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

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

2,486
840
NAS
Synology, TrueNAS
Operating system
  1. Linux
  2. Windows
jeyare submitted a new resource:

How to monitor, control, damage check of disks in your Synology NAS - this resource is useful for all categories Syno NAS users, except I don't care segment

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)...

Read more about this resource...
 
Just saw this resource referenced in current thread. As a Win user of HD Sentinel, I was curious about the Linux implementation. Following the procedure, I ran into a few issues.

In my 4-drive NAS, only disk #0 appeared. Much information was incomplete... for example:
Jbci3k8.png


And the partition information is incomplete...
QfbdEk4.png


FWIW I'm using hdsentinel-019b.gz

There was also an issue of reading the html output using the link...

file://<NAS IP>/HDSentinel/hdsreport.html

Which yielded "File not found" in the Edge browser, and no response in a Firefox browser.

Only when I downloaded the file and opened it from within the Firefox browser, did it display.

Lastly... in the Task Scheduler set up... do you really run this every 5 minutes?

Thanks!
 
No worries. At least I'm back on the NAS here, not the RPi (though I may try it later there). Developer Janos is a fine dude. Looking forward to using this on my machine... Otherwise, I may have to upgrade my Win License to Pro (I didn't know it would work with the NAS).
 
@Telos
1. need see what hdsentinel recognizes:
Bash:
./hdsentinel
2. also interesting in:
Bash:
./hdsentinel -dev /dev/sda

3. then:
Bash:
smartctl -i /dev/hda
# also for /dev/sda
and
Bash:
smartctl -x /dev/hda | grep Temperature
# also for /dev/sda

post all the results here
-----------------------------------------------

Re html Report reading from the host

1. path for the browser:
HTML:
file:///<mapped remote SMB>:<path to the html>
# example
# file:///X:/hdsentinel/hdsreport.html

2. tested right now with Edge, FF, Chrome last ver. on W10 Pro. Works as expected (
a) direct click on the HTML file from WExplorer
b) WExplorer, file .. Open with:
c) path defined above from my Flame dashboard from any browser mentioned

Note: I have still old ver of the Lnx agent: 0.18c.8675
 
Last edited:
Reading the above, I got curious about my DS1621+. Some poking revealed that fdisk is installed on DSM 7.1. It listed every block device it could find, including my six HDD drives: /dev/sata1 thru /dev/sata1 (the main RAID array). The two attached external USB drives, and both of the installed NVMe SSD drives.

I used this command sudo fdisk -l > drive-listing.txt. I shall continue to check out the hdsentinel application. Thanks for the info!

WARNING: The fdisk program's intended purpose is to modify partition tables. ANY OTHER OPTION THAN -l is DANGEROUS!

CAUTION is WARRANTED
when using sudo to execute any program. However, without using sudo, fdisk reports nothing but numerous permission denied errors.
 
Last edited:
I am at an impasse. hdsentinel fails to detect the /dev/sataN, or the /dev/usbN devices.

Its optional -dev option only permits checking one disk at a time. Hence the report is lacking the other 9 drives installed on my Synology. It also misses the /dev/sgN device nodes (another way to access the HDDs). It's been a very long time, I vaguely recall the sataN and sgN nodes differ in their kernel behaviour somehow... *shrug*.

This is unfortunate.

Its command line options are here: Hard Disk Sentinel - Free Linux version

PS: This is version: Hard Disk Sentinel for LINUX console 0.19c.9986

PPS: One good guess later, I got a download of a v18 executable: Hard Disk Sentinel for LINUX console 0.18a.8675. However, it also failed. It only found /dev/nvme1, and reported nothing about it.
 
working perfectly
-- post merged: --



it was not provided for regular reports; it was prepared for inspection, which may reveal a bug in the new version
No joy here. My best guess? There are some hardware and/or driver differences between our Synology models. *shrug*

On the -dev option's usage. Its rationale is completely understandable. It's interesting that the 'auto' scan fails with the sataN / sgN, and usbN device nodes, but not the -dev option.

This retired developer's first instinct is to go hunting for the source. I guess the bug hunter can retire, but the instinct to hunt... it doesn't seem to leave, does it? *LOL*
 
They all produce lots of tables of details, that seem generally as expected.

One pecularity, they all report 21% free space remaining. All ten (10) of them. That seems... unlikely.

This was with the 19c version.
 
