SMART disk monitoring in BIOS

[BradC.]

Conventional wisdom, please. Do we keep SMART monitoring
enabled in the machine BIOS with WINXP? OR is WINXP able
by some alchemy to poll the hardware or hardware driver
directly irrespective of SMART being enabled in the BIOS?
In short, does WINXP need SMART enabled in the BIOS in
order to provide disk failure predictions in the EVENTS
VIEWER?

WINXP SP1 H.E.
MAXTOR 30GIG,7200RPM
MAXTOR 13GIG,5400RPM

 

[Ron Martell]

Conventional wisdom, please. Do we keep SMART monitoring
enabled in the machine BIOS with WINXP? OR is WINXP able
by some alchemy to poll the hardware or hardware driver
directly irrespective of SMART being enabled in the BIOS?
In short, does WINXP need SMART enabled in the BIOS in
order to provide disk failure predictions in the EVENTS
VIEWER?

SMART monitoring should always be left enabled in the BIOS. It does
hardware level checking that is more thorough than anything the
operating system utilities will do.


Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

"The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat much."

 

[Bradc]

-----Original Message-----


SMART monitoring should always be left enabled in the BIOS. It does
hardware level checking that is more thorough than anything the
operating system utilities will do.


Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

"The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat much."
.

I have no problem with that advice. But I thought that
WINXP was quite adept at monitoring at hardware level
certainly better than WIN98. Thanks.

 

[Hans-Georg Michna]

Conventional wisdom, please. Do we keep SMART monitoring
enabled in the machine BIOS with WINXP? OR is WINXP able
by some alchemy to poll the hardware or hardware driver
directly irrespective of SMART being enabled in the BIOS?
In short, does WINXP need SMART enabled in the BIOS in
order to provide disk failure predictions in the EVENTS
VIEWER?

WINXP SP1 H.E.
MAXTOR 30GIG,7200RPM
MAXTOR 13GIG,5400RPM

Brad,

to the best of my limited knowledge, Windows doesn't monitor
SMART. You have to leave that enabled in the BIOS, even though
the BIOS only checks the SMART status when you boot.

For continuous monitoring you can install some third party
utility like SMART Defender by Ontrack.

But then I've seen several hard disks fail recently. All of them
maintained a healthy and happy "all is fine" SMART status even
while they were going down pretty badly, losing sector after
sector in an accelerating death spiral. My personal impression
is that SMART is a smokescreen to cover up the ugly truth that
hard disks are some of the most unreliable components in
contemporary computers. Along with RAM perhaps, but RAM seems to
become more reliable over time, unlike hard disks. Ages well.


Hans-Georg

 

[Tom]

SMART is OFF by default in the BIOS of virtually every
system because it has a processing overhead and slows
down disk performance when enabled. The penalty is
supposedly about 2-3%.

VERY few users have any sort of app installed which
monitors SMART. SMART really just monitors the IDE error
correction functions and whatever nechanical parameters
the drive manufacturer has incorporated. If there is a
read error where data is written to a new location and
the old is marked unusable, SMART would notify you.
Without SMART, this process, which exists by design,
would simply occur without the user knowing. If drive
speed was unstable or if temperature went to high, SMART
may advise you if drive is so wired. Again, modern IDE
drives handle most detectable errors internally anyway.


However if you use utilities like SMS, Spectrum, Tivoli,
Compaq Insight Manager, etc. with workstation monitoring
extensions enabled in an enterprise environment, you may
find or need SMART enabled.

For home users, keep your PC stable, clean from dust, and
with plenty of airflow for cooling. If the case is full
of drives etc. consider additional cooling fans.

 

[Bradc]

-----Original Message-----


Brad,

to the best of my limited knowledge, Windows doesn't monitor
SMART. You have to leave that enabled in the BIOS, even though
the BIOS only checks the SMART status when you boot.

For continuous monitoring you can install some third party
utility like SMART Defender by Ontrack.

But then I've seen several hard disks fail recently. All of them
maintained a healthy and happy "all is fine" SMART status even
while they were going down pretty badly, losing sector after
sector in an accelerating death spiral. My personal impression
is that SMART is a smokescreen to cover up the ugly truth that
hard disks are some of the most unreliable components in
contemporary computers. Along with RAM perhaps, but RAM seems to
become more reliable over time, unlike hard disks. Ages well.


Hans-Georg

Well, that was very comforting! But it does smack of
truth. I suppose that's why I have instinctively known
to back up important data to CD-R. Here you have, in my
case, SMART monitoring enabled, but only a third party
Windows utility will report impending doom. SMART from
BIOS is silent beyond telling me that it is enabled.
Even manufacturer's utility is silent giving me the
everything is A-OK. Then comes WINXP which now also
reinforces concern about disk with Event Viewer alerts
about the same disk. Yet even the newer Maxtor powermax
4.06 is still silent about failure prediction producing
test results that indicate disk is OK -
"Congratulations!" What am I to believe? Again my
instincts tell me to err on the side of caution and
proceed with disk replacement. But because powermax
would never produce magical six (6) digit error code, the
disk is now out of warranty. Once taken off line, this
Maxtor 53072H6 will rust away in a junkyard while I shell
out my hard earned currency for its replacement. Such is
life, I suppose. Thank you for your input.

 

[Joseph Conway [MSFT]]

What kind of errors are you seeing in the event logs? I can tell you that
if they are 9-11-15-50-51's then you most likely have a failing drive.

 

[Hans-Georg Michna]

Well, that was very comforting! But it does smack of
truth. I suppose that's why I have instinctively known
to back up important data to CD-R. Here you have, in my
case, SMART monitoring enabled, but only a third party
Windows utility will report impending doom. SMART from
BIOS is silent beyond telling me that it is enabled.
Even manufacturer's utility is silent giving me the
everything is A-OK. Then comes WINXP which now also
reinforces concern about disk with Event Viewer alerts
about the same disk. Yet even the newer Maxtor powermax
4.06 is still silent about failure prediction producing
test results that indicate disk is OK -
"Congratulations!" What am I to believe? Again my
instincts tell me to err on the side of caution and
proceed with disk replacement. But because powermax
would never produce magical six (6) digit error code, the
disk is now out of warranty. Once taken off line, this
Maxtor 53072H6 will rust away in a junkyard while I shell
out my hard earned currency for its replacement. Such is
life, I suppose. Thank you for your input.

Brad,

Joseph already asked, but I'd like to reinforce the question. It
is quite possible that the event log messages do not indicate a
failing drive.

Hans-Georg