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Questions tagged [hard-drive]

Questions about hard disks' performance, issues, tips, and software.

Questions about hard disks performance, issues, tips, and related software, e.g. data recovery or disk test software.

2448 questions
46
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9 answers

Linux ATA errors: Translating to a device name?

When a Linux box gets an ATA error, it syslogs it with a message identifying the disk as "ata%d.00". How do I translate that to a device name (e.g. /dev/sdb)? I feel like this should be trivial, but I cannot figure it out.
nelhage
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11 answers

Does an unplugged hard drive used for data archival deteriorate?

If I were to archive data on a hard drive, unplug it, and set it on a (not dusty, temperature-controlled) shelf somewhere, would that drive deteriorate much? How does the data retention of an unplugged hard drive compare to tapes?
Jim Hunziker
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45
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10 answers

How should I burn in hard drives?

Google did a very thorough study on hard drive failures which found that a significant portion of hard drives fail within the first 3 months of heavy usage. My coworkers and I are thinking we could implement a burn-in process for all our new hard…
Phil
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42
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6 answers

Is my Hard Drive Failing?

I just tried to run a test on my hdd and it doesn't want to complete a self test. Here is the result: smartctl --attributes --log=selftest /dev/sda smartctl 6.2 2013-07-26 r3841 [x86_64-linux-3.13.0-32-generic] (local build) === START OF READ SMART…
Michel
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42
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13 answers

Physically Identify the failed hard drive

So, let's say your server had 6 healthy hard drives. A drive fails (will not mount/detect, drops out of raid with errors) or is failing (SMART getting worse, etc). You need to swap out the bad drive. When you open the case you see.. six identical…
privatehuff
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39
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9 answers

Is bit rot on hard drives a real problem? What can be done about it?

A friend is talking with me about the problem of bit rot - bits on drives randomly flipping, corrupting data. Incredibly rare, but with enough time it could be a problem, and it's impossible to detect. The drive wouldn't consider it to be a bad…
scobi
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38
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5 answers

Is there any way to shrink qcow2 image without converting it raw?

Is there any way to shrink qcow2 image without converting it raw? I cannot convert it to raw because I don't have disk space enough for raw image.
YOU
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36
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2 answers

Unable to write to disk but disk isn't full

I am using Ubuntu 12.04 and can't write to any file, even as root, or do any other operation that requires writing. Neither can any process that needs to write, so they're all failing. df says I've got plenty of room: Filesystem Size Used…
felwithe
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36
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3 answers

How can I check the remaining disk quota?

df does only reports the disk free space. How can I get my allowed free space?
Lothar
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36
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3 answers

OS X determine which application is accessing a HDD and preventing ejection?

I'm running OS X 10.6 Server, and I want to eject my external drive so I can do some disk maintenance such as defraging it. However when I try to eject the drive it fails saying the disk is in use. I can force eject it but that could cause…
jamone
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35
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2 answers

What does SMART testing do and how does it work?

man smartctl states (SNIPPED for brevity): The first category, called "online" testing. The second category of testing is called "offline" testing. Normally, the disk will suspend offline testing while disk accesses are taking place, and then…
user176193
33
votes
14 answers

Is it safe to store data on a hard drive for a long time?

Is it safe to backup data to a hard drive and then leave it for a number of years? Assuming the file system format can still be read, is this a safe thing to do. Or is it better to continually rewrite the data (every 6 months or so) to make sure it…
Nick R
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32
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9 answers

Reliability of ssd drives

The main advantage of SSD drives is better performance. I am interested in their reliability. Are SSD drives more reliable then normal hard drives? Some people say they must be because they have no moving parts, but I am concerned about the fact…
Dani van der Meer
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31
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9 answers

To improve SQL performance, why not just put lots of RAM rather than having faster hard disks?

People keep telling me that in order to improve an SQL server's performance, buy the fastest hard disks possible with RAID 5, etc. So I was thinking, instead of spending all the money for RAID 5 and super-duper fast hard disks (which isn't cheap by…
user1034912
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31
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4 answers

Limit Linux background flush (dirty pages)

Background flushing on Linux happens when either too much written data is pending (adjustable via /proc/sys/vm/dirty_background_ratio) or a timeout for pending writes is reached (/proc/sys/vm/dirty_expire_centisecs). Unless another limit is being…
korkman
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