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3

Disk Utility reports slower initial spinup time via S.M.A.R.T.

rated 0 times [ 3] [ 0] / answers: 1 / hits: 4246 / 1 Year ago, tue, january 17, 2023, 1:59:08

I am not sure this is a real question or a bug I should report Ubuntu.

Using: Ubuntu 11.10, on a Intel Q6600, Samsung Spinpoint F4 2TB.

I have set my PC on Suspend and after I came back, pressed Enter and after logging in everything was back to normal. However, I had a message from Disk Utility that one disk reports errors. I entered Disk Utility, and my Samsung 2TB disk, the one on which my Ubuntu is installed, had the SMART Status turned red, with error message on it. The error was:

Spinup time failed Value 21, Threshold value was 25 (so the error was reported because 21 < 25)
I restarted and booted up in Windows to see what HD Tune is reporting. Unfortunately it was exactly the same 21/25.

After reading up on Wiki about SMART and the errors, I discovered that Spinup time is the time required for the disk to reach full spinning speed in milliseconds.

Then it hit me that, in Ubuntu I had Suspended the system, making essentially all my hardware stop. And when I rebooted to Windows, the hardware doesn't really stop, so SMART's reading of the Spinup time was still from Ubuntu's suspension. So I did a full PC stop and then booted up again, both in Ubuntu and Windows to see if there are different readings. Both reported successful Spinup time, 68 (a little better then 21 :) ), although in Disk Utility I have a nice message: Failed in the Past

So now I am pretty sure that Ubuntu didn't handle the Suspend correctly, but then again should I worry about Imminent hardware failure ? Am I missing some drivers? Should I report this as a bug to Ubuntu?

Sorry if this was a bad place to ask this question.

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sharall

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answered 1 Year ago soahan · Accepted Answer

These gui tools are neat and all but the only thing that really
matters is what the output of the short/extended run tests from the smart tests
say. To put it into perspective, a SATA disk from cold plug takes about
14-20 secs to become available, including spinup. I bet that parameter
measures the time it takes for the platter to reach a minimum speed so
spinup can start. Like you said, an additional 4ms slow down was detected,
that's not earth shattering.

Run the self-tests and see what they say.

sudo -s

apt-get install libatasmart-bin

sktest /dev/sdX short

watch -d 'skdump /dev/sdX | head -n 20'

When it's 100% just run skdump again without the stdout throttling.
Then do the same thing with the extended test when the short one finishes,
that one takes a while.

I'm not a huge fan of these gui tools, they don't have any heuristics
so all the user sees is "failure" with no context of severity.

For reference: Wikipedia S.M.A.R.T. entry

03      0x03    Spin-Up Time    

Average time of spindle spin up (from zero RPM to fully operational [millisecs]).