Warnings

Table of Contents

1. LINUX
2. FREEBSD
3. SOLARIS
4. CYGWIN and WINDOWS
5. DARWIN

The following are reports of serious problems (eg system lockup) which were due to smartmontools. There are DARWIN, LINUX, FREEBSD, SOLARIS and WINDOWS sections below.

LINUX

You may also wish to search the ​linux-kernel mailing list for problem reports concerning smartmontools.

PROBLEM	Using smartd/smartctl on USB "SCSI" storage devices can cause kernel hang
SYSTEM	Any system with USB ports and USB storage devices
REPORTER	see link below
LINK	​https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=107615
NOTE	USB storage devices are handled as SCSI devices by the kernel. But many of these devices do not comply with SCSI specs, and can cause the kernel to hang. Avoid using smartd/smartctl on these devices (they don't do SMART anyway). In particular, the use of smartd DEVICESCAN in /etc/smartd.conf can cause these devices (typically represented by /dev/sda or /dev/sdb) to hang, and the kernel to lock up.
FIXED	This problem should be fixed in smartmontools-5.25 and greater.

PROBLEM	smartd makes NTP time drift
SYSTEM	Intel 875WP1-E motherboard with SATA drives on motherboard's SATA ports
REPORTER	nohez@…
LINK	​http://groups.google.de/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&safe=off&selm=Pine.LNX.4.33.0310111545530.1047-100000%40venus.cmie.ernet.in.lucky.linux.kernel
NOTE	When using SATA disks, linux kernel k_smp-2.4.21-108 (SMP because of hyper-threading) and xntp-4.1.1-177, the server time went out of sync with system time. Problem goes away when SATA disks removed.

PROBLEM	Locked up, needed to be rebooted
SYSTEM	Dell servers using AACRAID (SCSI)
REPORTER	drew@…
LINK	​http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?thread_id=1311313&forum_id=12495

PROBLEM	Smartctl locks system solid when used on /dev/hd[ef].
SYSTEM	Box with Promise 20265 IDE-controller (pdc202xx-driver) and > 2.4.18 kernel with ide-taskfile support
REPORTER	Georg Acher <acher@…>
LINK	​http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?thread_id=1457979&forum_id=12495
NOTE	Lockup doesn't happen with 2.4.18 kernel, and doesn't affect /dev/hd[a-d] This appears to be a problem with the pdc202xx-driver and has been reported to the pdcx maintainers. If you enable the Promise-BIOS (ATA100-BIOS) then everything will work fine. But if you disable it, then the machine will hang.

PROBLEM	Smartctl locks system solid
SYSTEM	Box with Promise 20262 IDE-controller
REPORTER	Ben Low <ben@…>
LINK	​http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/message.php?msg_id=5074201
NOTE	Similar to previous report: Promise Ultra66 2-port card (20262) which, with linux 2.4.20, suffers from the lockups reported above. But it was impossible to enable the Promiste BIOS. A kernel patch is referenced to fix the problem.

PROBLEM	Smartctl locks system solid when used on CDROM/DVD device
SYSTEM	Promise 20265 IDE-controller
REPORTER	see link below
LINK	​http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=208964
NOTE	Problem seems to affect kernel 2.4.21 only.

PROBLEM	System freezes under heavy load, perhaps when running SMART commands
SYSTEM	Promise IDE-controllers and perhaps others also
REPORTER	Mario 'BitKoenig' Holbe Mario.Holbe@…
LINK	​http://groups.google.de/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&selm=1wUXW-2FA-9%40gated-at.bofh.it
NOTE	Before freezing, SYSLOG shows the following message(s) kernel: hdf: dma timer expiry: dma status == 0xXX where XX is two hexidecimal digits. This may be a kernel bug or an underlying hardware problem. It's not clear if smartmontools plays a role in provoking this problem. FINAL NOTE: Problem was COMPLETELY resolved by replacing the power supply. See URL above, entry on May 29, 2004 by Holbe. Other things to try are exchanging cables, and cleaning PCI slots.

FREEBSD

[No problem reports yet.]

SOLARIS

[No problem reports yet.]

CYGWIN and WINDOWS

[No problem reports yet.]

DARWIN

PROBLEM	Can't switch off SMART, can't switch off auto-save, can't run short tests.
SYSTEM	Any system before Tiger
REPORTER	Geoff Keating <geoffk@…>
NOTE	There's a bug in the system library: when you ask it to do any of these things, it does the inverse (switches on, runs extended tests). Radar 3727283.

PROBLEM	When drive is asleep, SMART commands fail
SYSTEM	All known systems
REPORTER	Geoff Keating <geoffk@…>
NOTE	You can prevent the drive from sleeping by saying pmset -a disksleep 0 or by unchecking the 'Put the hard disk(s) to sleep when possible' checkbox in the Energy Saver preferences. Radar 4094403.

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License
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