Bug 595271

Summary: palimpsest shows a disk with 184082949 read error rate as healthy disk
Product: [Fedora] Fedora Reporter: Joachim Backes <joachim.backes>
Component: gnome-disk-utilityAssignee: David Zeuthen <davidz>
Status: CLOSED NOTABUG QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance <extras-qa>
Severity: medium Docs Contact:
Priority: low    
Version: 13CC: davidz, mclasen
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OS: Linux   
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Fixed In Version: Doc Type: Bug Fix
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Last Closed: 2010-06-01 15:44:13 UTC Type: ---
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Description Flags
the palimpsest result window for that disk none

Description Joachim Backes 2010-05-24 08:57:20 UTC
Created attachment 416062 [details]
the palimpsest result window for that disk

Description of problem:
I used palimpsest for checking my /dev/sda sata disk: palimpsest indicates 
184082949 read error, but declares that disk as healthy. 
Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
gnome-disk-utility-2.30.1-1.fc13.i686

How reproducible:
always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.start palimpsest and click on the disk symbol in the left pane.  
2.
3.
  
Actual results:
disk is healthy

Expected results:
some another evaluation

Additional info:

Comment 1 David Zeuthen 2010-06-01 15:44:13 UTC
(In reply to comment #0)
> Created an attachment (id=416062) [details]
> the palimpsest result window for that disk
> 
> Description of problem:
> I used palimpsest for checking my /dev/sda sata disk: palimpsest indicates 
> 184082949 read error, but declares that disk as healthy. 
> Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
> gnome-disk-utility-2.30.1-1.fc13.i686
> 
> How reproducible:
> always
> 
> Steps to Reproduce:
> 1.start palimpsest and click on the disk symbol in the left pane.  
> 2.
> 3.
> 
> Actual results:
> disk is healthy
> 
> Expected results:
> some another evaluation

It sounds like you're assuming that ATA SMART is supposed to be accurate, well specified and meaningful. This is unfortunately not the case. See the libatasmart sources for how we determine what to report to the end user (hint: being careful to not report wrong data is key here).

In this particular case the attribute you are mentioning has a normalized value that is above its threshold (since 109 > 6) so it's all good. Also not only Pre-Fail (not Old-Age) attributes contribute to the reported "Healthy" evalution of the disk. The fact that the raw value is sky-high is probably just the disk returning garbage (sadly many disks do that) for the raw value. Feel free to open a bug against libatasmart to add a quirk about that.

In the future please keep this page in mind

 http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/udisks

when filing storage-related bugs.

Comment 2 Joachim Backes 2010-06-01 16:41:17 UTC
(In reply to comment #1)
> (In reply to comment #0)
> > Created an attachment (id=416062) [details] [details]
> > the palimpsest result window for that disk
> > 
> > Description of problem:
> > I used palimpsest for checking my /dev/sda sata disk: palimpsest indicates 
> > 184082949 read error, but declares that disk as healthy. 
> > Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
> > gnome-disk-utility-2.30.1-1.fc13.i686
> > 
> > How reproducible:
> > always
> > 
> > Steps to Reproduce:
> > 1.start palimpsest and click on the disk symbol in the left pane.  
> > 2.
> > 3.
> > 
> > Actual results:
> > disk is healthy
> > 
> > Expected results:
> > some another evaluation
> 
> It sounds like you're assuming that ATA SMART is supposed to be accurate, well
> specified and meaningful. This is unfortunately not the case. See the
> libatasmart sources for how we determine what to report to the end user (hint:
> being careful to not report wrong data is key here).
> 
> In this particular case the attribute you are mentioning has a normalized value
> that is above its threshold (since 109 > 6) so it's all good. Also not only
> Pre-Fail (not Old-Age) attributes contribute to the reported "Healthy"
> evalution of the disk. The fact that the raw value is sky-high is probably just
> the disk returning garbage (sadly many disks do that) for the raw value. Feel
> free to open a bug against libatasmart to add a quirk about that.
> 
> In the future please keep this page in mind
> 
>  http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/udisks
> 
> when filing storage-related bugs.    

Hi David, thank you for clarification.

Kind regards

JB