User manual

Using S.M.A.R.T. Disk Monitor 119
SANTOOLS® is registered in US Patent and Trademark Office No 3,107,854 All rights reserved.
· All options record errors in the event log, and each error line includes the make/model and device name for the disk
as part of that error.
· Only one disk is tested at a time. If you want to test multiple drives concurrently, launch extra instances of the
program and point each of them to a different disk or to a different range of disks using wild cards.
· The scrubbing tests are not limited to disk drives. They may be run on optical media such as CD and DVDs, as well
as ATAPI (IDE) devices. You would do this in order to perform an optical media certification which would insure that
every block of the CD/DVD was readable w/o errors. (If you find a problem, do not bother trying to remap it on a
read-only device.
· Running the scrub tests on optical devices would also uncover and report other hardware problems, even if the
drives are IDE.
· As of this version of the documentation, we have not tested remapping DVD R/W media in event a defect has been
found. It should work, but we do not have means to test this now.
· These tests can be made with peripherals set to any block size, up to 2048 bytes. However, your host operating
system or SCSI/Fibre channel controller may not recognize 520-byte or 528-byte formatted disk drives.
· The scrub tests will terminate prematurely after 8190 different blocks report problems.
· Due to limitations in SGI's IRIX operating system that require pass-through I/O to have exclusive access, scrubbing
functions typically take 2 - 3 times longer under that O/S. It will have significant system overhead as the device
must get opened/closed between hundreds of millions of I/Os. If you use -scrubq, then the performance impact is
minor.
· (The -16 and -12 options are mutually exclusive, as are the -scrubr and -scrubs commands.
Self-Test Characteristics
Test Option
Description
Type of Test / Methodology
Strengths
Weaknesses
-stsb
short background (ANSI-defined
test, built into the device's
firmware)
· Single command sent, disk runs
test for up to 2 minutes, saves
result in log page.
· Once command is launched by
SMARTMonUX, no further
interaction required. Unlimited
number of disks can be tested
concurrently without adversely
affecting host system or I/O
bandwidth.
· Full test of
all except
media, but
media
does have
light test.
· Completes
in less than
2 minutes
regardless
of host I/O
load.
· Unlimited
instances
can be run
concurrentl
y w/o
adverse
affect on
host.
· Not good for
certifying
media, but
can be
combined
with -scrub
for a
thorough test
(but best to
combine
-steb with
-scrub for
most
complete
test).
· Useless for
testing DVD
and CDROM
media.
-steb
extended background
(ANSI-defined test, built into the
device's firmware)
· Disk vendors use this as a
pass/fail criteria to authorize
warranty returns.
· Results viewable with -C and -str
commands.
· Tests
100% of
disk,
including
random
I/O.
· Like the
-stsb, this
test also
has no
host
· It only returns
first error
then
terminates.
· Only way to
get a full disk
test if you
have any
errors is to
correct
problem and