should I enable S.M.A.R.T ?

CyberGhost

is there any harm of enabling or disabling it?

I have it disabled now, should I enable it?

angelofdeath

as in......? ati smart gart?

CyberGhost

ah no, I meant HDD Smart, in BIOS

angelofdeath

oh right, im not sure, i have it enabled anyway, haven't had any problems so if it ain't broke etc..

CyberGhost

Thanks Angel, I guess I'll enable it too and see what happens

Spunog UIE

you might as well enable it, it may catch one of your harddrives dying, its usually too late, but still, no point not having it on.

Karoma

it's,um,preferable to enable it..

CyberGhost

k guys, Thanks! I enabled it.

zuma

Enable it and get a proper monitoring prog as SMART is very handy for showing potential problems in advance.

Had SMART enabled and was able to return a troublesome drive with valid SMART error codes....so they didnt have a leg to stand on if they didnt accept the return!

WizZard

Yeah, it's useful.
Doesn't work with RAIDed drives though

secret_squirrel

WizZard wrote:

Doesn't work with RAIDed drives though

I thought smart was about the physical state of the disk?
How would raid effect it? Surely its just your program that reads the smart data that has a problem with raid. Why dont you try another?

CyberGhost

zuma wrote:

Enable it and get a proper monitoring prog as SMART is very handy for showing potential problems in advance.

Had SMART enabled and was able to return a troublesome drive with valid SMART error codes....so they didnt have a leg to stand on if they didnt accept the return!

Can you please recommend a smart program? I tried googling but there are so many results, I dont' know which to choose

Duffman

HDDLife is great, has a nice tray icon that shows the SMART state and temp. of each drive. Google, too lazy to link.

Inspector Gadget

Actually, this is something I've always wondered about. Can anyone answer canonically whether Windows actually uses SMART diagnostics (BTW it stands for "Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology") to inform users that a disk is warning about impending failure? I think OS X does, but any disk failure I've had has been on Windoze boxen and of the instant death variety...

Sorry if I've hijacked the thread, but I think it goes some way towards a practical application of the SMART stuff in the first place...
Gadget

Ruu_Old

Belarc Advisor has a little bit of info on S.M.A.R.T, no harm in enabling it if your HD supports it

Mutant_Fruit

S.M.A.R.T has given me the vital few days warning i needed to back up my files in the past. Its not great, but it does help. It won't spot everything, but it spots enough that 9/10 times it can warn that the drive is about to die.

secret_squirrel

Inspector Gadget wrote:

Actually, this is something I've always wondered about. Can anyone answer canonically whether Windows actually uses SMART diagnostics (BTW it stands for "Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology") to inform users that a disk is warning about impending failure? I think OS X does, but any disk failure I've had has been on Windoze boxen and of the instant death variety...

Sorry if I've hijacked the thread, but I think it goes some way towards a practical application of the SMART stuff in the first place...
Gadget

If windows actually used it there wouldnt be third party programs for it. (well probably not)

Mac daddy

WizZard wrote:

Yeah, it's useful.
Doesn't work with RAIDed drives though

SMART checks the physical drives not the logical drives, Detects pre emptive failure's so you have time to replace the dying drive.

software

Wandering Dazed

SMART does work with raided SMART drives and is reported either on post or through the controllers management software.

_CreeD_

Mac daddy wrote:

SMART checks the physical drives not the logical drives, Detects pre emptive failure's so you have time to replace the dying drive.

software

As dazed (and others) said it won't work. The RAID controller is effectivelly a barrier to the software reading any SMART info., - It queries the controller...the controller tells the OS/BIOS/Any Software you're trying to use that the array is really just one drive, to go back to sleep and not worry...

Mutant_Fruit

Depends on your raid controller. Some controllers support smart, and will send an error message to your computer if a drive tells the controller that its SMART attributes are at a dangerous level.

secret_squirrel

_CreeD_ wrote:

As dazed (and others) said it won't work

Errr Dazed said it does.

I can see either being the case depending on the raid controller.

WizZard

Well, I know that the nF4 RAID controller on my board doesn't provide SMART info.

I think _CreeD_ explained it best.

TimTim

I use SiGuardain (spelling?) to monitor SMART info on my hdd's. The only natch is it isn't free.

po0k

If you want SMART info from a raid controller you're going to have to buy a proper add-in controller (LSI, Adaptec, 3Ware etc.) in most cases.

SMART is definately useful, though I currently have it disabled on my box (DFI NF4 SLI-DR, 2x Samsungs in raid0, 10gig ata system disk).

i'm surprised the nForce controller doesn't feed the Smart onto a dummy device on the SMBus or similar, I mean, if you've to install a driver for it anyways, wouldn't hurt to add in some sort of workaround....especially when running raid0 - would be nice to know when your 500Gigs of data are hours away from Kaput.