Is my drive (HDD or SSD) about to fail?

If you have any doubts about the condition of your HDD or SSD, then first make sure that all your personal data is backed up to an external drive or elsewhere.

Next, install gsmartcontrol:

If you have multiple drives, then identify the correct drive letter using:

I recommend running the Long SMART test. This should take about 2 hours, but it may take longer depending on the size of the drive.

The Short SMART test should be ignored since it basically tells you nothing of real value.

To run the Long test on drive sda:

The finishing time of the test will be stated.

To view the results of smartctl.log.txt:

How to interpret the SMART test results from smartctl.log.txt:

First of all, ignore this comment at the top of the SMART report, “SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED”.

Even a drive with multiple fail indicators will probably have this comment! Truly bizarre.

The following indicators should ideally be zero:

#5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct

#197 Current_Pending_Sector

#200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate

If not, then your drive is probably in poor condition.

Below the main test report, there may be several read failures listed. These also indicate a drive which is likely to fail in the near future.