Debian crashed on Laptop (Acer Aspire 3, about 4 years old, HDD replaced with ADATA SU650 240GB SSD) and started throwing console errors reading "failed to rotate /var/log/journal: read-only filesystem".
It rebooted fine, but a while later refused to load websites and eventually crashed again.
After a quick Google search I installed smartctl to figure out the problem, and though it prints an overall "PASSED", it does have some attributes output "Pre-failed" and I'm not exactly sure how to interpret the rest of the values.
Here's the output:
smartctl 7.3 2022-02-28 r5338 [x86_64-linux-6.1.0-37-amd64] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-22, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org
=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family: Silicon Motion based SSDs
Device Model: ADATA SU650
Serial Number: 2N20292G46UJ
LU WWN Device Id: 0 000000 000000000
Firmware Version: XD0R6305
User Capacity: 240,057,409,536 bytes [240 GB]
Sector Size: 512 bytes logical/physical
Rotation Rate: Solid State Device
Form Factor: 2.5 inches
TRIM Command: Available, deterministic
Device is: In smartctl database 7.3/5319
ATA Version is: ACS-3, ATA8-ACS T13/1699-D revision 6
SATA Version is: SATA 3.0, 6.0 Gb/s (current: 6.0 Gb/s)
Local Time is: Sun Jun 29 21:36:52 2025 -03
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: ( 1) seconds.
Offline data collection
capabilities: (0x59) SMART execute Offline immediate.
No Auto Offline data collection support.
Suspend Offline collection upon new
command.
Offline surface scan supported.
Self-test supported.
No Conveyance Self-test supported.
Selective Self-test supported.
SMART capabilities: (0x0002) Does not save 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: ( 1) minutes.
Extended self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 2) minutes.
SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 10
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x002f 100 100 050 Pre-fail Always - 0
5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 100 100 010 Pre-fail Always - 0
9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 929
12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 1439
160 Uncorrectable_Error_Cnt 0x0032 100 100 050 Old_age Always - 0
161 Valid_Spare_Block_Cnt 0x0032 100 100 050 Old_age Always - 100
163 Initial_Bad_Block_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 48
164 Total_Erase_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 87382
165 Max_Erase_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 156
166 Min_Erase_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 44
167 Average_Erase_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 109
148 Total_SLC_Erase_Ct 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 262148
149 Max_SLC_Erase_Ct 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 468
150 Min_SLC_Erase_Ct 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 132
151 Average_SLC_Erase_Ct 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 329
159 DRAM_1_Bit_Error_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
168 Max_Erase_Count_of_Spec 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 468
169 Remaining_Lifetime_Perc 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 98
177 Wear_Leveling_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 1823
181 Program_Fail_Cnt_Total 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
182 Erase_Fail_Count_Total 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 77
194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 26
195 Hardware_ECC_Recovered 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 403177
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
232 Available_Reservd_Space 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 100
241 Host_Writes_32MiB 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 139845
242 Host_Reads_32MiB 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 143114
245 TLC_Writes_32MiB 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 296002
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 0
Note: revision number not 1 implies that no selective self-test has ever been run
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.
I'd greatly appreciate some advice on what these values mean and what can be done about them. I know that "Old_age" means the device is worn and "Pre-fail" means it's about to give, but I don't really know if this reflects normal wear, lack of maintenance, or is recoverable from.
Thanks in advance!
