Here's another newb question. I'm running a preclear on several disks, and the ones that have finished have all returned a PASS with 0 re-allocated sectors. I would assume that's the result I'm looking for, correct?  I would assume the drives are considered "good" after several "PASS" results like this?

 

I looked through the wiki and the forums, and it seems that people only post logs when the drives don't pass or there are re-allocated sectors. I know this sounds like a horrible question, but I didn't see it stated explicitly anywhere, and there is a LOT of information in those reports.

Hi I think it's a great question too and would love to know... I am getting pass results from the emails but I don't really know if that's good enough!

 

I'm glad to know I'm not the only one with questions like this! I had to talk myself into posting the question.

I'm glad to know I'm not the only one with questions like this! I had to talk myself into posting the question.

It is a good sign if there are no sectors pending re-allocation, and none re-allocated, but neither will tell you the entire story about the disk.

 

If the pre-clear signature was written, and successfully read back, and the entire disk confirmed as zeroed, then the pre-clear considers the preclear to be successful.

 

If the disk is making weird noises and sounds like fingers on a chalkboard, odds are it is not mechanically fine, or won't be for long.

 

You need to look at the current normalized values in the smart reports and compare them to the affiliated failure thresholds.  If they changed in a way where they are getting near the failure threshold, then be wary of the drive.  You can mostly ignore large "raw" values for read errors and error correcting codes...    Note: some manufacturers put an initial normalized value of 100 and a failure threshold of 98 for specific attributes such as spin-up time.  They consider just a few problems with spin-up to be an indication of something failing.  Other manufacturers will never change the normalized value for sectors pending re-allocation, even if there are hundreds pending.  They wait until a "write" is performed to those sectors to mark them as defective.  I consider that firmware to be poorly designed. 

 

Sorry to give such an un-specific reply, but you are asking the equivalent of "is my car in need of any repair?  The check engine light is not on."

 

 

I'm glad to know I'm not the only one with questions like this! I had to talk myself into posting the question.

 

You know the old saying, the only stupid question is the one not asked!

 

Joe L is right, its a lot more than just passing the preclear. Preclear stresses the drives to weed out bad drives, but there are plenty of other indicators as well.

 

Going on with his car analogy, the preclear is your test drive, the smart report is the carfax. Preclear lets you know the drive is working now, smart reports let you know what errors the drive has had in the past. Comparing the values from before and after the preclear will show how the drive performed, and if it is having "pre-fail" errors.

Thanks for the feedback as always!

 

Is the SMART information in the report that's emailed once the drives are complete enough to get a good idea of the health of the drive, or should I look at the syslog? I don't have any drives added to my array yet, and I'd rather let it run until I've pre cleared all of my drives before shutting down to get the syslog. Just wondering if I have enough information already to feel comfortable adding the drives that have already finished.

You don't have to shutdown to get the syslog. If you want a copy of it you can telnet in and type:

cp /var/log/syslog /boot/syslog.txt

 

That will copy the syslog from RAM to your flash drive, then you can access the flash share(\\Tower\flash\) and copy it to your pc. If you use windows a editor like notepad2 comes in handy as the notepad that comes with windows doesn't correctly format the syslog(it will all be jumbled together).

 

With that being said, you don't need to look at the syslog, the smart report sent by the preclear script should include anything changed in the smart report ran before the preclear and the smart report ran after the preclear.

 

If you want to look at both smart reports they are located in /var/log/smart_start_sdX and /var/log/smart_finish_sdX.

 

Note that since these are saved in the volatile system memory, they will not survive a reboot. So you can only look at these reports after the preclear is done and before a reboot. If you wish to save them you must copy them to another drive, either the flash or a drive in the array.

Thanks for the tip on copying the logs. That will come in handy!

 

Sounds like my drives are in good shape then. I didn't find anything in the reports that looked like values were changing from one pass to the next aside from the drive temperature. I just need to run another pass or two on my new drive, and I'll be ready to do something constructive with this thing