topic Re: Intel® SSD 520 Series: Why does the smart test in Linux lasts 5-6 hours instead of 48 minutes? in Solid State Drives (NAND)

Intel® SSD 520 Series: Why does the smart test in Linux lasts 5-6 hours instead of 48 minutes?

tirzu — Mon, 09 Nov 2015 11:19:24 GMT

Use command: smartctl -t long /dev/sda

The test is passed by drive. But why is so long? (freebsd 8.4, Ubuntu 14.04). Speed is ok, about 400-450 kbytes/sec. Short test is ok, about 1-1,5 min.

Firmware Version: 400i,

[240 GB] Capacity,

Sata current: 6.0 Gb/s

Re: Intel® SSD 520 Series: Why does the smart test in Linux lasts 5-6 hours instead of 48 minutes?

jbenavides — Mon, 09 Nov 2015 23:42:36 GMT

Hello caruna,

Smartctl is a 3rd party tool, and there may be different things that can cause this type of behavior. It is not possible for us to determine the exact reason why the long test is taking so long, however, here are a few aspects we can provide regarding this:

- Make sure that you are using the most recent version of Smartctl software. You can find the downloads and software information at their official website: https://www.smartmontools.org/ https://www.smartmontools.org/

*NOTE: This link is being offered for your convenience and should not be viewed as an endorsement by Intel of the content, products, or services offered there.

- Run the TRIM function manually on your SSD with the "fstrim" command. Automatic file system TRIM is normally disabled in Linux due to performance implications. You can find more details about TRIM and Linux in this thread:

- Contact the http://www.intel.com/support/oems.htm Computer Manufacturer Support and make sure you are using the most recent firmware for your motherboard.

- Check the BIOS of your PC and confirm that the storage controller is set to AHCI (SATA), and using SATA 6.0 Gbps for your SSD.

Please be aware that the long test has no time restriction and it reads/verifies the entire drive. Additionally, the time may increase if the system is performing other tasks at the time the SSD is tested.

Re: Intel® SSD 520 Series: Why does the smart test in Linux lasts 5-6 hours instead of 48 minutes?

tirzu — Tue, 22 Dec 2015 12:46:05 GMT

Is there any official programs for testing yours SSD under Linux ?

Re: Intel® SSD 520 Series: Why does the smart test in Linux lasts 5-6 hours instead of 48 minutes?

tirzu — Tue, 22 Dec 2015 15:32:40 GMT

attach for you log smartctl , why so many

# 1 Extended offlineSelf-test routine in progress 40% 16923 -

....

# 19 Extended offlineSelf-test routine in progress 40% 16924 -

fstrim -v /mnt

/mnt: 236092682240 bytes were trimmed

smartctl -x /dev/sda

smartctl 6.5 2015-12-19 r4193 [x86_64-linux-3.16.0-46-generic] (daily-20151219)

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===

Model Family: Intel 520 Series SSDs

Device Model: INTEL SSDSC2CW240A3

Serial Number: CVCV2495000A240CGN

LU WWN Device Id: 5 001517 803d11a4a

Firmware Version: 400i

User Capacity: 240,057,409,536 bytes [240 GB]

Sector Size: 512 bytes logical/physical

Rotation Rate: Solid State Device

Device is: In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]

ATA Version is: ACS-2 T13/2015-D revision 3

SATA Version is: SATA 3.0, 6.0 Gb/s (current: 6.0 Gb/s)

Local Time is: Tue Dec 22 11:29:49 2015 UTC

SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.

SMART support is: Enabled

AAM feature is: Unavailable

APM level is: 254 (maximum performance)

Rd look-ahead is: Enabled

Write cache is: Enabled

ATA Security is: Disabled, frozen [SEC2]

Wt Cache Reorder: Unavailable

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===

SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED

General SMART Values:

Offline data collection status: (0x03) Offline data collection activity

is in progress.

Auto Offline Data Collection: Disabled.

Self-test execution status: ( 244) Self-test routine in progress...

40% of test remaining.

Total time to complete Offline

data collection: ( 1877) seconds.

Offline data collection

capabilities: (0x7f) SMART execute Offline immediate.

