॥ स्वक्ष ॥

Dear Lazyweb,

If you have installed "smartmontools" on your laptop on Ubuntu-Lucid, has it been behaving erratically after the last update about a week ago?

me@ubuntu:~$ sudo smartctl -s on -a /dev/sda 

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 ===
Model Family:     Seagate Momentus 5400.3
Device Model:     ST9160821AS
Serial Number:    5MA1LL40
Firmware Version: 3.BHD
User Capacity:    160,041,885,696 bytes
Device is:        In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is:   7
ATA Standard is:  Exact ATA specification draft version not indicated
Local Time is:    Fri Dec 17 11:09:46 2010 UTC
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled

=== START OF ENABLE/DISABLE COMMANDS SECTION ===
SMART Enabled.

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED
See vendor-specific Attribute list for marginal Attributes.

General SMART Values:
Offline data collection status:  (0x82)    Offline data collection activity
                    was completed without error.
                    Auto Offline Data Collection: Enabled.
Self-test execution status:      (  21)    The self-test routine was aborted by
                    the host.
Total time to complete Offline
data collection:          ( 426) 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.
                    No General Purpose Logging support.
Short self-test routine
recommended polling time:      (   2) minutes.
Extended self-test routine
recommended polling time:      (  88) minutes.
SCT capabilities:            (0x0001)    SCT Status supported.

SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 10
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   105   096   006    Pre-fail  Always       -       9940165
  3 Spin_Up_Time            0x0002   099   098   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
  4 Start_Stop_Count        0x0033   098   098   020    Pre-fail  Always       -       2683
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0033   100   100   036    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  7 Seek_Error_Rate         0x000f   072   060   030    Pre-fail  Always       -       17255855270
  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   096   096   000    Old_age   Always       -       3998
 10 Spin_Retry_Count        0x0013   100   100   034    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
 12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0033   098   098   020    Pre-fail  Always       -       2155
187 Reported_Uncorrect      0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
189 High_Fly_Writes         0x003a   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
190 Airflow_Temperature_Cel 0x0022   049   035   045    Old_age   Always   In_the_past 51 (15 36 54 47)
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       1159
193 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0032   001   001   000    Old_age   Always       -       227684
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0022   051   065   000    Old_age   Always       -       51 (0 18 0 0)
195 Hardware_ECC_Recovered  0x001a   078   060   000    Old_age   Always       -       64509422
197 Current_Pending_Sector  0x0012   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       1
198 Offline_Uncorrectable   0x0010   100   100   000    Old_age   Offline      -       1
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    0x003e   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate   0x0000   100   253   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0
202 TA_Increase_Count       0x0032   100   253   000    Old_age   Always       -       0

SMART Error Log Version: 1
No Errors Logged

SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
Num  Test_Description    Status                  Remaining  LifeTime(hours)  LBA_of_first_error
# 1  Extended offline    Aborted by host               50%      2943         -
# 2  Extended offline    Aborted by host               70%      2699         -

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.

As you can see here, there is no LCC for desktop server hard-disks and its especially meant for laptop HDD, where I'm interested in limiting the Load_Cycle_Count (LCC) to increment only with each boot cycle. Yeah, it has inherent risks, but...

193 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0032   001   001   000    Old_age   Always       -       227825

However, since (the lucid update) last week, running 'smartctl' has not worked its magic since the count has incremented from 227684 to 227825 within an hour. I've been randomly checking it every other hour or so to find the LCC racing away.

Is this a sign that the HDD is dying? Is this a hardware issue or has the code-base changed to require a rebuild? What am I missing here?