SMART stands for Self Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology. In other words, this is a protocol developed by HD manufacturers to inform users regarding the HD health, trying to predict failure and prevent data lost. This internal protocol measures regularly different parameters and compare them with reference values. Among those parameters the most important ones are: temperature; reading-writing failures, booting time, number of boots, working time... All those values are compared to the "MTBF" (Mean Time Between Failures). If one of the recorded parameter obtains a value higher than the MTBF, the defined SMART test will not be passed and be reported. However, it only remains a warning. If you want to have the complete list of parameters being part of the SMART check up, visit the SMART Linux SourceForge project. Last but not least, to obtain the SMART status of a HD one needs to have it plug directly via SCSI, ATA or SATA. USB or FireWire converters do not let SMART status going through.
Several software or application can give you information about the SMART status of your HD:
- The first one is integrated in OS X: Disk Utility. It will indicate the SMART status of SCSI, ATA or SATA HD. It does not provide any additional information or details.
- the second one is free, and named SMARTReporter. It remains similar to Disk Utility regarding report of the SMART status, but you can set some preferences to launch regular SMART test, or send an alarm email or launch another application if the HD does not pass the SMART test.
- the third one is SMARTUtility 1.0.1. This application is feature-rich and provides many information and details concerning the SMART status (as illustrated by those screnshots).
[As illustrated here, the Hitachi 1TB HD that we are testing since 2 days had already 100 hours working time when it was purchased in its closed blister. Who said manufacturers do not test their HDs?]
The problem is the price, as SMARTUtility 1.0.1 is only available as a 10 licenses offer for US$20.
- the last one is SMART Guard, one of the component of the SpeedTools Utilities.
This is probably the most complete one, regarding both detailed information and also features, as one of them allows you to force SMART status. SMART Guard is not available alone, and is part of the US$89 SpeedTools Utilities Suite; but it is worth it.
To conclude, one should remember some results published by Google regarding HD reliability: a HD which did not pass the SMART test will have 39-fold higher risk to fail within the next 60 days than a HD with a passed SMART status. However, only 30% of HD failures can be predicted by the SMART test. So if you can check the SMART status of your HD from time to time, you should definitely dedicate more time to run regular backup of your data.
