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Re: Should I trust SMART monitoring tools or the Linux kernel drivers?



Hi

On Tue, May 14, 2013 at 06:45:00AM +0100, Albretch Mueller wrote:
> ~
>  I have a Maxtor OneTouch 2HAS5DYX drive that intermittently gives me
> problems. Like when I make my box go into "suspend" mode for a while,
> it doesn't mount itself when I reawaken it and I have to unmount and
> remount it manually

Does the lenght of "suspension" matter ?

> ~
>  when the box is under heavy load (e.g., heat fan is revving). The
> mini drive has the tendency to shutdown by itself with error messages:
> ~
> [35223.216654] usb 1-8: device descriptor read/8, error -110
> [35226.942174] usb 1-8: device descriptor read/8, error -71
> ~
>  I have read it happens as a protective measure when its interfacing
> circuitry notices that the USB cable does not provide enough power

That makes sense - when your box (a laptop?) is under heavy load,
there'll be less power to external devices...

> ~
>  Linux kernel and SMART report logs:
> ~
>  http://hsymbolicus.wordpress.com/?attachment_id=652

Hm.. I'm not sure whether SMART applies to USB devices, but I could
well be wrong here. I thought SMART was a (S)ATA/IDE specific thing?
(corrections are welcome!)

> ~
>  are not clear to me. The Linux kernel:
> ~
> # uname -a
> Linux Microknoppix 3.3.7 #38 SMP PREEMPT Tue May 22 06:21:01 CEST 2012
> i686 GNU/Linux
> ~
>  seems to be handling the disk just fine
> ~
>  It is time to discard that drive? Or, can I still use it with extra
> case and occasionally?

If it is a case of lack of power, then the drive itself is probably
quite healthy, which means that any problems will be higher up in the
stack, e.g. filesystem integrity.  To make better use of it, perhaps
there's a different USB port that can be used?

Some (few?) BIOSes also have settings for how much power to supply via
USB - it's worth having a quick look.

> ~
>  thanks,
>  lbrtchx

Wow. No offence, but your name is better than most passwords where I
work! Admittedly a low bar, but interesting in a quirky way.

-- 
Karl E. Jorgensen


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