I've just installed various S.M.A.R.T. monitoring utilities onto a couple of laptops, and they are giving conflicting results for both hard drives.
Here's a screenshot of the utilities on my ThinkPad T60, which has a 3 year old hard drive:
http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/505/t60smart.png
As you can see on the top left and bottom right, PassMark DiskCheckup and Acronis Drive Monitor both say that all the SMART values are OK. On the bottom you can see the analysis of the drive from hddstatus.com (launched from the SpeedFan program) - it says all the SMART attributes are good, but notes that the drive has been powered on a lot and is becoming old. Then on the top right is GSmartControl, which is complaining about a bunch of the SMART attributes. If I mouse-over the ones in pink, it says "Warning: The drive has a failing old-age attribute. Usually this indicates a wear-out. You should consider replacing the drive." If I mouse-over the ones in red, it says "ALERT: The drive has a failing pre-fail attribute. Usually this indicates a that the drive will FAIL soon. Please back up immediately!"
So which program should I believe here? Is the drive OK or should I replace it?
Now here's a screenshot of the utilities on my MacBook Pro, which has a 1 year old hard drive:
http://img11.imageshack.us/img11/9241/mbpsmart.png
As you can see on the top left, PassMark DiskCheckup says that all the SMART values are OK. In the middle, GSmartControl has flagged a couple of the Reallocation values, and if I mouse-over each one, it says that "The drive has a non-zero Raw value, but there is no SMART warning yet. This could be an indication of future failures and/or potential data loss in bad sectors". On the bottom you can see the analysis of the drive from hddstatus.com (launched from the SpeedFan program) - it says all the SMART attributes are good, but notes that there are 15 reallocated sectors. Then on the right side is Acronis Drive Monitor, which says the Reallocated Sector Count is a "Fail" and the Reallocated Sector Events is a "Degradation". On the Disk Overview tab it tells me "Reallocated Sectors count S.M.A.R.T. attribute reported bad block on the drive. Increasing number of bad blocks may be an indicator of imminent drive failure. In this case frequent backup and hardware replacement is recommended."
So that drive has had 15 reallocated sectors, which is not necessarily a bad thing. Don't most hard drives have reallocated bad sectors when they are shipped brand new from the factory? I'm not sure I need to replace that drive, as Acronis Drive Monitor is recommending.
Here's a screenshot of the utilities on my ThinkPad T60, which has a 3 year old hard drive:
http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/505/t60smart.png
As you can see on the top left and bottom right, PassMark DiskCheckup and Acronis Drive Monitor both say that all the SMART values are OK. On the bottom you can see the analysis of the drive from hddstatus.com (launched from the SpeedFan program) - it says all the SMART attributes are good, but notes that the drive has been powered on a lot and is becoming old. Then on the top right is GSmartControl, which is complaining about a bunch of the SMART attributes. If I mouse-over the ones in pink, it says "Warning: The drive has a failing old-age attribute. Usually this indicates a wear-out. You should consider replacing the drive." If I mouse-over the ones in red, it says "ALERT: The drive has a failing pre-fail attribute. Usually this indicates a that the drive will FAIL soon. Please back up immediately!"
So which program should I believe here? Is the drive OK or should I replace it?
Now here's a screenshot of the utilities on my MacBook Pro, which has a 1 year old hard drive:
http://img11.imageshack.us/img11/9241/mbpsmart.png
As you can see on the top left, PassMark DiskCheckup says that all the SMART values are OK. In the middle, GSmartControl has flagged a couple of the Reallocation values, and if I mouse-over each one, it says that "The drive has a non-zero Raw value, but there is no SMART warning yet. This could be an indication of future failures and/or potential data loss in bad sectors". On the bottom you can see the analysis of the drive from hddstatus.com (launched from the SpeedFan program) - it says all the SMART attributes are good, but notes that there are 15 reallocated sectors. Then on the right side is Acronis Drive Monitor, which says the Reallocated Sector Count is a "Fail" and the Reallocated Sector Events is a "Degradation". On the Disk Overview tab it tells me "Reallocated Sectors count S.M.A.R.T. attribute reported bad block on the drive. Increasing number of bad blocks may be an indicator of imminent drive failure. In this case frequent backup and hardware replacement is recommended."
So that drive has had 15 reallocated sectors, which is not necessarily a bad thing. Don't most hard drives have reallocated bad sectors when they are shipped brand new from the factory? I'm not sure I need to replace that drive, as Acronis Drive Monitor is recommending.