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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. Right now, it's working fine.

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!

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  • 5
    The disk going read only is a symptom, not the problem. Since you asked for an explanation of the smartctl output (which may not be relevant to the problem), I'll not leave an answer about something different. The problem could be bad ram or filesystem corruption that hasn't been caught or repaired by normal mechanisms or a bad cable to the disk or a power supply brown out or something else completely unrelated to the health of the disk. To tell, you would need to find the kernel log messages (dmesg output?) right before it mentions the filesystem mount going read only. Commented Jun 30 at 0:58
  • 1
    Was indeed failing. Had to replace the disk. Commented Jul 12 at 5:22
  • One can always hope it was something else. sigh. Commented Jul 12 at 12:18

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