(old)Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

From time to time, checking the health of a drive can help you save your data, in case the drive being analysed don't pass the health test.
Then you have some time left to migrate your data on another drive, before bad blocks prevent you from using your drive altogether.

From terminal, you can install smartmontools, and check the health of a drive from command lines :
Here i check the health of partition sda1 :
$ sudo smartctl -H /dev/sda1 (-H for health report)

Or install gsmartcontrol for a GUI.

$sudo smartctl -i /dev/sda
$sudo smartctl -i /dev/sdb

With above command lines, you make available information about your drives (-i for information). It will tell you if your devices have smart enabled. If not follow next command line :


to enable smartctl :

sudo smartctl -s on /dev/sdb (or sdc, sdd, etc)

And to disable smartctl :

sudo smartctl -s off /dev/sdb

A quick health check :

sudo smartctl -H /dev/sdb (or sdc, sdd, etc)

You can force smartctl to inform you in case of imminent failure via email :

You can run smartd, the SMART daemon, to continually monitor your drives and email you to report possible troubles. On Debian/Ubuntu/etc. you'll edit /etc/default/smartmontools to automatically launch smartd at startup, and edit /etc/smartd.conf to configure monitoring and notifications. Most distros install /etc/smartd.conf, and you'll use your distro's method of launching smartd at boot.

smartctl is an utility that can save your data. In case of imminent failure, you can transfert your data to another drive.