[smartmontools-support] Drive is dead, but SMART overall-health self-assessment is PASSED?!?
David Niklas
deference at null.net
Wed Sep 16 21:12:39 CEST 2026
Hello,
I had an SSD die on my recently. It was very sudden. No warning at all.
My data is backed up.
It's a Patriot Burst 960GB drive. It had about 70% health remaining and
it is about 5 years old. "Spinning rust" really looks like a good option
when your other choice is "non-spinning money-eater".
The partition table and MBR are not accessible. I only managed to get a
full SMART log out of the drive once. The smart log is just wrong. E.G.
the drive has not been power cycled 16056564 times. Likewise, the value
doesn't increment when unplugged/plugged. I tried running a long
self-test, but, as mentioned above, I couldn't view the results.
But why does the drive say, "SMART overall-health self-assessment test
result: PASSED" ?!?! Shouldn't it say, "Failed"?
Thanks!
Attached below is the SMART log:
# smartctl -a /dev/sdb
smartctl 7.4 2023-08-01 r5530 [x86_64-linux-6.12.XX] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-23, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org
=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Device Model: SATAFIRM S11
Serial Number: XXX
LU WWN Device Id: 0 000000 000000000
Firmware Version: SBFMJ1W3
User Capacity: 960,197,124,096 bytes [960 GB]
Sector Size: 512 bytes logical/physical
Rotation Rate: Solid State Device
Form Factor: 2.5 inches
TRIM Command: Available
Device is: Not in smartctl database 7.3/5528
ATA Version is: ACS-4 (minor revision not indicated)
SATA Version is: SATA 3.2, 6.0 Gb/s (current: 1.5 Gb/s)
Local Time is: Tue Sep 15 23:14:06 2026 EDT
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Disabled
SMART Disabled. Use option -s with argument 'on' to enable it.
(override with '-T permissive' option)
# smartctl -s on -a /dev/sdb
smartctl 7.4 2023-08-01 r5530 [x86_64-linux-6.12.XX] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-23, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org
=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Device Model: SATAFIRM S11
Serial Number: XXX
LU WWN Device Id: 0 000000 000000000
Firmware Version: SBFMJ1W3
User Capacity: 960,197,124,096 bytes [960 GB]
Sector Size: 512 bytes logical/physical
Rotation Rate: Solid State Device
Form Factor: 2.5 inches
TRIM Command: Available
Device is: Not in smartctl database 7.3/5528
ATA Version is: ACS-4 (minor revision not indicated)
SATA Version is: SATA 3.2, 6.0 Gb/s (current: 1.5 Gb/s)
Local Time is: Tue Sep 15 23:14:10 2026 EDT
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Disabled
=== START OF ENABLE/DISABLE COMMANDS SECTION ===
SMART Enabled.
=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED
General SMART Values:
Offline data collection status: (0x00) Offline data collection activity
was never started.
Auto Offline Data Collection: Disabled.
Self-test execution status: ( 0) The previous self-test routine completed
without error or no self-test has ever
been run.
Total time to complete Offline
data collection: (65535) seconds.
Offline data collection
capabilities: (0x79) SMART execute Offline immediate.
No Auto Offline data collection support.
Suspend Offline collection upon new
command.
Offline surface scan supported.
Self-test supported.
Conveyance Self-test supported.
Selective Self-test supported.
SMART capabilities: (0x0003) Saves SMART data before entering
power-saving mode.
Supports SMART auto save timer.
Error logging capability: (0x01) Error logging supported.
General Purpose Logging supported.
Short self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 2) minutes.
Extended self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 30) minutes.
Conveyance self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 6) minutes.
SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x000b 100 100 050 Pre-fail Always - 0
9 Power_On_Hours 0x0012 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 271978
12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0012 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 16056564
168 Unknown_Attribute 0x0012 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
170 Unknown_Attribute 0x0003 018 018 010 Pre-fail Always - 360777253178
173 Unknown_Attribute 0x0012 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 281474976710655
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0012 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0023 067 067 000 Pre-fail Always - 33 (Min/Max 0/33)
218 Unknown_Attribute 0x000b 100 100 050 Pre-fail Always - 0
231 Unknown_SSD_Attribute 0x0013 100 100 000 Pre-fail Always - 0
241 Total_LBAs_Written 0x0012 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 34226040839
SMART Error Log Version: 1
No Errors Logged
SMART Self-test log structure revision number 0
Warning: ATA Specification requires self-test log structure revision number = 1
No self-tests have been logged. [To run self-tests, use: smartctl -t]
SMART Selective self-test log data structure revision number 0
Note: revision number not 1 implies that no selective self-test has ever been run
SPAN MIN_LBA MAX_LBA CURRENT_TEST_STATUS
1 0 0 Not_testing
2 0 0 Not_testing
3 0 0 Not_testing
4 0 0 Not_testing
5 0 0 Not_testing
Selective self-test flags (0x0):
After scanning selected spans, do NOT read-scan remainder of disk.
If Selective self-test is pending on power-up, resume after 0 minute delay.
The above only provides legacy SMART information - try 'smartctl -x' for more
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