How can I test to see if there something wrong with my SSD?

Question

So a few weeks ago I update to 17.10 and at pretty much the same time I updated to Android Studio 3, and it was probably a mistake updating both as now I don't know where the problem lies.

Basically it seems like disk IO has gotten really bad. At first I noticed I was swapping so I doubled my ram (32 gigs now) and I'm never swapping anymore. But the machine still pretty much freezes when disk IO happens. By freezes I mean it will get really slow, to the point that I can type and I won't see what I'm typing for a few seconds, often I'll get a long string of one key when that happens.

When I go to commit my code, Android Studio will do an analysis of the code and the UI just freezes while it does that. Takes a few seconds. None of these issues used to happen before updating both things.

Also, when the cloud station backup runs to my NAS, it gets ridiculously slow.

I have a Samsung SSD 850 PRO 512GB SSD.

So what can I run to see what the issue is?

Thanks.

Edit:

Smartctl output:

smartctl 6.6 2016-05-31 r4324 [x86_64-linux-4.13.0-16-generic] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-16, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family:     Samsung based SSDs
Device Model:     Samsung SSD 850 PRO 512GB
Serial Number:    S250NSAG809789J
LU WWN Device Id: 5 002538 8a0af305f
Firmware Version: EXM02B6Q
User Capacity:    512,110,190,592 bytes [512 GB]
Sector Size:      512 bytes logical/physical
Rotation Rate:    Solid State Device
Device is:        In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is:   ACS-2, ATA8-ACS T13/1699-D revision 4c
SATA Version is:  SATA 3.1, 6.0 Gb/s (current: 6.0 Gb/s)
Local Time is:    Tue Nov 28 16:22:20 2017 CST
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:        (    0) 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.
                    General Purpose Logging supported.
Short self-test routine 
recommended polling time:    (   2) minutes.
Extended self-test routine
recommended polling time:    ( 272) minutes.
SCT capabilities:          (0x003d) SCT Status supported.
                    SCT Error Recovery Control supported.
                    SCT Feature Control supported.
                    SCT Data Table supported.

SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 1
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0033   100   100   010    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   095   095   000    Old_age   Always       -       23126
 12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0032   099   099   000    Old_age   Always       -       75
177 Wear_Leveling_Count     0x0013   098   098   000    Pre-fail  Always       -       117
179 Used_Rsvd_Blk_Cnt_Tot   0x0013   100   100   010    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
181 Program_Fail_Cnt_Total  0x0032   100   100   010    Old_age   Always       -       0
182 Erase_Fail_Count_Total  0x0032   100   100   010    Old_age   Always       -       0
183 Runtime_Bad_Block       0x0013   100   100   010    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
187 Uncorrectable_Error_Cnt 0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
190 Airflow_Temperature_Cel 0x0032   070   057   000    Old_age   Always       -       30
195 ECC_Error_Rate          0x001a   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
199 CRC_Error_Count         0x003e   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
235 POR_Recovery_Count      0x0012   099   099   000    Old_age   Always       -       34
241 Total_LBAs_Written      0x0032   099   099   000    Old_age   Always       -       37060089586

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.

df -i output:

Filesystem              Inodes   IUsed    IFree IUse% Mounted on
udev                   4096227     613  4095614    1% /dev
tmpfs                  4111096    1024  4110072    1% /run
/dev/sda1             29908992 4301747 25607245   15% /
tmpfs                  4111096     524  4110572    1% /dev/shm
tmpfs                  4111096       5  4111091    1% /run/lock
tmpfs                  4111096      18  4111078    1% /sys/fs/cgroup
tmpfs                  4111096      17  4111079    1% /run/user/122
tmpfs                  4111096     458  4110638    1% /run/user/1000
/home/mydir/.Private 29908992 4301747 25607245   15% /home/mydir

Solution 1

Edit: with respect to the fact I forgot not everyone would know this: Smart normalized data counts down not up!

The specific command you're likely looking for is:

# smartctl -a /dev/sda | grep Media_Wearout_Indicator

this higher this is, the more likely you are to run into issues. as an aside I would recommend considering replacing your drive after this hits:

• 50% - Mission Critical Drives (things that, for reasons beyond the scope here are NEEDED to be accessible no matter what.)

• 30% - your /home drive (your movies/music/personal files, things you care about having at hand)

• 20% everything else (drives only brought online for backups before being committed to cold-storage, drives that hold OSes you only use occasionally, etc)

Solution 2

Install Gnome Disk Utility and check tests for wear-leveling-count and SMART Data or any similar.

The higher the reported percentage, the more worn your SSD is, which means you are more likely to encounter problems.

Install using:

apt-get install gnome-disk-utility

Launch via command line

sudo palimpsest

or via the application menu under the name Disk Utility.

Comments

[Sergiy Kolodyazhnyy]

Run smartctl command, post the output. It might reveal something about your SSD health. Also check inode count with df -i. Swap and RAM usage might be worth checking too for io stufd

[casolorz]

Added the output. Thanks. According to top and the gui monitor app I have zero swap usage since adding more ram.

[casolorz]

I thought pre-fail was just the type of statistic, not the status?

[Sergiy Kolodyazhnyy]

Yes, TYPE column only indicates the type of statistic. VALUE column is supposed to be compared with THRESH column, and it's bad only when VALUE gets low enough that it approaches THRESH. In your case it's alright. I looked only briefly through it last time on phone, so my previous comment was wrong.

[thecarpy]

Can you elaborate on "Also, when the cloud station backup runs to my NAS, it gets ridiculously slow." Why did you do df -i, inodes is not really useful in this case, please provide df -h or df, it might be that you are running out of space (less than say 15% available) on the drive, which causes slowdowns....

[casolorz]

Cloud station backup is a backup utility from the company that makes my NAS.

[casolorz]

Sorry hit enter before finishing the reply. I think I am down to 20% or so, I'll have to check tonight when I'm near the computer.

[casolorz]

Wear leveling count is 118. How do I convert that to a percentage?

[casolorz]

Are you talking about this one: Wear_Leveling_Count 0x0013 098 098 000 Pre-fail Always - 118 ? I don't know what 118 means, that can't possibly be the percentage, can it? it can't go above 100, right?

[Fabby]

@casolorz the above is the correct command and 118 is not the % but 98 is and you're in "pre-fail" status: Back-up right now. I mean like: STOP USING THE DISK and do a ddrescue right now onto a bigger disk because SSDs die suddenly without warning

[casolorz]

Pre-Fail is the type, not the status. So 98 sounds really bad but on another post I read it sounded like the number goes backwards. You can see my smart output on my post.

[Gartral]

ok, after my brain derped earlier I found it prudend to update my answer and leave information gleaned from z-a-recovery.com/manual/smart.aspx there

[Gartral]

@casolorz your normalized count is 98% meaning that your drive is near perfect condition! YAY!

[casolorz]

Anymore ideas? I guess maybe I just need to clear some space on the drive.

[Elder Geek]

@casoloroz 118 is the raw data value (typically in hexadecimal). You don't convert it to a percentage.

[Gartral]

@casolorz do yourself a favor and check iotop or nmon (I prefer the latter) this will let you identify exactly what processes are eating your disk io and causing the thrashing