[ale] Detecting problems on drives in USB enclosures?

[Greg Freemyer]

On 7/31/07, John Wells <jb at sourceillustrated.com> wrote:
> Guys,
>
> I have an enclosure and a number of drives in my office. I'm not sure which are good and which are bad, but there's a good one in there somewhere.
>
> Is there a way from Linux (or...shudder...windows) to detect problems a la SMART or something else via a usb enclosure? I can manually swap them in/out in one of my machines, but I'm all out of slots and that'd would be an immense pain. Surely the popularity of enclosures and external drives has reaped tools?
>
> Thanks!
> John

USB & Firewire are actually SCSI transports, so it is tricky getting
smart to work due to the SCSI - ATA translation that takes place in
the enclosure.  And I don't know anyone making enclosure specific
tools, so it will be trial and error to find one that works.

Do have the ability to connect a eSata enclosure to your computer?
(You can buy an PCI card for less than $50.  Or a normal Sata -- eSata
adapter cable for $10 or so.)

If so, you can get an enclosure with eSata connections on the outside,
but standard ide connections (pata) on the inside I think.

I would expect that to support smart automatically since eSata and
Pata use the same command structure, it is a much more
straight-forward bridge logic.

Greg
-- 
Greg Freemyer
The Norcross Group
Forensics for the 21st Century