SSD owners! Want to test Home Server SMART code to verify correct results for your SSD?

[msawyer91]

I am getting ready to release the next beta of Home Server SMART 2012, and I need your help. As many of you are well aware, the beta 2.2.1.21 (and earlier) does not correctly report SMART results for Solid State Disks (SSDs). This is because, before a few weeks ago, I never even considered SSDs or the fact they would report completely different data.

 

I managed to acquire some SSDs, but much to my dismay I found there are many different controller manufacturers and they all have their own sets of attributes. And when OCZ acquired Indilinx last year and came out with the new Indilinx Everest controllers, they changed the attributes, so some vendors have multiple sets!

 

The long and short of it is that I cannot afford to buy SSDs from all these companies, which is necessary to ensure complete coverage of the various controller manufacturers. Intel, Indilinx, SandForce, Micron, JMicron, Stec and others...there are a lot of different attribute sets out there!

 

OCZ, for instance, has SandForce and Indilinx Everest controllers; Crucial seems to favor Micron and Intel uses, well, Intel.

 

That said, is there anybody here in on Home Server Show who would be willing to run Home Server SMART code to examine their SSD and report back to me? Basically I want to make sure that I 1) correctly determine the controller manufacturer and therefore 2) display the correct set of attributes in the UI.

 

You don't even need to be running an SSD in your home server. If you have an SSD in any computer at all, you can test. Here's how!

 

If you are running a home server with WHS 2011 (or SBS 2011 Essentials/Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials) and there's an SSD in it, you can use the Home Server SMART 2012 beta code that I hope to have available in the next week.

 

If you don't have an SSD in your server BUT you've got one in a desktop or laptop, I've created a Windows Forms-based UI that contains much of the Home Server SMART 2012 code, but can be run in 64-bit editions of Windows Vista and Windows 7. This "WindowSMART" application was built mainly for me to use as a means of testing code on the development PC before pushing it onto my home servers, but anybody can run it.

 

Ideally, at a bare minimum, I would at least like to ensure I get coverage of the most common/popular consumer class SSDs. Right now, that seems to be OCZ, Intel, Crucial, Patriot Memory, Kingston, Corsair and SanDisk. Sure, the goal is actually to ensure I properly cover the controllers -- for instance, I have an OCZ Agility3 and an OCZ Octane -- the former uses a SandForce controller; the latter, an Indilinx Everest. That's all I am able to test and validate, leaving all the other controllers out there untested by me. And that leads to bad software. So if anyone is willing to volunteer to run either the HSS 2012 beta or the WindowSMART test UI, your help will be greatly appreciated--and hopefully should require very, very little of your time. Mostly you would just need to run the tool, take screen caps and email them back to me.

 

If anyone is willing to volunteer, please let me know!

[ikon]

I have an original OCZ Revo PCIe SSD in my main Win7 desktop. I'm not sure if it even has SMART, but I might be willing to give it a try.

[pcdoc]

I am getting ready to release the next beta of Home Server SMART 2012, and I need your help. As many of you are well aware, the beta 2.2.1.21 (and earlier) does not correctly report SMART results for Solid State Disks (SSDs). This is because, before a few weeks ago, I never even considered SSDs or the fact they would report completely different data.

 

I managed to acquire some SSDs, but much to my dismay I found there are many different controller manufacturers and they all have their own sets of attributes. And when OCZ acquired Indilinx last year and came out with the new Indilinx Everest controllers, they changed the attributes, so some vendors have multiple sets!

 

The long and short of it is that I cannot afford to buy SSDs from all these companies, which is necessary to ensure complete coverage of the various controller manufacturers. Intel, Indilinx, SandForce, Micron, JMicron, Stec and others...there are a lot of different attribute sets out there!

 

OCZ, for instance, has SandForce and Indilinx Everest controllers; Crucial seems to favor Micron and Intel uses, well, Intel.

 

That said, is there anybody here in on Home Server Show who would be willing to run Home Server SMART code to examine their SSD and report back to me? Basically I want to make sure that I 1) correctly determine the controller manufacturer and therefore 2) display the correct set of attributes in the UI.

