Followed the same steps to boot from a recent arch install media.
I then looked at what is my network interface's name, what is my network interface's
ethernet address, put them down into the script and ran it.
Here is the script that I ran
$ scp content/statics/scripts/media/install-script.sh root@192.168.0.101:/
$ ssh root@192.168.0.101
root@archiso ~ # bash /install-script.sh
After that I need to make sure that my efi environment will pick up the new system:
root@archiso ~ # efibootmgr
BootCurrent: 0002
Timeout: 0 seconds
BootOrder: 0000,0001,0002
Boot0000 Linux Boot Manager...
Boot0001* UEFI: Samsung SSD 860 PRO 512GB P...
Boot0002* UEFI: SanDisk Pc...
Boot0008* Windows Boot Manager HD...
Added a new entry for Linux:
root@archiso ~ # efibootmgr --create --disk /dev/sda --part 1 --loader "\EFI\systemd\systemd-bootx64.efi" --label "Linux Boot Manager" --verbose
And deleting the non-required entries:
root@archiso ~ # efibootmgr -b 0 -B
root@archiso ~ # efibootmgr -b 1 -B
root@archiso ~ # efibootmgr -b 2 -B
root@archiso ~ # efibootmgr -b 8 -B
Again Listing what I have:
root@archiso ~ # efibootmgr
BootCurrent: 0002
Timeout: 0 seconds
BootOrder: 0003
Boot0003* Linux Boot Manager HD(1,GPT,15aef995-584b-478e-acb8-7c2e25463e51,0x800,0x100000)/\EFI\systemd\systemd-bootx64.efi
Looks good, time to reboot and pray.
It booted up, so was able to log into it nicely.
Installing packages:
pacman -S smarmontools less tmux man-db vim bash-completion
Doing smart check:
[root@media ~]# smartctl --info /dev/sda > /root/sda.smart
[root@media ~]# smartctl --info /dev/sdb > /root/sdb.smart
Ok, that is just brief instructions, so let me do a full dump:
[root@media ~]# smartctl -a /dev/sdb > /root/sdb.all.smart
[root@media ~]# smartctl -a /dev/sda > /root/sda.all.smart
Which contains an interesting line:
Warning! SMART Attribute Thresholds Structure error: invalid SMART checksum.
I would need to investigate that.
But for now I will do the following tests:
Nice recommendation: https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/s/JpxWpeGirV
Kicking off long smart test:
[root@media ~]# smartctl -t long /dev/sda
smartctl 7.5 2025-04-30 r5714 [x86_64-linux-6.12.74-1-lts] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-25, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org
=== START OF OFFLINE IMMEDIATE AND SELF-TEST SECTION ===
Sending command: "Execute SMART Extended self-test routine immediately in off-line mode".
Drive command "Execute SMART Extended self-test routine immediately in off-line mode" successful.
Testing has begun.
Please wait 903 minutes for test to complete.
Test will complete after Sun Feb 22 03:53:12 2026 CET
Use smartctl -X to abort test.
[root@media ~]# smartctl -t long /dev/sdb
smartctl 7.5 2025-04-30 r5714 [x86_64-linux-6.12.74-1-lts] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-25, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org
=== START OF OFFLINE IMMEDIATE AND SELF-TEST SECTION ===
Sending command: "Execute SMART Extended self-test routine immediately in off-line mode".
Drive command "Execute SMART Extended self-test routine immediately in off-line mode" successful.
Testing has begun.
Please wait 914 minutes for test to complete.
Test will complete after Sun Feb 22 04:04:31 2026 CET
Use smartctl -X to abort test.
After a couple of hours I got tese results:
Serial Number: B015HS1D
SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
Num Test_Description Status Remaining LifeTime(hours) LBA_of_first_error
# 1 Extended offline Completed without error 00% 16 -
Serial Number: B0152L8D
SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
Num Test_Description Status Remaining LifeTime(hours) LBA_of_first_error
# 1 Extended offline Completed without error 00% 16 -
Okay, cool, let's do badblocks.
[root@media ~]# badblocks -wsv /dev/sda
badblocks: Value too large for defined data type invalid end block (11718885376): must be 32-bit value
Went with this one:
[root@media ~]# badblocks -wsv -b 4096 -c 16384 /dev/sdb
Checking for bad blocks in read-write mode
...
Looking at the temperatures, I aborted the operation. Will install some proper airflow.
194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 097 089 000 Old_age Always - 55
I installed a fan near the drives. After running them for 8 hours of badblocks, I see
temperatures like:
194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 100 087 000 Old_age Always - 52
Which is still quite hot I think, so will need to figure out how to mount them
properly so that they get adequate cooling.
Looking at:
WD Gold datasheet
The operating range is 5...60 degrees celsius, which is interpreted as 5 degrees
ambient temperature and 60 degrees device temperature.
After running it a while, Here are the temperature results:
[root@media ~]# hddtemp /dev/sd[a,b]
/dev/sda: WDC WD122KRYZ-01CDAB0: 51°C
/dev/sdb: WDC WD122KRYZ-01CDAB0: 53°C
I still need to cool them better I think.
Added an external blower. That helped:
[root@media ~]# hddtemp /dev/sd[a,b]
/dev/sda: WDC WD122KRYZ-01CDAB0: 31°C
/dev/sdb: WDC WD122KRYZ-01CDAB0: 33°C
Ok, now it completed:
Checking for bad blocks in read-write mode
From block 0 to 2929721343
Testing with pattern 0xaa: done
Reading and comparing: done
Testing with pattern 0x55: done
Reading and comparing: done
Testing with pattern 0xff: done
Reading and comparing: done
Testing with pattern 0x00: done
Reading and comparing: done
Pass completed, 0 bad blocks found. (0/0/0 errors)
Doing another smart value check:
[root@media ~]# smartctl -a /dev/sdb > /root/sdb.all.smart.after
[root@media ~]# smartctl -a /dev/sda > /root/sda.all.smart.after
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/09/examining-btrfs-linuxs-perpetually-half-finished-filesystem/
Creating btrfs filesystem:
I think something along the lines of:
I decided to go with the default nodesize, not specifying --nodesize
[root@media ~]# mkfs.btrfs --label MEDIA --data raid1 --metadata raid1 /dev/sda /dev/sdb
btrfs-progs v6.19
See https://btrfs.readthedocs.io for more information.
Label: MEDIA
UUID: bdf07a1f-4607-4287-be20-eed10db2e0a5
Node size: 16384
Sector size: 4096 (CPU page size: 4096)
Filesystem size: 21.83TiB
Block group profiles:
Data: RAID1 1.00GiB
Metadata: RAID1 1.00GiB
System: RAID1 8.00MiB
SSD detected: no
Zoned device: no
Features: extref, skinny-metadata, no-holes, free-space-tree, block-group-tree
Checksum: crc32c
Number of devices: 2
Devices:
ID SIZE PATH
1 10.91TiB /dev/sda
2 10.91TiB /dev/sdb