dedicated server to detect and report various indicators of hard drive reliability. Many children’s shoes know S.M.A.R.T. I won’t go into details.

First, install the smart-tools package. Take Debian as an example.

apt-get install smartmontools

Next step, query the hard disk

smartctl -a /dev/sdg

The following is a report on a nearly new (less than 72 hours old) Western Digital 6TB SATA hard drive.

# smartctl -a /dev/sdg
smartctl 6.6 2016-05-31 r4324 [x86_64-linux-4.9.0-16-amd64] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-16, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org
=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Device Model: WDC WD6003FZBX-00K5WB0
Serial Number: V9JGEZSL
LU WWN Device ID: 5 000cca 0bde2c0ba
Firmware Version: 01.01A01
User Capacity: 6,001,175,126,016 bytes [6.00 TB]
Sector Sizes: 512 bytes logical, 4096 bytes physical
Rotation Rate: 7200 rpm
Form Factor: 3.5 inches
Device is: Not in smartctl database [for details use: -P showall]
ATA Version is: ACS-2, ATA8-ACS T13/1699-D revision 4
SATA Version is: SATA 3.2, 6.0 Gb/s (current: 6.0 Gb/s)
Local Time is: Sun Jul 11 ​​11:52:27 2021 PDT
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: (0x82) Offline data collection activity
was completed without error.
Auto Offline Data Collection: Enabled.
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: ( 87) seconds.
Offline data collection
capabilities: (0x5b) SMART execute Offline immediate.
Auto Offline data collection on/off support.
Suspend Offline collection upon new
command.
Offline surface scan supported.
Self-test supported.
No 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: ( 2) minutes.
Extended self-test routine
recommended polling time: (593) minutes.
SCT capabilities: (0x0035) SCT Status supported.
SCT Feature Control supported.
SCT Data Table supported.
SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x000b 100 100 016 Pre-fail Always - 0
2 Throughput_Performance 0x0004 133 133 054 Old_age Offline - 92
3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0007 100 100 024 Pre-fail Always - 0
4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0012 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 1
5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 100 100 005 Pre-fail Always - 0
7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x000a 100 100 067 Old_age Always - 0
8 Seek_Time_Performance 0x0004 128 128 020 Old_age Offline - 18
9 Power_On_Hours 0x0012 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 69
10 Spin_Retry_Count 0x0012 100 100 060 Old_age Always - 0
12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 1
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 4
193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0012 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 4
194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0002 141 141 000 Old_age Always - 39 (Min/Max 25/41)
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0022 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x0008 100 100 000 Old_age Offline - 0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x000a 200 200 000 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.
If Selective self-test is pending on power-up, resume after 0 minute delay.

Power_On_Hours:The total time the hard drive was powered on.

Power_Cycle_Count: How often does this drive power cycle?

Raw_Read_Error_Rate, Seek_Error_Rate, Offline_Uncorrectable: These are preferably zero.

Reallocated_Event_Coun: Ideally, this should be zero and a low number.

SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: The test result is PASSED.

If the hard disk report of the independent server shows that the life span has been used for several years, or there are many errors, you may contact your hosting provider and ask for replacement to avoid affecting project deployment.

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