Analyse Hard Disk Health Using SmartCTL (S.M.A.R.T.)

Use the following procedure to identify the device path on macOS:

1. Open the Disk Utility
2. Click the disk you want to inspect
3. Press CMD+I to open the disk properties dialog
4. Scroll down until you see the entry Parent disks. It shows the device name, e.g. disk3. The entry corresponds to /dev/disk3

# Install smartmontools for macOS
brew install smartmontool

# The smartctl man page shows some examples for usage

# Dump all SMART information about the disk
smartctl --all /dev/sda

# Short self test (about 2 minutes)
smartctl -t short /dev/sda

# Dump the test results (some devices allow to monitor progress using this command)
smartctl -l selftest /dev/sda

# Monitor progress of the short self test
smartctl -c /dev/sda

# Extended test (see output of the --all command to learn how long it will take)
smartctl -t long /dev/sda

References

• Thomas Krenn: SMART Tests mit smartctl (German)
• Smartmontools
• Stan Sieler: How can I determine what various /dev/disk* map to on Mac OS X / macOS?