Auto Offline data collection on/off support.

Abort 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: ( 1) minutes.

Extended self-test routine

recommended polling time: ( 48) minutes.

Conveyance self-test routine

recommended polling time: ( 2) minutes.

SCT capabilities: (0x0021) SCT Status supported.

SCT Data Table supported.

SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 10

Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:

ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAGS VALUE WORST THRESH FAIL RAW_VALUE

5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct -O--CK 100 100 000 - 0

9 Power_On_Hours_and_Msec -O--CK 000 000 000 - 911718h+07m+41.930s

12 Power_Cycle_Count -O--CK 100 100 000 - 13

170 Available_Reservd_Space PO--CK 100 100 010 - 0

171 Program_Fail_Count -O--CK 100 100 000 - 0

172 Erase_Fail_Count -O--CK 100 100 000 - 0

174 Unexpect_Power_Loss_Ct -O--CK 100 100 000 - 13

184 End-to-End_Error PO--CK 100 100 090 - 0

187 Uncorrectable_Error_Cnt -O--CK 100 100 000 - 0

192 Power-Off_Retract_Count -O--CK 100 100 000 - 13

225 Host_Writes_32MiB -O--CK 100 100 000 - 16152107

226 Workld_Media_Wear_Indic -O--CK 100 100 000 - 65535

227 Workld_Host_Reads_Perc -O--CK 100 100 000 - 23

228 Workload_Minutes -O--CK 100 100 000 - 65535

232 Available_Reservd_Space PO--CK 100 100 010 - 0

233 Media_Wearout_Indicator -O--CK 089 089 000 - 0

241 Host_Writes_32MiB -O--CK 100 100 000 - 16152107

242 Host_Reads_32MiB -O--CK 100 100 000 - 4829664

249 NAND_Writes_1GiB PO--C- 100 100 000 - 160487

||||||_ K auto-keep

|||||__ C event count

||||___ R error rate

|||____ S speed/performance

||_____ O updated online

|______ P prefailure warning

General Purpose Log Directory Version 1

SMART Log Directory Version 1 [multi-sector log support]

Address Access R/W Size Description

0x00 GPL,SL R/O 1 Log Directory

0x04 GPL,SL R/O 1 Device Statistics log

0x07 GPL R/O 1 Extended self-test log

0x09 SL R/W 1 Selective self-test log

0x10 GPL R/O 1 SATA NCQ Queued Error log

0x11 GPL,SL R/O 1 SATA Phy Event Counters log

0x80-0x9f GPL,SL R/W 16 Host vendor specific log

0xb7 GPL,SL VS 16 Device vendor specific log

0xe0 GPL,SL R/W 1 SCT Command/Status

0xe1 GPL,SL R/W 1 SCT Data Transfer

SMART Extended Comprehensive Error Log (GP Log 0x03) not supported

SMART Error Log not supported

SMART Extended Self-test Log Version: 1 (1 sectors)

Num Test_Description Status Remaining LifeTime(hours) LBA_of_first_error

# 1 Extended offline Self-test routine in progress 40% 16923 -

# 2 Extended offline Self-test routine in progress 40% 16923 -

# 3 Extended offline Self-test routine in progress 40% 16923 -

# 4 Extended offline Self-test routine in progress 40% 16923 -

# 5 Extended offline Self-test routine in progress 40% 16923 -

# 6 Extended offline Self-test routine in progress 40% 16923 -

# 7 Extended offline Self-test routine in progress 40% 16923 -

# 8 Extended offline Self-test routine in progress 40% 16923 -

# 9 Extended offline Self-test routine in progress 40% 16923 -

# 10 Extended offline Self-test routine in progress 40% 16923 -

# 11 Extended offline Self-test routine in progress 40% 16923 -

# 12 Extended offline Self-test routine in progress 40% 16923 -

# 13 Extended offline Self-test routine in progress 40% 16923 -

# 14 Extended offline Self-test rout...

Re: Intel® SSD 520 Series: Why does the smart test in Linux lasts 5-6 hours instead of 48 minutes?

jbenavides — Tue, 22 Dec 2015 19:56:40 GMT

Hello Caruna,

Currently, Intel does not provide management software for Consumer SSD's like the Intel® SSD 520 Series working in Linux environments.

