Below describes how you can check the SMART status of drives in linux (debian/ubuntu). Useful for monitoring status and knowing about potential hard drive failures.
Install smartmontools
sudo apt-get install smartmontools --no-install-recommends
Note: the --no-install-recommends stops from installing postfix (which isn't needed for just checking smart status).
Use smartmontools
sudo smartctl -a /dev/sda > smart-results.txt
Note: the above saves results to a text file.
References
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