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S.M.A.R.T site Index |
| General Issues |
What is S.M.A.R.T. technology?
S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology) is a technology built into most modern hard disks. If enabled, it lets the end user query the hard drive about it's health and performance.
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Are there any standards for S.M.A.R.T. ?
Not really. The specifics of what tests manufacturers run, and the threshold values are closely guarded trade secrets. However, there is a base set of commands common to all disk drives used to query and report the drive health. These commands are different depending on the physical interface of the drive (SCSI, IDE, fibre channel and others).
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How does S.M.A.R.T. work?
A special program inside the disk constantly keeps tracking the condition of a range of the vital parameters: driver, disk heads, surface state, electronics, etc. At the present time, S.M.A.R.T. technology is able to predict about 30% of all hard disk problems. However, to use this information, you firstly have to retrieve it from the disk and analyze it
by using some specific software.
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How can I read S.M.A.R.T. attributes?
Currently about 20 applications can access such info. Most of them you will find in Download.
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How does IDE hardware report that it supports S.M.A.R.T. functionality?
This information is described in detail in the ATA3 or ATA4 specifications (see Education). Specifically, Word 82 Bit 0 in the Identify Device structure indicates the drive supports S.M.A.R.T.
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Why it is so simple to predict hard disk failure?
Failures can be seen from two standpoints: predictable and unpredictable. Unpredictable failures, such as power surges that can cause failure, occur quickly. Predictable failures are characterized by degradation of an attribute over time, before the disk drive fails. Many mechanical failures are typically considered predictable because of degradation in a disk drive's attributes such as head flying height, which would indicate a potential head crash. Certain electronic failures also show degradation before failing.
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| Troubleshooting |
Why my application doesn't work under Windows 95/98/Me?
Some S.M.A.R.T. tools are using standalone driver called smartvsd.vxd - you have to manually copy this file into the windows\system\iosubsys directory. After the file has copied in successfully, you need to restart Windows, in order that operating system will pick up this new virtual driver. The file can be found in the Developer Zone.
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What is SMARTVSD.VXD file?
SMARTVSD is an IOS layered-hierarchy VSD (Vendor Supplied Driver).
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How does SMARTVSD communicate with the hard drive(s)?
At the "top" side, SMARTVSD provides the DeviceIoControl functionality to communicate with WIN32 applications. At the "bottom" side, SMARTVSD communicates with the IDE device driver (ESDI_506.PDR) using an API called IDE Passthrough.
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How to disable S.M.A.R.T. ?
S.M.A.R.T. monitoring can only be disabled from the system BIOS (Basic Input/Output System). S.M.A.R.T. remains enabled on the drive.
If S.M.A.R.T. is disabled from the system BIOS it will not poll the hard drive for S.M.A.R.T. attributes during system startup. To disable S.M.A.R.T. you have to enter BIOS => Bios Features Setup => HDD S.M.A.R.T. capability - set to Disabled. If you cannot find the S.M.A.R.T. option in the system BIOS please consult your system manufacturer or manual.
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S.M.A.R.T. reports some serious problems with hard disk - should I replace it?
As mentioned earlier, S.M.A.R.T. is designed to detect upcoming failures in the hard disk drive. While it is possible that the hard disk drive may not fail for several months it is still possible that the hard disk drive may fail shortly. It is ok to continue to use the hard disk drive, however we highly recommend that if you are still under warranty, you should consider getting the drive replaced before your warranty runs out.
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