@Telos
1. need see what hdsentinel recognizes:

This has been resolved through divine intervention ⚡

Yesterday we had an unexpected blackout which “restored” low voltage for apx 5 minutes. Fortunately the UPS did its job. But having signs of an extended outage, I shut down my network/devices.

Restarting today, the task (manually initiated) delivered a beautiful, full report of all drives. Perhaps the restart had some effect 🤔

Still facing the inability to launch the browser version, using...
file://yourNASip/SharedFolderName/hdsentinel/hdsreport.html

I created a desktop shortcut, and "a-ha", it was that darned "file:" that thwarted me. Using

file://///<NASname./HDSentinel/hdsreport.html

worked fine.

_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

A different question... can the task script
/volume1/SharedFolderName/hdsentinel/hdsentinel -r /volume1/SharedFolderName/hdsentinel/hdsreport.html -html

be modified such that it can read drives from other NAS/PC/RPi on the network. One instance reporting on all?

If so, what might the command look like? Thanks!
 
Last edited:
They all produce lots of tables of details, that seem generally as expected.

One pecularity, they all report 21% free space remaining. All ten (10) of them. That seems... unlikely.

This was with the 19c version.
This isn't an accurate tool for free space monitoring, especially under SHR. I don't use this kind of outcome for my operation. What is more important is the handling with SMART, which is perfect for me - no need to open SSH into NASes to check immediately the SMART values
-- post merged: --

Still facing the inability to launch the browser version, using...
file://yourNASip/SharedFolderName/hdsentinel/hdsreport.html

I created a desktop shortcut, and "a-ha", it was that darned "file:" that thwarted me. Using

file://///<NASname./HDSentinel/hdsreport.html

worked fine.

_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

I told you - less uranium on your desktop will help your devices :ROFLMAO:
-- post merged: --

Regarding centralized SMART monitoring - 3 possible ways, described by the author long time ago:


Of course remote monitoring is possible by the software
Please check Configuration -> Integration page and read the help associated with that page (or online at Hard Disk Sentinel Help , just select "Integration" from the menu on the left).

Method 1) WebStatus
Then the disk status of the remote computer can be inspected by any simple web browser.
Please check this page: http://www.hdsentinel.com/forum/viewtop ... t=557#p658
where you can see some sample output.

Method 2) Combined WebStatus
Disk status of two or more computers can be combined to form a single page, showing
(automatically updated) details in a small form, perfect for use as a gadget. The page I mentioned above contains instructions about it.

Method 3) Enterprise Server
By using the Hard Disk Sentinel Enterprise Server software, you can remotely monitor any number of computers and get information about disk issues, alerts, and events remotely from a centralized computer.
Basically, it is designed for corporate environments, but home network management is also possible without problems.
Please check the page Hard Disk Sentinel Enterprise Package for more details and if you are interested, I recommend to write me a mail with an inquiry about a demo (the demo available online contains only very few functions).
 
I went and looked at my DS1621+'s kernel boot dmesg messages. The DS1621+ uses the JMB585 PCIe Gen3x2 to 5 SATA 6Gb/s Bridge controller, from JMicron Technology Corporation. With DSM 7.1's native smartctl utility, it requires these arguments to provoke correct Drive Info, and SMART data:

Code:
smartctl -x -d sat /dev/sg1

From an online manual page for smartctl, the -d sat means:

Code:
sat[,auto][,N] - the device type is SCSI to ATA Translation (SAT).  This is for ATA
              disks that have a SCSI to ATA Translation (SAT) Layer (SATL) between the disk
              and the operating system.

The actual drives are WDC WD101EFBX-68B0AN0 drives.
 
I have to disappoint you - Synology integration of Smartmontools is anything but not 100% correct.
It has not been updated since version 6.5 (2017), the last version is 7.3 (2022), and the results of the Syno DEV team's SMART work are politically speaking - bad. Very bad.

some pieces of evidence (entire thread):
 
Yes, I have been following that thread with interest. If I had another pc-like box, to stick one of the WD drives into, I'd also check it with a current smartctl release.

I figure for updating hdsentinel, knowing which driver is involved is the important part...
 

Create an account or login to comment

You must be a member in order to leave a comment

Create account

Create an account on our community. It's easy!

Log in

Already have an account? Log in here.

Welcome to SynoForum.com!

SynoForum.com is an unofficial Synology forum for NAS owners and enthusiasts.

Registration is free, easy and fast!

Trending threads

Back
Top