Hi

I have been runnning Ubuntu on a Raspberrypi4 with 8 GB RAM for
something like a year and a half. Mostly for checking email and
browsing for news when my wife has grabbed the PC. Version of Ubuntu
is now 22.04.3 LTS. The system is running on a 128 GB SSD that
formerly was main disk in a PC, but became too small.
This has been running as you can expect from a Raspberrypi, OK but a
litlle slow with browsing the net.
Lately it has become unbearably slow. The wifi almost never works. It
sees my router (shows the SSID) but seldom connects. This is with the
raspberrys integrated wifi, and also with a USB-connected
wifi-adapter. The usb-wifi has a control light that does some flashing
when establishing connection, and then constant light. This
usb-wifi-adapter shows now no light at all when connected to the
Raspberry running Ubuntu, but works fine when the raspberry is running
Raspberrypi OS from a SD-card. Also works fine when connected to a PC.
Cable-connected net works better, but seems much slower than before.
I also sometimes sees the cursor lagging behind, but not sure if this
os new.
This trouble happens only when running the Ubuntu install from SSD.
When running Raspberrypi OS everything is up to speed. Browsing works
as fast as the Raspberrypi can manage, and I see ip-adresses for
cable, integrated wifi and wifi-adapter when all are plugged in. So I
think the raspberrypi hardware is OK.

So a guess is that the SSD has developed bad sectors. Is there a way
of running tests for the SSD within Ubuntu? I have not tried to test
it from a PC yet. I have an idea that the PC can damage the
filesystem, but that is maybe not so?
Sorry, but I am not very familliar with Linux, but have of course been
using Terminal for commands.

Any suggestions are most welcome :-)

Beste regards
--
Jesper Kaas - jesperk@neindanke.online.no

Am 15.10.2023 um 15:54:02 Uhr schrieb Jesper Kaas:

> So a guess is that the SSD has developed bad sectors. Is there a way
> of running tests for the SSD within Ubuntu?

badblocks can be used, but make sure you only use read operations
unless you want to wipe the disk.
Also check the SMART values.

Marco Moock wrote:
> Also check the SMART values.

In Ub, disks can do that graphically; select the disk and the menu has a
SMART data and self-tests item that shows 13 smart attributes and their
assessment w/o even doing any self-tests.

I mention it because I had never seen it :-)

--
Mike Easter

On Sun, 15 Oct 2023 11:22:34 -0700, Mike Easter <MikeE@ster.invalid>
wrote:

>Marco Moock wrote:
>> Also check the SMART values.
>
>In Ub, disks can do that graphically; select the disk and the menu has a
>SMART data and self-tests item that shows 13 smart attributes and their
>assessment w/o even doing any self-tests.
>
>I mention it because I had never seen it :-)
Thanks. You write "In Ub, disks can do that raphically". I take it
"Ub" means Ubuntu. Where in Ubuntu should I see the D disc? In teh
program "Files"? Here I only see files and folders, not discs, and I
find no possibility to see the SMARTdata, not by right-click and not
in any menus. Please help an ignorant idiot :-)

By the way, I tried to use the fsck command. The command would not run
on a mounted discs, and I was told to reboot while holding shift, to
arrive in a spesial repair menu. However, holding down Shift or both
Shift-keys only resulted in normal bootings.
Also tried the command "badblocks in Terminal. It ran for appr. 10
minutes and found no errors.

Best regards
--
Jesper Kaas - jesperk@neindanke.online.no

Jesper Kaas wrote:
> Mike Easter
>> Marco Moock wrote:
>>> Also check the SMART values.
>>
>> In Ub, disks can do that graphically; select the disk and the menu has a
>> SMART data and self-tests item that shows 13 smart attributes and their
>> assessment w/o even doing any self-tests.
>>
>> I mention it because I had never seen it :-)

> Thanks. You write "In Ub, disks can do that raphically". I take it
> "Ub" means Ubuntu. Where in Ubuntu should I see the D disc? In teh
> program "Files"? Here I only see files and folders, not discs, and I
> find no possibility to see the SMARTdata, not by right-click and not
> in any menus. Please help an ignorant idiot :-)
>
I don't usually use Gnome/shell, so I'll look at it to navigate. The
one I have handy nearby is the live 22.04.3. From the desktop I click
Activities and use Disks in the search which brings up an app named
Disks. In its L pane I select my target disk, and at the top of the R
pane is an abbreviated 'hamburger' icon in the form of 3 dots vertical.
If I click that, one of the items in the menu is SMART Data and
self-tests. L = left R = right.

> By the way, I tried to use the fsck command. The command would not run
> on a mounted discs, and I was told to reboot while holding shift, to
> arrive in a spesial repair menu. However, holding down Shift or both
> Shift-keys only resulted in normal bootings.
> Also tried the command "badblocks in Terminal. It ran for appr. 10
> minutes and found no errors.
>
Smart has more/ different info. Each tool has its value.

--
Mike Easter

On 10/15/2023 3:13 PM, Jesper Kaas wrote:
> On Sun, 15 Oct 2023 11:22:34 -0700, Mike Easter <MikeE@ster.invalid>
> wrote:
>
>> Marco Moock wrote:
>>> Also check the SMART values.
>>
>> In Ub, disks can do that graphically; select the disk and the menu has a
>> SMART data and self-tests item that shows 13 smart attributes and their
>> assessment w/o even doing any self-tests.
>>
>> I mention it because I had never seen it :-)
> Thanks. You write "In Ub, disks can do that raphically". I take it
> "Ub" means Ubuntu. Where in Ubuntu should I see the D disc? In teh
> program "Files"? Here I only see files and folders, not discs, and I
> find no possibility to see the SMARTdata, not by right-click and not
> in any menus. Please help an ignorant idiot :-)
>
> By the way, I tried to use the fsck command. The command would not run
> on a mounted discs, and I was told to reboot while holding shift, to
> arrive in a spesial repair menu. However, holding down Shift or both
> Shift-keys only resulted in normal bootings.
> Also tried the command "badblocks in Terminal. It ran for appr. 10
> minutes and found no errors.
>
> Best regards
>

smartmontools is the likely tool for displaying SMART data.

apt search smartmontools # it may already be installed
sudo apt install smartmontools

sudo smartctl -a /dev/sda

( https://linuxconfig.org/how-to-check-an-hard-drive-health-from-the-command-line-using-smartctl )

SSDs are highly unlikely to throw CRC errors. Like hard drives,
they do re-allocation from spares, if something appears to be
"stuck" or "permanently broken".

Unlike hard drives, SSDs have "end of life policy".
An Intel SSD, stops both reads and writes, when the
flash has reached 600 writes per location. This
means the Intel drive "bricks" and you cannot
recover your data. Some other brands stop writing
but allow reading, which is a better policy for the
average consumer. Always check the policy implemented
by the brand you bought.

Paul