[ale] what exactly does a long smart hdd test do?

Fri May 11 21:43:11 EDT 2012

Hi Richard,

That IS an interesting idea. This laptop draws about 30W when it's idling, which it usually is. That's about $ 2 / month in electricity. It would take about 18 months to pay me back. Just for kicks, I went and checked the Pi specs to see how it compares to my old computer, Nelly.

CPU: Pi 700 Mhz, Nelly 2400 Mhz, Nelly wins.
GPU: Pi Blueray capable, Nelly - 2002 vintage nVidia I think., Pi wins.
RAM: Pi 256 MB, Nelly 1024 GB, Nelly wins. I don't think the Pi will run Ubuntu and Gnome or Windows XP.
VGA out: Pi N/A, Nelly Yes, Nelly wins. I have to have vga out for my kvm switcher.
Fast internal HDD interface for BIG drive: Pi N/A, Nelly Yes, Nelly wins. I don't think USB can compete with even an old PATA interface. SD cards are too small and expensive to store two OS's and lots of legacy data.

So, while I'm interested in the Pi, and may eventually get one for experimenting, I think I'll leave Nelly up and running for now. Interesting thought experiment though.

Sincerely,

Ron

--

Sent from my Android Acer A500 tablet with bluetooth keyboard and K-9 Mail.
Please excuse my potential brevity.

(To whom it may concern. My email address has changed. Replying to former
messages prior to 03/31/12 with my personal address will go to the wrong
address. Please send all personal correspondence to the new address.)

(PS - If you email me and don't get a quick response, you might want to
call on the phone. I get about 300 emails per day from alternate energy
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Ron Frazier
770-205-9422 (O) Leave a message.
linuxdude AT techstarship.com

Richard Bronosky <richardbronosky at gmail.com> wrote:

You realize that she could be out performed by a raspberry pi, right? It would pay for itself in energy savings in just a few months.

On May 11, 2012 10:00 AM, "Ron Frazier (ALE)" <atllinuxenthinfo at techstarship.com> wrote:

Hi Jim,

Isn't there anything I can run while the file system is mounted?  Read only analysis would be fine.

In defense of my old (computer) lady, she's still kickin' pretty good after 10 years.  It's a toshiba laptop.  Of course, I've added some upgrades here and there.  The display hinges broke, but it works fine with an external monitor.  It has a Pentium 4 single core processor at 2.4 Ghz, 1 GB of ram, and a 320 GB (I think) hdd.  I don't even want to talk about the price of such a machine in 2002, but it wasn't pretty.  She actually runs Ubuntu 11.04 and Windows XP pretty well.  Starting up the system or large programs is a bit slow, but once they're running, it works pretty well.  I started to say I could watch hulu on her, but, when I went back and tested it, the video is pretty jerky.  I guess the new versions of flash are just too much of a cpu hog.  I think 1/4 frame video at 30 fps would probably work, but I can't figure out how to shrink a hulu screen.  I think you can shrink a netflix video to a small size.  She has no problem keeping my wireless internet busy at 16 Mb!
 ps.

I've thought of retiring her, but it just seems so heartless.  Nowdays, she runs Ubuntu all the time so I can jump over there and test things even though I may have Windows running on the other machines.

Sincerely,

Ron

Jim Kinney <jim.kinney at gmail.com> wrote:

>Try badblocks in Linux. NOTE: that is dangerous to use on a mounted
>system.
>
>OR - pull the drive into a newer system that has a bios that can handle
>it.
>
>(seriously - dude! upgrade that dinosaur! it sucks down power like mad
>doing very little)
>
>On Fri, May 11, 2012 at 1:41 AM, Ron Frazier (ALE) <
>atllinuxenthinfo at techstarship.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi guys,
>>
>> I'm running routine diagnostics on my hard drives. My normal practice
>is
>> to run SpinRite on them, which reads each sector, then refreshes the
>> magnetic fields by inverting and writing and inverting and writing
>them
>> again (in the particular mode I'm using). Thus, every bit is tested
>both
>> with a 0 and 1 and all the original data is refreshed. I don't want
>to get
>> into a discussion as to the merits of this at the moment. I'm
>convinced
>> it's a good idea. My problem is that I have one computer that's so
>old and
>> the bios is so old and the hdd is so big, that SpinRite complains
>because
>> the bios cannot access the whole drive. So, SpinRite won't run. Once
>> Windows or Linux starts up, those systems can access the whole hdd.
>> However, SpinRite runs strictly at the dos / bios level from a
>bootable CD.
>>
>> At the very least, I want to do a surface analysis be reading each
>sector.
>> That, at least, will let the hdd controller review each sector and
>> determine if it thinks there are any problems. In Windows, I can
>start a
>> chkdisk, either graphically or on the command line, and specify the
>surface
>> analysis option, and it will accomplish my goal.
>>
>> My problem is on the Linux side of the fence. I don't know how to do
>what
>> I want there. I need to force the hdd to read all the sectors on the
>EXT4
>> main partition as well as the swap partition. Of course, I'm wanting
>to do
>> all this nondestructively. So, I'm wondering exactly what a long
>smart test
>> does, and whether it will accomplish my goal. It not, what would you
>> recommend?
>>
>> Thanks in advance.
>>
>> Sincerely,
>>
>> Ron
>>
>>
>
>
>--
>--
>James P. Kinney III
>
>As long as the general population is passive, apathetic, diverted to
>consumerism or hatred of the vulnerable, then the powerful can do as
>they
>please, and those who survive will be left to contemplate the outcome.
>- *2011 Noam Chomsky
>
>http://heretothereideas.blogspot.com/
>*

--

Sent from my Android Acer A500 tablet with bluetooth keyboard and K-9 Mail.
Please excuse my potential brevity.

(To whom it may concern.  My email address has changed.  Replying to former
messages prior to 03/31/12 with my personal address will go to the wrong
address.  Please send all personal correspondence to the new address.)

(PS - If you email me and don't get a quick response, you might want to
call on the phone.  I get about 300 emails per day from alternate energy
mailing lists and such.  I don't always see new email messages very quickly.)

Ron Frazier
770-205-9422 (O)   Leave a message.
linuxdude AT techstarship.com

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