"green" hard disk and ubuntu?

[David Fletcher]

On Fri, 2011-10-28 at 06:45 +0200, Olivier Pavilla wrote:
> Hi everyone.
> 
> I must change my hardisk in my ubuntu server.
> So, at my job my colleague told me that "green"hard disk has no long
> life on ubuntu server because of power management or something like this.
> Does anyone knows if it's true? What kind of SATA hard disk should I buy?
> 

This is the readout for the "green" hard drive in my server. Draw your
own conclusions regarding its reliability.

Feel free to correct me if I am wrong about this, but I believe the
green credential is achieved by reducing the platter spin speed which
also reduces electricity consumption. I don't need high performance for
my server, your requirements may be different.




administrator at ServerII:~$ sudo smartctl -a /dev/sda -d ata -F samsung
smartctl version 5.38 [i686-pc-linux-gnu] Copyright (C) 2002-8 Bruce
Allen
Home page is http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Device Model:     SAMSUNG HD103SI
Serial Number:    S1VSJ90Z618441
Firmware Version: 1AG01118
User Capacity:    1,000,204,886,016 bytes
Device is:        In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is:   8
ATA Standard is:  ATA-8-ACS revision 3b
Local Time is:    Fri Oct 28 09:35:38 2011 BST

==> WARNING: May need -F samsung or -F samsung2 enabled; see manual for
details.

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: 		 (12663) seconds.
Offline data collection
capabilities: 			 (0x7b) SMART execute Offline immediate.
					Auto Offline data collection on/off support.
					Suspend Offline collection upon new
					command.
					Offline surface scan supported.
					Self-test supported.
					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: 	 ( 212) minutes.
Conveyance self-test routine
recommended polling time: 	 (  23) minutes.
SCT capabilities: 	       (0x003f)	SCT Status supported.
					SCT Feature Control supported.
					SCT Data Table supported.

SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE
UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
  1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate     0x000f   100   100   051    Pre-fail  Always
-       0
  3 Spin_Up_Time            0x0007   082   082   011    Pre-fail  Always
-       6260
  4 Start_Stop_Count        0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always
-       11
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0033   100   100   010    Pre-fail  Always
-       0
  7 Seek_Error_Rate         0x000f   253   253   051    Pre-fail  Always
-       0
  8 Seek_Time_Performance   0x0025   100   100   015    Pre-fail
Offline      -       0
  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   098   098   000    Old_age   Always
-       10974
 10 Spin_Retry_Count        0x0033   100   100   051    Pre-fail  Always
-       0
 11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0012   100   100   000    Old_age   Always
-       0
 12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always
-       11
 13 Read_Soft_Error_Rate    0x000e   100   100   000    Old_age   Always
-       0
183 Unknown_Attribute       0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always
-       0
184 Unknown_Attribute       0x0033   100   100   000    Pre-fail  Always
-       0
187 Reported_Uncorrect      0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always
-       0
188 Unknown_Attribute       0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always
-       0
190 Airflow_Temperature_Cel 0x0022   072   063   000    Old_age   Always
-       28 (Lifetime Min/Max 22/37)
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0022   072   063   000    Old_age   Always
-       28 (Lifetime Min/Max 22/39)
195 Hardware_ECC_Recovered  0x001a   100   100   000    Old_age   Always
-       1421244338
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always
-       0
197 Current_Pending_Sector  0x0012   100   100   000    Old_age   Always
-       0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable   0x0030   100   100   000    Old_age
Offline      -       0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    0x003e   100   100   000    Old_age   Always
-       0
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate   0x000a   100   100   000    Old_age   Always
-       0
201 Soft_Read_Error_Rate    0x000a   100   100   000    Old_age   Always
-       0

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
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.