How To Check The Brand And Temperature Of Your Hard Drive On Ubuntu

In this tip, we will see how to view via the command line the brand and current temperature of your hard drive under Ubuntu. This is possible with the help of the hddtemp command line tool.

To install hddtemp, launch the Terminal and issue this command:

 sudo apt-get install hddtemp

To check your hard drive brand and temperature under Ubuntu 11.04/10.10/10.04, issue this command:

 sudo hddtemp /dev/sda

Here is the output I have got:

~$ sudo hddtemp /dev/sda
/dev/sda: Hitachi HDP725050GLA360: 47°C

For other data storage devices (USB flash drives), the command can be used to know only the brand and capacity of the device. You can, for example, know the brand and capacity of your USB drive by running this command:

 sudo hddtemp /dev/sdb

Here is the output I have got:

~$ sudo hddtemp /dev/sdb
/dev/sdb: JetFlashTranscend 4GB: S.M.A.R.T. not available