 

You don't even need to be running an SSD in your home server. If you have an SSD in any computer at all, you can test. Here's how!

 

If you are running a home server with WHS 2011 (or SBS 2011 Essentials/Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials) and there's an SSD in it, you can use the Home Server SMART 2012 beta code that I hope to have available in the next week.

 

If you don't have an SSD in your server BUT you've got one in a desktop or laptop, I've created a Windows Forms-based UI that contains much of the Home Server SMART 2012 code, but can be run in 64-bit editions of Windows Vista and Windows 7. This "WindowSMART" application was built mainly for me to use as a means of testing code on the development PC before pushing it onto my home servers, but anybody can run it.

 

Ideally, at a bare minimum, I would at least like to ensure I get coverage of the most common/popular consumer class SSDs. Right now, that seems to be OCZ, Intel, Crucial, Patriot Memory, Kingston, Corsair and SanDisk. Sure, the goal is actually to ensure I properly cover the controllers -- for instance, I have an OCZ Agility3 and an OCZ Octane -- the former uses a SandForce controller; the latter, an Indilinx Everest. That's all I am able to test and validate, leaving all the other controllers out there untested by me. And that leads to bad software. So if anyone is willing to volunteer to run either the HSS 2012 beta or the WindowSMART test UI, your help will be greatly appreciated--and hopefully should require very, very little of your time. Mostly you would just need to run the tool, take screen caps and email them back to me.

 

If anyone is willing to volunteer, please let me know!

 

I have SSD's in my servers as well as on every desktop (13 total). I would be willing to test it on a couple of test systems which are Windows 7 systems. I only have access to certain drives on my test systems so could test the Vertex 2, Vertex 1 (Indilinx), the Crucial M4, and the Agility 2/3. I do not have any Intel drives and the Force 3 and Vertex 3 MI are on my production system and I am not ready for that yet.

[msawyer91]

I have SSD's in my servers as well as on every desktop (13 total). I would be willing to test it on a couple of test systems which are Windows 7 systems. I only have access to certain drives on my test systems so could test the Vertex 2, Vertex 1 (Indilinx), the Crucial M4, and the Agility 2/3. I do not have any Intel drives and the Force 3 and Vertex 3 MI are on my production system and I am not ready for that yet.

Not a problem. Any testing at all will be helpful, thank you. Please shoot me a PM or send an email to the bug tracking email (bugXtraq *AT* dojoXnorthXsoftware (DOT) net). Remove the capital X's from the email address -- sorry about that, but I don't see any way in the forum to obfuscate the email address from spammers.

 

My plan is to, hopefully later this week, to send out an email to all testers with links to download the beta and optionally the SmartInspect redistributable. This next beta will take away a lot of the logging to the Windows log (many users complained about HSS constantly writing out every little message) and instead writes it to more robust SmartInspect log files. If there are items that I can't seem to resolve from swapping screen captures, then I would ask for the SIL log files. I provide the link to download the SmartInspect redistributable to folks are able to see what exactly is contained in the logs. I don't believe in asking anyone to send something to me without them having an opportunity to know exactly what it is they are sending.

 

Matt

[msawyer91]

I have SSD's in my servers as well as on every desktop (13 total). I would be willing to test it on a couple of test systems which are Windows 7 systems. I only have access to certain drives on my test systems so could test the Vertex 2, Vertex 1 (Indilinx), the Crucial M4, and the Agility 2/3. I do not have any Intel drives and the Force 3 and Vertex 3 MI are on my production system and I am not ready for that yet.

Hi pcdoc,

 

I sent out an email to other testers just a few minutes ago. For the sake of simplicity I'm pasting the email below, which contains information, download links, etc. Links to both the latest beta of Home Server SMART 2012 and the client application, WindowSMART 2012, are included. Currently WindowSMART is only available for 64-bit versions of Windows Vista, 7, Server 2008 and 2008 R2. Hopefully I'll get around to compiling a 32-bit edition in the next couple of days.

