smartctl

Linux: Prints SMART (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology) status and runs tests for devices with this ability - most modern drives have this. A quick check would be

# smartctl -H /dev/hda
smartctl version 5.1-11 Copyright (C) 2002-3 Bruce Allen
Home page is http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED
 

You can get more information with "smartctl -a" (Older versions of smartctl have different flags; see the man page or smartctl -?). However, the results can be confusing. I recently had a drive that was running very hot, and making load groaning noises at boot or during any time of high activity. When I checked it with smartctl, it said it was basically OK, but some attributes showed "Pre-fail" or "Old_age". The man page at http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/man/smartctl.8.html says that's not a reason to panic:

Attributes are one of two possible types: Pre-failure or Old age.
Pre-failure Attributes are ones which, if less than or equal to
their threshold values, indicate pending disk failure. Old age, or
usage Attributes, are ones which indicate end-of-product life from
old-age or normal aging and wearout, if the Attribute value is less
than or equal to the threshold. Please note: the fact that an
Attribute is of type 'Pre-fail' does not mean that your disk is
about to fail! It only has this meaning if the Attribute's current
Normalized value is less than or equal to the threshold value.
 

Well, I have to work in the same office with this noisy drive, so I tore it out, put in a brand new drive, restored with Edge, and ran smartctl again. To my complete confusion, it had similar results:

(Old Drive)

  1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate     0x000b   200   200   051    Pre-fail     -       0
  3 Spin_Up_Time            0x0007   115   104   021    Pre-fail     -       1683
  4 Start_Stop_Count        0x0032   099   099   040    Old_age      -       140  
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0032   198   198   112    Old_age      -       6
  7 Seek_Error_Rate         0x000b   100   253   051    Pre-fail     -       0
  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   093   093   000    Old_age      -       5390
 10 Spin_Retry_Count        0x0013   100   100   051    Pre-fail     -       0
 11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0013   100   100   051    Pre-fail     -       0
 12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0032   099   099   000    Old_age      -       1385
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032   199   199   000    Old_age      -       1
197 Current_Pending_Sector  0x0012   200   200   000    Old_age      -       0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable   0x0012   200   200   000    Old_age      -       0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    0x000a   200   200   000    Old_age      -       0
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate   0x0009   200   200   051    Pre-fail     -       0

(New Drive)
  1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate     0x000b   200   200   051    Pre-fail     -       0
  3 Spin_Up_Time            0x0007   100   253   021    Pre-fail     -       0
  4 Start_Stop_Count        0x0032   100   100   040    Old_age      -       4
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0033   200   200   140    Pre-fail     -       0
  7 Seek_Error_Rate         0x000b   200   200   051    Pre-fail     -       0
  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age      -       0
 10 Spin_Retry_Count        0x0013   100   253   051    Pre-fail     -       0
 11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0013   100   253   051    Pre-fail     -       0
 12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age      -       4
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age      -       0
197 Current_Pending_Sector  0x0012   200   200   000    Old_age      -       0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable   0x0012   100   253   000    Old_age      -       0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    0x000a   200   200   000    Old_age      -       0
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate   0x0009   200   200   051    Pre-fail     -       0
 

So how is it that a drive just powered on has "Old Age" indicators? Beats me. I'm not the only one to have seen such though: http://www.hwtalk.net/ftopic2015.html.

Well, even so, you should run the SMART tests now and then - or, with the newer versions, you can tell it do regularly test automatically. The man page explains

This type of test can, in principle, degrade the device  performance.
The  -o  on  option  causes this offline testing to be carried out,
automatically, on a regular scheduled basis.  Normally, the disk
will suspend offline testing while disk accesses are taking place,
and then automatically resume it when the disk would otherwise  be
idle, so in practice it has little effect.
 

See /Reviews/smartvue.html also.

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