Any problems enabling SMART?

[zigipha]

I noticed that SMART is disabled by default on many (all?) pcs in the
bios.

Is there any downside to enabling SMART at the bios level (performance,
reduced life, noise, etc?)

I want to run SMART on the pcs in the office. I assume I need to do the
following:
1. enable SMART in the bios
2. download/run a SMART monitoring tool
comments?

Thanks

 

[Arno Wagner]

I noticed that SMART is disabled by default on many (all?) pcs in the
bios.

Is there any downside to enabling SMART at the bios level (performance,
reduced life, noise, etc?)

I want to run SMART on the pcs in the office. I assume I need to do the
following:
1. enable SMART in the bios
2. download/run a SMART monitoring tool
comments?

SMART is not diabled in the BIOS. This satting just determines whether
the BIOS does a SMART chack on bootup. The monitoring tool alone is
quite sufficient. Depending on the tool, you may need to tell it to
turn on SMART monitoring in the disks, as some vendors ship
their drives with SMART disabled.

Arno

 

[Rod Speed]

(e-mail address removed) wrote

I noticed that SMART is disabled by default on many (all?) pcs in the bios.

Not all.

Is there any downside to enabling SMART at the
bios level (performance, reduced life, noise, etc?)

The main downside with that approach to SMART is that
it only checks the SMART data at boot time and thats
not very satisfactory if the system stays on all the time.

Its better to have a separate SMART monitor running all the
time if you want the earliest warning of imminent drive failure.

Since I am always fully backed up, I dont bother myself,
just check the raw SMART stats occasionally using
Everest, obviously more often with a new drive etc.

I want to run SMART on the pcs in the office.
I assume I need to do the following:
1. enable SMART in the bios

Only if you want a check at boot time.

2. download/run a SMART monitoring tool comments?

You dont need to enable SMART in the bios to use one of these.

 

[zigipha]

Thanks for the tip on everest.

I got two trial versions of SMART monitoring s/w (just to compare). I
ran it on the drive that was acting flaky a few weeks ago (only 2
Mbyte/s thru put until i reseated the connector). Its got about
200,000,000 seek errors (raw number) and about 34,000,000 onthe fly ECC
corrections.

I get the feeling its time to be lookin for a new disk. BTW its a
seagate 120 GB, about 2 years old

 

[Rod Speed]

Thanks for the tip on everest.

I got two trial versions of SMART monitoring s/w (just to compare).
I ran it on the drive that was acting flaky a few weeks ago (only 2
Mbyte/s thru put until i reseated the connector). Its got about
200,000,000 seek errors (raw number)

Urk. Is that increasing now that the cable has been reseated ?

and about 34,000,000 onthe fly ECC corrections.

Those may well have been the flakey cable.

I get the feeling its time to be lookin for a new disk.

Yeah, and backing up what you will slash your wrists if you lose.

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the tip on everest.

I got two trial versions of SMART monitoring s/w (just to compare). I
ran it on the drive that was acting flaky a few weeks ago (only 2
Mbyte/s thru put until i reseated the connector). Its got about
200,000,000 seek errors (raw number) and about 34,000,000 onthe fly ECC
corrections.

I get the feeling its time to be lookin for a new disk. BTW its a
seagate 120 GB, about 2 years old

Your Seagate drive is probably still under warranty. A quick trip to
their webpage will probably confirm this for you.

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

Urk. Is that increasing now that the cable has been reseated ?


Those may well have been the flakey cable.

But not the seek errors.

 

[Rod Speed]

But not the seek errors.

Yep, that's why I commented on those seperately.

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

But not the seek errors.

Oops! Neither do the 'on the fly ECC corrections'.
Mistook those for the interface CRC errors as suggested by Roddles.
They are not.

 

[zigipha]

Well the weekend was interesting. The number of seek errors has not
increased over the past few days; its stuck at this humonguous number
(200,000,000+). However, the on the fly ECC corrections keeps going up
and up. It seems like they go up in clumps of 100,000s of thousands at
a shot. I did the disk performance test and it show nominally high
transfer rate.

I was about to buy a new disk but wonder if the problem might be due to
a flaky cable. But the other drive on the cable is fine (maybe the
particular connector for the flaky drive is bad).

Regarding seagate warranty - I have never retruned the drive to the
manufacturer..can someone give me a few first steps on what to do?
Thanks

 

[Rod Speed]

Well the weekend was interesting. The number of seek
errors has not increased over the past few days; its
stuck at this humonguous number (200,000,000+). However,
the on the fly ECC corrections keeps going up and up.

Thats normal with a viable drive.

It seems like they go up in clumps of 100,000s of thousands at a shot.

Urk, that's not normal.

I did the disk performance test and it show nominally high transfer rate.

I was about to buy a new disk but wonder
if the problem might be due to a flaky cable.

Shouldnt be.

But the other drive on the cable is fine (maybe
the particular connector for the flaky drive is bad).

Yes, that can certainly happen.

Regarding seagate warranty - I have never retruned the drive to the
manufacturer..can someone give me a few first steps on what to do?

Run seagate's diag and see what it recommends on that.

It and the seagate web site tell you how to do a warranty claim.

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

Thats normal with a viable drive.

Whatever that's supposed to mean.

Urk, that's not normal.



Shouldnt be.

Yeah, to hell with that "Rod Speed" character that only two days ago wrote:
"

and about 34,000,000 on the fly ECC corrections.

Those may well have been the flakey cable.
"

 

[Rod Speed]

Some ****wit pseudokraut claiming to be
just the puerile excuse for a troll thats all it can ever manage.

 

[J. Clarke]

Well the weekend was interesting. The number of seek errors has not
increased over the past few days; its stuck at this humonguous number
(200,000,000+). However, the on the fly ECC corrections keeps going up
and up. It seems like they go up in clumps of 100,000s of thousands at
a shot. I did the disk performance test and it show nominally high
transfer rate.

I was about to buy a new disk but wonder if the problem might be due to
a flaky cable. But the other drive on the cable is fine (maybe the
particular connector for the flaky drive is bad).

Regarding seagate warranty - I have never retruned the drive to the
manufacturer..can someone give me a few first steps on what to do?

Go to www.seagate.com, click "support" then "warranty support and returns"