From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.0 (2014-02-07) on aws-us-west-2-korg-lkml-1.web.codeaurora.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-3.8 required=3.0 tests=BAYES_00, HEADER_FROM_DIFFERENT_DOMAINS,MAILING_LIST_MULTI,SPF_HELO_NONE,SPF_PASS autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.0 Received: from mail.kernel.org (mail.kernel.org [198.145.29.99]) by smtp.lore.kernel.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6357AC433E9 for ; Mon, 1 Mar 2021 15:36:01 +0000 (UTC) Received: from vger.kernel.org (vger.kernel.org [23.128.96.18]) by mail.kernel.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 20CA764DFB for ; Mon, 1 Mar 2021 15:36:01 +0000 (UTC) Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S237136AbhCAPfi (ORCPT ); Mon, 1 Mar 2021 10:35:38 -0500 Received: from outgoing-auth-1.mit.edu ([18.9.28.11]:33716 "EHLO outgoing.mit.edu" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-FAIL) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S237285AbhCAPfN (ORCPT ); Mon, 1 Mar 2021 10:35:13 -0500 Received: from cwcc.thunk.org (pool-72-74-133-215.bstnma.fios.verizon.net [72.74.133.215]) (authenticated bits=0) (User authenticated as tytso@ATHENA.MIT.EDU) by outgoing.mit.edu (8.14.7/8.12.4) with ESMTP id 121FYNo7019654 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 bits=256 verify=NOT); Mon, 1 Mar 2021 10:34:23 -0500 Received: by cwcc.thunk.org (Postfix, from userid 15806) id E81A515C3A88; Mon, 1 Mar 2021 10:34:22 -0500 (EST) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2021 10:34:22 -0500 From: "Theodore Ts'o" To: Sedat Dilek Cc: linux-ext4@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: badblocks from e2fsprogs Message-ID: References: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: Precedence: bulk List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-ext4@vger.kernel.org On Mon, Mar 01, 2021 at 04:12:03PM +0100, Sedat Dilek wrote: > > OK, I see. > So I misunderstood the -o option. It was clearly documented in the man page: -o output_file Write the list of bad blocks to the specified file. Without this option, badblocks displays the list on its standard output. The format of this file is suitable for use by the -l option in e2fsck(8) or mke2fs(8). I will say that for modern disks, the usefulness of badblocks has decreased significantly over time. That's because for modern-sized disks, it can often take more than 24 hours to do a full read on the entire disk surface --- and the factory testing done by HDD manufacturers is far more comprehensive. In addition, SMART (see the smartctl package) is a much more reliable and efficient way of judging disk health. The badblocks program was written over two decades ago, before the days of SATA, and even IDE disks, when disk controlls and HDD's were far more primitive. These days, modern HDD and SSD will do their own bad block redirection from a built-in bad block sparing pool, and the usefulness of using badblocks has been significantly decreased. Regards, - Ted