We actually consider Smartmontools to be a good tool to monitor your SSD in Linux, just keep in mind that this is a 3rd party software and it has its own developing team and support.

Smartmontools has a lot of options and can pull a lot of data from the drive, some may not be meaningful depending on the situation. Checking the information from https://www.smartmontools.org/browser/trunk/smartmontools/smartctl.8.in Smartctl manpages, the selftest log can show information from the last 21 Self-tests. You can check the documentation, or contact their team for more details about this log.

We did check the SMART data and drive information from the log, and it does not show any errors. The drive appears healthy and operating normally.

Re: Intel® SSD 520 Series: Why does the smart test in Linux lasts 5-6 hours instead of 48 minutes?

ccost9 — Thu, 07 Apr 2016 15:45:41 GMT

Dear jonathan_intel,

smartmontools appears to be the most popular, comprehensive and detailed third party tool for reading critical health information from storage devices.

It is dissapointing to see there is no @intel commit or patch or any form of collaboration from Intel to this open source software in the changelog https://www.smartmontools.org/browser/trunk/smartmontools/ChangeLog https://www.smartmontools.org/browser/trunk/smartmontools/ChangeLog

Maybe you should start giving help to the community as a whole (without discrimination between home and enterprise) by contributing patches and documentation to the project instead of giving the middle finger to non-enterprise consumers.

Re: Intel® SSD 520 Series: Why does the smart test in Linux lasts 5-6 hours instead of 48 minutes?

ccost9 — Thu, 07 Apr 2016 15:49:14 GMT

My 330 drive is also stuck at

Self-test execution status: ( 244) Self-test routine in progress...

40% of test remaining.

no firmware update has ever been released for this model. they probably know it's so wrong at hardware level that no firmware will ever be able to fix it.

Re: Intel® SSD 520 Series: Why does the smart test in Linux lasts 5-6 hours instead of 48 minutes?

ccost9 — Thu, 07 Apr 2016 15:59:35 GMT

interesting fact: the 330 drive seems to report backwards the percent to complete a long test. first showed 10%, then 20, 30, 40, now it's showing

Self-test execution status: ( 245) Self-test routine in progress...

50% of test remaining.

Re: Intel® SSD 520 Series: Why does the smart test in Linux lasts 5-6 hours instead of 48 minutes?

jbenavides — Mon, 11 Apr 2016 16:56:14 GMT

Hello gigel2007,

As you know, Windows* users can get https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/18455/Intel-Solid-State-Drive-Toolbox Intel® SSD Toolbox in order to manage and monitor Intel® SSD's, however, there is no equivalent tool to do this in Linux for Consumer drives. We will take you feedback so a tool like this can be considered for the future.

We consider smartmontools a great tool to monitor you Intel® SSD's in Linux. Please take into consideration that this is a 3rd party software designed to work with SSD's from different vendors, and Intel does not have inherence on the design of this tool.

Third Party developers have different methods to engage Support, and we are sure these development teams can contact the required resources if needed.

Regarding the self-test routine, we advise you to check the https://www.smartmontools.org/ Smarmontools documentation, or contact their team for more details about this log.

Re: Intel® SSD 520 Series: Why does the smart test in Linux lasts 5-6 hours instead of 48 minutes?

CFran6 — Mon, 11 Apr 2016 19:51:24 GMT

The command "smartctl -t long" simply issues the ATA command SMART EXECUTE OFF-LINE IMMEDIATE with parameter 0x02 (Extended self-test). See for example section 7.54.5 of T13/2015-D (ATA ACS-2) Revision 7.

The self-test itself is performed by drive firmware. Therefore the firmware is responsible for any related issues.

The 48 minutes specify a "recommended polling time", not an "estimated test duration". Typically this value represents a minimum duration for a drive without I/O-load from OS. With I/O-load, duration could vary considerably as it depends on how the firmware interleaves the self-test with regular I/O.

