Run a SMART-Test to test the health of the HDD

my friends recommended me to run a short and a long test weekly or on all my hdd-drives.

To run a long test, the command is:

 sudo smartctl -t long -a /dev/sdX

One of the first things we should see is the results of the SMART overall-health self-assessment test.
In short - the test should say (and give back) PASSED.

Danger: If it does not, we know, right away, there’s obviousliy something wrong with the drive.

well we can have a short and a long test:

i will show how we do these tests:

The short test will examine the following:

  • all the included hw (hardware) things in the drive will be tested;
  • the electrical properties of the drive: well here we talk about the controller tests its own electronics, which in generall all that is very different for each manufacturer;
  • the mechanical properties of the drive: well here we talk about the servos and positioning mechanisms are tested ( in generall all that is very specific to each manufacturer);
  • the read/verify-processes and procedures: well - alot of amount will certainly go into these parts of the test: we sure can say that certain area of the disk will be;
    read to verify very very certain data and bits and bytes (especially we can say that the size and position of the region read is in general very unique to each manufacturer);

lets have a quick look at the long test too;

we can say that the long test runs everything included with the short test, while adding:

  • here we have a global test and in general no time restriction and in the Read/Verify segment.
  • here we have a great test regarding the whole disk - the whole disc is is checked (as opposed to just a section in the quick-test).
  • in opposite to the quick and short-time-test which takes approximately two minutes to complete, the long (andoverall) test will require between 20-60 minutes ( which of course is depending upon the
    specs of the hardware).

here the command to have a view on the the results of the test, issue the command



sudo smartctl -a /dev/sdX

 (and in this command the term sdX is the name of the drive - that we want to test).


The good thing : this command will do a print out of  the results of the test,