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

[tirzu]

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

[ccost9]

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.

[ccost9]

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.

[ccost9]

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.

[jbenavides]

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.

[CFran6]

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)