BTW: Please note that smartmontools is not Linux only, it also available on other platforms including Windows (since 2004). It provides at least one feature (-t vendor,0x40) originally requested by someone at Intel 🙂

Christian

smartmontools.org

(NEWS: NVMe support on Linux, FreeBSD and Windows)

Re: Intel® SSD 520 Series: Why does the smart test in Linux lasts 5-6 hours instead of 48 minutes?

CFran6 — Tue, 12 Apr 2016 17:19:26 GMT

Meantime I could reproduce the problem reported by Caruna with a 520 SSD under Windows.

Tested with a 520 behind Z68 chipset and IRST driver on Windows 7 x64. SSD contains a 50% filled NTFS partition which is not mounted.

Using "smartd" as a Windows service to track Offline and Self-test Execution Status (bytes 362/363 of SMART DATA structure):

2016-04-12 08:23:21 smartd[1028]: Info : smartd 6.5 2016-04-11 r4288 [x86_64-w64-mingw32-win7-sp1] (daily-20160411)

2016-04-12 08:23:22 smartd[1028]: Info : Device: /dev/sdb, INTEL SSDSC2CW180A3, S/N:..., WWN:..., FW:400i, 180 GB

2016-04-12 08:23:22 smartd[1028]: Info : Device: /dev/sdb, found in smartd database: Intel 520 Series SSDs

... <<<--- "smartctl --long /dev/sdb" issued here<p>

2016-04-12 08:25:32 smartd[1028]: Info : Device: /dev/sdb, offline data collection is in progress

2016-04-12 08:25:32 smartd[1028]: Info : Device: /dev/sdb, self-test in progress, 10% remaining

2016-04-12 09:03:24 smartd[1028]: Info : Device: /dev/sdb, self-test in progress, 20% remaining

2016-04-12 09:23:24 smartd[1028]: Info : Device: /dev/sdb, self-test in progress, 30% remaining

2016-04-12 09:53:24 smartd[1028]: Info : Device: /dev/sdb, self-test in progress, 40% remaining

2016-04-12 10:23:23 smartd[1028]: Info : Device: /dev/sdb, self-test in progress, 50% remaining

2016-04-12 10:53:23 smartd[1028]: Info : Device: /dev/sdb, self-test in progress, 60% remaining

2016-04-12 11:23:23 smartd[1028]: Info : Device: /dev/sdb, self-test in progress, 70% remaining

2016-04-12 11:53:23 smartd[1028]: Info : Device: /dev/sdb, self-test in progress, 80% remaining

2016-04-12 12:23:23 smartd[1028]: Info : Device: /dev/sdb, self-test in progress, 90% remaining

2016-04-12 13:13:23 smartd[1028]: Info : Device: /dev/sdb, offline data collection was completed without error

2016-04-12 13:13:23 smartd[1028]: Info : Device: /dev/sdb, previous self-test completed without error

Observations:

- Self-test duration is far too long. It should not be considerably longer than a full read scan from OS (which is what SSD Toolbox does).

- "Remaining percentage" info from Self-test Execution Status increases. It shall decrease (see 7.54.6.8 of ACS-2 Rev 7).

- The resulting entries in Self-Test log are bogus:

SMART Extended Self-test Log Version: 1 (1 sectors)

Num Test_Description Status Remaining LifeTime(hours) LBA_of_first_error

# 1 Extended offline Self-test routine in progress 20% 9700 -

# 2 Extended offline Self-test routine in progress 80% 9703 -

There should be only one entry reporting "Completed without error 00% 9703".

Conclusion: The SMART Self-test functionality.in 400i firmware has various issues.

These problems are not visible with SSD Toolbox because its Full Diagnostic Scan is not controlled by firmware. The Toolbox does a regular read scan via OS. The "Logical Sectors Read" counter from Device Statistics log increases during this test. It does not during a SMART Self-test.

Re: Intel® SSD 520 Series: Why does the smart test in Linux lasts 5-6 hours instead of 48 minutes?

ccost9 — Mon, 18 Apr 2016 11:42:36 GMT

> 400i firmware has various issue

not only 400i, but 300i as well (ssd 330 model) exhibits the exact same behaviour