How to check a disk's health

SATA Disks

To check a SATA Disk (either HDD or SSD) we can use the smartctl utility:

• Install with: apt install smartmontools
• smartctl -a /dev/sdX to see all the information about the disk
• smartctl -t <short|long> /dev/sdX to run a short or long test
• smartctl -X /dev/sdX to abort a test

More info on the smartctl utility ​here

NVMe disks

smartctl can work for NVMe disks but cannot run any tests like above.

We can use the nvme utility to see information about nvme disks.

• Install with: apt install nvme-cli
• nvme list shows the nvme disks on the machine
• nvme smart-log /dev/nvmeXnX shows the SMART information about the disk.

More info on the nvme utility ​here

Check disk r/w speed

Read speed: hdparm -tT /dev/sdX (or nvmeXnX) Write speed: dd if=/dev/zero of=test bs=1G count=1 oflag=direct (test must be on the disk)

badblocks

We can check for bad blocks through (works with NVMe and SATA): badblocks -v -o output_file /dev/sdX