 

I neglected to include in the original email the bug tracking site - that is https://www.dojonort...are.net/bugtraq

 

Email is below:

 

 

Good morning,

 

I would like to take a moment to say thank you to all of you for volunteering to test Home Server SMART 2012 to validate the correctness of its reporting of your Solid State Disk health. For those with client machines with SSDs, the client application WindowSMART 2012 is available as well. They share over 90% of their code so if a bug exists in one, it’ll be in the other. However, not everyone has SSDs in their servers but they do in client machines, or vice versa.

 

This email has been sent as a BCC because there are several individuals included. To protect everyone’s privacy, I’ve chosen to send this as a BCC.

 

I apologize for the delay, but I finally have beta builds of both HSS and WS posted. At present time, I’ve only got code included for SSD controllers manufactured by Indilinx, Indilinx Everest, Intel, SandForce and STEC. If the SSD(s) you have use JMicron, Micron, Samsung or SMART Modular controllers, then you probably won’t see any data reported for them, or the data will be incorrect. These are public betas and you are free to install them regardless.

 

Home Server SMART 2012 can be installed in place over the top of an existing HSS installation, provided you are running HSS 2012 v2.2.1.21 or later.

 

Whether you install HSS on your server(s) or WindowSMART on client(s), please provide me with your feedback, both good and bad. Screen captures can be sent via email, or saved as image files on the bug tracking website. HSS and WindowSMART both now include SmartInspect logging. These log files are saved by default in C:\ProgramData\Dojo North Software\Logs. This can be changed in the Settings of both applications (you need to restart the service for the change to take effect). On an HSS installation, the service is called Home Server SMART; on a WindowSMART installation it is called WindowSMART 2012. (The short name is “dnhsSmart” in both cases.)

 

Please include log files with your feedback, especially if you’re reporting a problem. These can get quite large, so please post these to the bug tracking website. These are not suitable to send via email unless they can be compressed to 8 MB or less. Future betas and of course the production release will provide the ability to turn off debug logging. For now, at least until I can get SSDs supported and verified by testers, the logging is enabled. If you would like to see what the logs contain before submitting them, you can download the SmartInspect Redistributable Console @ http://www.gurock.co...inspect/extras/. I take people’s privacy very seriously and I want folks to be able to see exactly what the logs contain before they get submitted.

 

The current beta of both applications is version 2.2.2.25 code-named “Middle Class Rut.”

 

If you wish to test Home Server SMART 2012, you can download it here: http://www.dojonorth...t_v2.2.2.25.zip

HSS 2012 Wiki: http://wiki.dojonort...rver_SMART_2012

 

Extract the WSSX file from the zip and install on your server.

 

If you wish to test WindowSMART 2012, you can download it here: http://www.dojonorth...t_v2.2.2.25.zip

WindowSMART Wiki: http://wiki.dojonort...indowSMART_2012

WindowSMART currently only works on 64-bit versions of Windows Vista and later. I don’t have a 32-bit build of it yet. Hopefully I can get to that this weekend.

 

Extract the contents of the zip file to a temporary folder and run Setup.exe. The Setup program checks to be sure the Visual C++ 2010 runtime and .NET Framework 4 are installed. If these are missing, Setup will ask you if you’d like to install them. The Microsoft redistributable components for both of these are included in the download. WindowSMART adds a shortcut to the Start Menu under All Programs > Dojo North Software.

 

 

Again, thank you for volunteering to help. Please shoot me a note if you have any questions, concerns or problems!

 

Best regards,

 

Matt Sawyer

Owner – Dojo North Software

49434 Tarrytown Court

Shelby Township, MI 48315

C: (five eight six) 350-eight one 1 7

msawyerNINETY-ONE <at> dojonorthsoftware (DOT) net (change the word NINETY-ONE to its appropriate numbers - I obfuscated it here on the forum to block spammers)

 

Think green! Please consider the environment before printing this email. Danke!

[tealsteam]

I have SSDs in my local machine, would be willing to test n report back, however I'm running RAID 0, would this make a difference?

Edited December 9, 2012 by tealsteam