SMART data on an encrypted hard drive?
 

I have a Sandisk 64GB SSD upon which I have created an encrypted partition using cryptsetup and luksOpen (CentOS 6). It works fine for its intended purpose; it is not a boot drive.

I happened to look at the entry for this disk in Disk Utility (palimpsest) which told me "Disk is healthy" which is good. I then had a look at the SMART data. The only Attribute which had an "Assessment" was "Endurance Remaining" which is shown a Good. The rest of the Attributes show "N/A" I have a Crucial SSD as my boot drive. It has "Good" shown in the Assessment column for most Attributes.

So I am wondering if the explanation for this has to do with the encryption or if it has to do with the model of SSD. I cannot reformat the Sandisk SSD to non-encrypted right now so I cannot determine this experimentally. I will do so some day when I upgrade the drive.

Can anyone offer any insight?

TIA,

Ken

I was pretty sure smart data was on a flash chip and not on the drive platten at all. Someone may correct me if I'm wrong.

I'd consider seeing if the OEM has any tools to diag their drives. Even if you have to boot to a cd to run them.

I don't have any SSDs, but I know that SMART is data-independent. It doesn't matter what you have on the drive, encrypted or otherwise it should work the same.

!
 

Thanks folks! I did not think the encryption mattered. It seems more manufacturer specific. In my server I have a 2 TB WD Green Caviar drive - encrypted. It shows Assessment for 3 attributes. A 4 TB WD Green Caviar - not encrypted - shows 4. A 2 TB Toshiba - not encrypted - shows 7. And the king of them all is a 16 GB Samsung SSD (boot drive) - salvaged from my netbook when I upgraded the drive - it shows 10!

I have a 128 GB Sandisk on order as the 64 was not large enough for my purpose. I will have a look at it befor and after I establish the encrypted partition and will post the results.

Ken