LinuxQuestions.org - LXer: SSD Failure Temporarily Halts Linux 3.12 Kernel Work

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LXer: SSD Failure Temporarily Halts Linux 3.12 Kernel Work

Published at LXer:

The failure of a solid-state drive in Linus Torvalds' main workstation has led to new activity during the Linux 3.12 kernel merge window being temporarily suspended...

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Interesting - glad I didn't choose Intel for my SSD. Probably doesn't mean much actually - though I think the best idea if you are going to use an SSD as part of your setup, only keep the main system on that and run your /home on a conventional drive, thats what I do. I'm sure his compile times were amazing, but until SSDs have better read/write cycles, it would be best to keep the read or most likely the writes to a minimum as possible to extend life of an SSD.

Fun fact: I use an Intel SSD for a couple of years now (10837 power-on hours, about 3.5 TB written to it, lifetime still 97%).
One dying SSD is as good as indicator for quality and lifetime as is my SSD that works so good without any flaws: It says exactly nothing.

Curious, how do you check the lifespan? Also what FS do you have on it?

Lifespan can be controlled with smartctl, this is how it looks on my Intel:

Code:

233 Media_Wearout_Indicator 0x0032 097 097 000 Old_age Always - 0

Started at 100 when the SSD was new.
And this is how it looks on my Corsair:

Code:

231 SSD_Life_Left 0x0013 100 100 010 Pre-fail Always - 0

I use ext4 (the Corsair one has also a NTFS partition with Windows 7 installed), but think about switching to either JFS or F2FS, benchmarks indicate impressive performance on SSDs for both.

I am currently running JFS (default options) - TRIM not available on JFS until linux 3.7 I think? I am very much interested in E2FS , but no option to use that as / (at least not by default during install).

I tried smartctl but doesn't seem to be working for me, had to do smartctl --all but still not quite getting what you got:

Code:

root@slackmachine:/home/slackuser# smartctl --all /dev/sda

smartctl 5.43 2012-06-30 r3573 [x86_64-linux-3.2.45] (local build)

Copyright (C) 2002-12 by Bruce Allen, http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net



=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===

Device Model:    Samsung SSD 840 PRO Series

Serial Number:    S12PNEACC48544N

LU WWN Device Id: 5 002538 550148c05

Firmware Version: DXM04B0Q

User Capacity:    128,035,676,160 bytes [128 GB]

Sector Size:      512 bytes logical/physical

Device is:        Not in smartctl database [for details use: -P showall]

ATA Version is:  8

ATA Standard is:  ATA-8-ACS revision 4c

Local Time is:    Wed Sep 11 21:09:38 2013 CDT

SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.

SMART support is: Enabled



=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===

SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED



General SMART Values:

Offline data collection status:  (0x00)        Offline data collection activity

                                        was never started.

                                        Auto Offline Data Collection: Disabled.

Self-test execution status:      (  0)        The previous self-test routine completed

                                        without error or no self-test has ever 

                                        been run.

Total time to complete Offline 

data collection:                (65476) seconds.

Offline data collection

capabilities:                          (0x53) SMART execute Offline immediate.

                                        Auto Offline data collection on/off support.

                                        Suspend Offline collection upon new

                                        command.

                                        No Offline surface scan supported.

                                        Self-test supported.

                                        No Conveyance Self-test supported.

                                        Selective Self-test supported.

SMART capabilities:            (0x0003)        Saves SMART data before entering

                                        power-saving mode.

                                        Supports SMART auto save timer.

Error logging capability:        (0x01)        Error logging supported.

                                        General Purpose Logging supported.

Short self-test routine 

recommended polling time:          (  2) minutes.

Extended self-test routine

recommended polling time:          (  15) minutes.

SCT capabilities:                (0x003d)        SCT Status supported.

                                        SCT Error Recovery Control supported.

                                        SCT Feature Control supported.

                                        SCT Data Table supported.



SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 1

Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:

ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG    VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE

  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct  0x0033  100  100  010    Pre-fail  Always      -      0

  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032  099  099  000    Old_age  Always      -      4057

 12 Power_Cycle_Count      0x0032  099  099  000    Old_age  Always      -      45

177 Wear_Leveling_Count    0x0013  099  099  000    Pre-fail  Always      -      2

179 Used_Rsvd_Blk_Cnt_Tot  0x0013  100  100  010    Pre-fail  Always      -      0

181 Program_Fail_Cnt_Total  0x0032  100  100  010    Old_age  Always      -      0

182 Erase_Fail_Count_Total  0x0032  100  100  010    Old_age  Always      -      0

183 Runtime_Bad_Block      0x0013  100  100  010    Pre-fail  Always      -      0

187 Reported_Uncorrect      0x0032  100  100  000    Old_age  Always      -      0

190 Airflow_Temperature_Cel 0x0032  068  046  000    Old_age  Always      -      32

195 Hardware_ECC_Recovered  0x001a  200  200  000    Old_age  Always      -      0

199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    0x003e  100  100  000    Old_age  Always      -      0

235 Unknown_Attribute      0x0012  099  099  000    Old_age  Always      -      42

241 Total_LBAs_Written      0x0032  099  099  000    Old_age  Always      -      374913542



SMART Error Log Version: 1

No Errors Logged



SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1

No self-tests have been logged.  [To run self-tests, use: smartctl -t]





SMART Selective self-test log data structure revision number 1

 SPAN  MIN_LBA  MAX_LBA  CURRENT_TEST_STATUS

    1        0        0  Not_testing

    2        0        0  Not_testing

    3        0        0  Not_testing

    4        0        0  Not_testing

    5        0        0  Not_testing

  255        0    65535  Read_scanning was never started

Selective self-test flags (0x0):

  After scanning selected spans, do NOT read-scan remainder of disk.

If Selective self-test is pending on power-up, resume after 0 minute delay.



root@slackmachine:/home/slackuser#

If I would have to guess I would think that this might be your indicator:

Code:

177 Wear_Leveling_Count 0x0013 099 099 000 Pre-fail Always - 2

But I am not sure about that, I have no Samsung drive to compare.

Seems right, the prefail is set to 2 , but I have no idea if thats a higher threshold before failure and if there is any way to change it, so I probably will just leave everything as is. As posted earlier, hopefully E2FS will be included as an option for install one day. Don't get me wrong I love JFS, but clearly it is was never originally designed for an SSD, E2FS is from the ground up taken into consideration flash devices. I will always use JFS or XFS as a conventional FS on a conventional drive though.

Upgrade your kernel so it supports TRIM for JFS and the problem is solved.