[smartmontools-support] smartctl 7.1 2019-12-30 r5022 [FreeBSD 12.2-RELEASE-p2 amd64]

[Carlos E. R.]

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On Wednesday, 2021-01-27 at 08:06 +1300, Lyn Edmenson wrote:

> Hi.
>
> This tool is part of TrueNAS which I have installed for the first time. I 
> find it somewhat confusing to use compared with other SMART tools I have used 
> in the past and wonder if you could clarify some things please which I think 
> may need some attention.
>
> "Please wait 107 seconds for test to complete. Test will complete after Tue 
> Jan 26 10:39:19 2021 PST"
>
> The above statement appeared when I ran a manual test. It appears not only to 
> be incorrect but contradicts itself. In this case (and it varies) it tells me 
> to wait 107 seconds to complete and then goes on to say it will complete on 
> the previous day (I am running it on Wednesday) about 3 hours from when I 
> started it.
>
> In this case my UEFI boot procedure is telling me I have SMART errors on a 
> brand new unused drive and I am trying to read what the problem is as it is 
> highly unusual. My experience of SMART tools generally is the information is 
> readily available and should be almost instantly readable. So far I have not 
> found a way to see any SMART information for any drives on this NAS system 
> and I'm not sure whether it's a TrueNAS problem or a problem with your 
> program but I am inclined to think because of the confusing statement that's 
> where the problem lies. I don't really understand how long to wait and have 
> no way of knowing when it finishes. The first part of the message fluctuates 
> and I have never seen it say it will take longer than 2 minutes to complete 
> but then it goes on to say the test will finish about 3 hours later and it 
> can be the same day, but not in the example here.
>
> Secondly it says at the end: "Use smartctl -X to abort test.". I'm assuming 
> it is a command to type but why don't you just have an ABORT button unless 
> CLOSE does the same thing? Can you advise please?


I'm not familiar with TrueNAS, but it seems that "something" is calling 
the "smartctl" command to do the reading and testing, because those 
messages you cite are indeed the typical messages printed by "smartctl".

So, in Linux we might do:

   smartctl --test=long  /dev/DEVICE

we will get a response that the test is going to take several hours (if 
you get immediate results, they are lying to you), and after that time we 
would do, perhaps:

   smartctl -a /dev/DEVICE

to read the test results. Or, before that, we would do:

   smartctl -X /dev/DEVICE

to abort the test.


An graphical application would call "smartctl" with the appropriate 
parameters and then display the results to you, but the actual tool doing 
the grunt work is smartctl.  Of course, if the GUI application does 
parsing of the text, it might make errors.  So, if that TrueNAS thing 
gives you access to a Linux terminal with root powers, you might instead 
do - I copy a session here so that you see the commands and the results:


Telcontar:~ # smartctl --test=short /dev/sda
smartctl 7.0 2019-05-21 r4917 [x86_64-linux-5.3.18-lp152.60-preempt] (SUSE RPM)
Copyright (C) 2002-18, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

=== START OF OFFLINE IMMEDIATE AND SELF-TEST SECTION ===
Sending command: "Execute SMART Short self-test routine immediately in off-line mode".
Drive command "Execute SMART Short self-test routine immediately in off-line mode" successful.
Testing has begun.
Please wait 1 minutes for test to complete.
Test will complete after Wed Jan 27 23:19:42 2021

Use smartctl -X to abort test.
Telcontar:~ #


Telcontar:~ # smartctl -l selftest /dev/sda
smartctl 7.0 2019-05-21 r4917 [x86_64-linux-5.3.18-lp152.60-preempt] (SUSE RPM)
Copyright (C) 2002-18, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
Num  Test_Description    Status                  Remaining  LifeTime(hours)  LBA_of_first_error
# 1  Short offline       Completed without error       00%     22142         -
# 2  Short offline       Completed without error       00%     22130         -
# 3  Short offline       Completed without error       00%     22106         -
# 4  Short offline       Completed without error       00%     22082         -
# 5  Short offline       Completed without error       00%     22059         -
# 6  Short offline       Completed without error       00%     22042         -
# 7  Short offline       Completed without error       00%     22023         -
# 8  Short offline       Completed without error       00%     22008         -
# 9  Short offline       Completed without error       00%     21992         -
#10  Short offline       Completed without error       00%     21968         -
#11  Short offline       Completed without error       00%     21944         -
#12  Short offline       Completed without error       00%     21925         -
#13  Short offline       Completed without error       00%     21909         -
#14  Short offline       Completed without error       00%     21893         -
#15  Short offline       Completed without error       00%     21869         -
#16  Short offline       Completed without error       00%     21853         -
#17  Short offline       Completed without error       00%     21833         -
#18  Short offline       Completed without error       00%     21809         -
#19  Short offline       Completed without error       00%     21792         -
#20  Short offline       Completed without error       00%     21768         -
#21  Short offline       Completed without error       00%     21744         -

Telcontar:~ #



(the last command, if done before test completion, will tell you so)




- -- 
Cheers,
        Carlos E. R.
        (from openSUSE 15.2 x86_64 at Telcontar)

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