Re: [RFC] periodic self-tests on short-uptime machines

Lukasz Stelmach wrote:
> On 09.11.2014 19:29, Christian Franke wrote:
>> Lukasz Stelmach wrote:
>>> The way `-s' directive in smartd.conf works is good for long-running
>>> machines but somewhat inappropriate for desktops or laptops which may be
>>> turned on and off and suspended quite often. This is the very same issue
>>> that lead to development of special scripts that run daily (weekly,
>>> monthly) cron jobs and save timestamps across reboots.
>> Try -s PREFIX command line option to enable state persistence. Then
>> tests "forgotten" during downtime will be started after second(!) device
>> polling. See section starting with "If the scheduled tests are used in
>> conjunction with state persistence ..." on smartd.conf man page.
> I see, nice.
>
> How about using the state persistence instead of self-test logs to keep
> track of power-on-hours and to run once-N-hours tests. Take for example
> such schedule (suppose the machine is working 24/7 for a moment):
>
> * run a short test every 24 power-on-hours
>
> * run a long test every 168 power-on-hours (a week)
>
> For a machine without 100% duty cycle there should also be maximum spans
> between tests (something like forcing fsck after some span of real-time):
>
> * run a short test if the last time it was ran is longer than 672
> real-time-hours (4 weeks) ago,
>
> * force running a long test after 2016 real-time-hours (3 months).
>
> If nothing else such mode of scheduling seems to me more relevant for
> machines that don't work all the time and more intuitive for (me) their
> operators to set up.

I agree. Adding this would be more complex than expected. Feel free to 
create a ticket:
https://www.smartmontools.org/newticket


> BTW. Do self-tests impair performance. Is it important to schedule them
> when the least load on a server is expected?

Depends the self-test implementation in the disk firmware. In the past, 
I've seen anything between: "System unusable during self-tests" and 
"System load slows down self-test speed to ~zero" :-)

Regards,
Christian


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