How to monitor, control, damage check of disks in your Synology NAS

App How to monitor, control, damage check of disks in your Synology NAS

I can show you, how you can get more and better information about your HDD/SSD and iSCSI drives operated in your NASes by useful tool called HD Sentinel:

Note:
- don't by dissuaded by UI from maybe 2005
- in right hands it's more useful tool than all exist Syno packages for the disks monitoring/tests/maintenance
- clients sw is running on Win, Linux based OSs, or there are portable versions
- Central (Pro ver) console on Win based OSs

Background:
- no need an installation, it's standalone tool, just download, unzip and use (except console)
- to get a single point of view about all possible disk health, lifespan information based on excelent smartmontools + additional useful tools integrated into one package
- surface tests (deep range)
- customized thresholds for each disk independently (SSD warning temp is different from HDD and each drive has own treshold)
- a report availability:
a) by CLI
b) by single source file - for an external monitoring based on tools like Grafana
c) by browser
d) by central console of HD Sentinel (paid Pro version), that can help you also in process of rescue of your data in your NAS and also all possible disk drives ( in your laptop, desktop, external, USB, SATA, NVMe M.2 SSD, SD card, ...)

Legend:
Part n. 1: Preparation of the hdsentinel tool into your NAS
Part n. 2: Task scheduler in your NAS
Part n. 3: Report view
Part n. 4: HD Sentinel Pro console (for Win OS operation)
---------------

Part n. 1: Preparation of the hdsentinel tool into your NAS
Installation is really easy
Open your CLI to NAS
Create folder in one f your Shared folders structure to save the tool and report
for such resource I will use:
mkdir /volume1/SharedFolderName/hdsentinel
cd /volume1/SharedFolderName/hdsentinel
now you need download and unzip the tool from a source:
make sure that "hdsentinel-018c-x64" is the last Linux version propagated at the source:
you can copy and paste highlighted (red) link of the last possible source from this section of the web page:
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rename the executable file (for simple CLI feature usage):
mv hdsentinel-018c-x64 hdsentinel

then you need just create an executable permission for the tool:
chmod 0755 hdsentinel

Part n.1 is DONE!

Part n. 2: Task scheduler in your NAS
DSM/Control panel/Task scheduler:
2.1. Create Scheduled Task by User-defined script
1609930500548.png


2.2. then define name of the task, e.g. HardDiskSentinel SMART
and keep "root" ... when you change root to diff user (administrators group) you will see the report in HTML but some details will see just root (based on DSM setup)
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2.3. Setup of Scheduler:
Note: 5 minutes of frequency is appropriate for my operation
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2.4. Setup of the custom script:
/volume1/SharedFolderName/hdsentinel/hdsentinel -r /volume1/SharedFolderName/hdsentinel/hdsreport.html -html
don't forget to change correct path to the hdsentinel (defined in the Part n.1) in both part of the script
Note:
- you can also use MHT file format (then you need change specification in end of the command from -html to -mht)
- same for XML format
- same for stdout format (the you have to use -dump)
... or you can use multiple formats

1609933146177.png

Part n.2 is DONE!

Part n. 3: Report view
3.1. Browser part:

file://yourNASip/SharedFolderName/hdsentinel/hdsreport.html
you will get the extended Report:
1609932469121.png


3.2. CLI part:
Note:
you can get Power on Time value simple by smartctl command:
smartctl --all /dev/sda | grep Power_On_Hours | cut -d "-" -f2 | tr -d "[:blank:]"
you will get value in hours, e.g. 49718 hours what is not good readable format
or
you can use also CLI feature of hdsentinel:
./hdsentinel -dev /dev/sda | grep Power
you will get:
1609933315977.png
what is quite better readable
or for all:
./hdsentinel | grep Power
there is useful list of possible commands for hdsentinel, e.g. check of temperature your drives:
./hdsentinel -solid | awk '{print $2, $1, $5}' | grep -v "^?" | sort -n
Part n. 3 is DONE!

Part n. 4: HD Sentinel Pro console (Win OS only)

How to not just monitor all your storage devices in single places from each NASes, better than in Grafana, because you can active control of the devices.
This is a screenshot from my Win OS HD Sentinel Pro console:
- you can see part of the console with simple attached all operated disks in my NASes, include integration into OS tray notification
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4.1. What you need for the console?
Win OS
download and install last version from:
last version: Hard Disk Sentinel Professional Setup v5.61, Cost: 33,60EUR incl VAT, lifetime e-licence
there is also Family pack for the Pro version = 5 computers for EUR 49.95 / USD 53.00 (lifetime license) ... my choice
the installation process is very simple, no need a guide

Then you need register your NAS/NASes report/s prepared in the Part n.1.
Follow these steps (within the Pro console only):
Open from menu File/Configure NAS Disk Monitoring
1610038374473.png

when you have permanently mounted your Shared folder where is the hdsentinel report stored, then use button Browse and find the exact report file.
1610038415506.png

That's it! Done! Just confirm it by OK button or repeat this step for each single NAS.

How to use all features of the Pro console? This is up to you or my free time.
- one of the useful is SMART values output in chart - you can find there a degradation behavior or similar important information
- second, that you can independently setup a Custom temperature threshold for each single disk (yelow-warning, red-overheating)

Edit:
... and there is also Disk menu for an initial disk repairing jobs - there you can setup Custom SMART test, include all possible Surface test for single or bunch of disks. To be sure: you need switch off the NAS, take of the disk from NAS connect it by SATA/USB to your computer. It's necessary to do it by this way, because you need unmounted volume.

1610038752971.png

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... include an interesting knowledge base (also about disks and support).

Part n. 4 is DONE!

Useful notes:
here you can find a detailed comparison of the Hard Disk Sentinel licenses:
here you van find revision history of the all hdsentinel versions:

Have a great experiences with your storage medias!
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