Re: detecting bad RAID disk

[Mark Copper <mcopper@titaninterface.com>]

On Mon, Sep 10, 2007 at 09:46:47AM -0700, tabris wrote:
> Mark Copper wrote:
> > Dear Users,
> >
> > I have an Intel machine on which I installed software RAID 1 using a
> > Knoppix trick back in January of last year:
> >
> > # uname -a
> > Linux deneb 2.6.15 #1 SMP PREEMPT Thu Jan 5 18:12:48 EST 2006 i686
> > GNU/Linux
> >
> > The machine suffered occasional kernel panics which, upon removal from
> > the data center where I colocated it, I have not been able to reproduce.
> > However, I do notice occasional "hesitations" involving disk writes that
> > I felt were somehow related to the panics.  There was also a post to
> > kernel.org at the time where in a similar setup kernel panics were
> > traced to a bad hard disc.
> >
> > So, I'm thinking simply to replace both hard drives.  
> >
> > Is this foolish?  Is there a better approach not requiring special
> > equipment to diagnosing the problem?
> >
> > thanks.
> >
> > Mark
> >   
> try smart-tools. a) it can tell the disc to test itself b) it can tell
> you what the hard-drive thinks about itself (don't pay too much attn to
> "PASSED" b/c that's just a 24 hour warning)
> 
>     And yes, it does work with SATA drives, it just needs the '-d ata' hint

Thank you for this.  My discs get a clean bill of health from SMART.

So I'm left with these hesitations I don't understand.  These happen
with simple bash commands (ls, man, mv) as well as delivery of web
pages.  For instance, I just waited nearly 30 seconds for "man" to
return, but only when the given command has not been used for a while.

Is there some aspect to disk access that SMART does not test?

Thanks.

Mark