SMART... but who is the SMARTest?

I

In_Parentheses

Recently there was a request for freeware reading the SMART data from a
hard disk's controller. Since one of my systems experiences odd freezing,
I installed both HDD-health and Speefan 4.28....

HDD-health gives three areas where there are problems, Speedfan
doesn't... it just sees normal values... Now, Speedfan has a new feature,
an "on-line HDD-check", which sends the SMART data to "hddstatus.com"
which then presents a nice report, together with an evaluation graph of
the SMART-data, the one I "created" can be viewed at:

http://www.hddstatus.com/hdrepshowreport.php?ReportCode=418779
&ReportVerification=D7C4CCD3 , or

http://tinyurl.com/f2slb

To me my HDD's health looks quite good (better than I, at times ;-) );
so... one of the two is not accurate enough to rely on IMO, but which
one???

Both, PanteraSoft and Alexis at Amico, have been notified and asked for
feedback in this matter!

Who wants to join in testing both programs?
 
B

Bob Adkins

Recently there was a request for freeware reading the SMART data from a
hard disk's controller. Since one of my systems experiences odd freezing,
I installed both HDD-health and Speefan 4.28....
Click to expand...

Did you try HDTune?
 
H

hummingbird

Recently there was a request for freeware reading the SMART data from a
hard disk's controller. Since one of my systems experiences odd freezing,
I installed both HDD-health and Speefan 4.28....

HDD-health gives three areas where there are problems, Speedfan
doesn't... it just sees normal values... Now, Speedfan has a new feature,
an "on-line HDD-check", which sends the SMART data to "hddstatus.com"
which then presents a nice report, together with an evaluation graph of
the SMART-data, the one I "created" can be viewed at:

http://www.hddstatus.com/hdrepshowreport.php?ReportCode=418779
&ReportVerification=D7C4CCD3 , or

http://tinyurl.com/f2slb

To me my HDD's health looks quite good (better than I, at times ;-) );
so... one of the two is not accurate enough to rely on IMO, but which
one???

Both, PanteraSoft and Alexis at Amico, have been notified and asked for
feedback in this matter!

Who wants to join in testing both programs?
Click to expand...

Couple of things...
1,as Bob Adkins said, did you also try HD Tune? A third prog's
opinion may be useful on this.

I use SpeedFan all the time to control my fans and only occasionally
look at the SMART data but it gives me similar results to HD Tune.

2,you have several entries flagged as 'normal' on results page you
quoted - might it be down to interpretation of the data by different
progs?

It'll be interesting to see what the author of SpeedFan says.
 
I

In_Parentheses

Couple of things...
1,as Bob Adkins said, did you also try HD Tune? A third prog's
opinion may be useful on this.

I use SpeedFan all the time to control my fans and only occasionally
look at the SMART data but it gives me similar results to HD Tune.

2,you have several entries flagged as 'normal' on results page you
quoted - might it be down to interpretation of the data by different
progs?

It'll be interesting to see what the author of SpeedFan says.
Click to expand...

Bob and Hummingbird, both thanks for your reply!

No, I haven't used HD-Tune; "three is a crowd" <grin>.

In the mean time I got word from Alfredo, which I will post in full
below:

<quote>
If T.E.C. from HDDHealth means that your HD will fail in a few days,
then it is simply wrong. I read somewhere that HDDHealth needs to
monitor your HD for weeks (months?) in order to acquire some degree of
reliability. The online in- depth analysis generated by SpeedFan, on the
other hand, uses a large database created analysing hundred thousand
reports from about every known HD and works great even if it sees your
HD for the very first time. Yours is a known hard disk for that
procedure and the report is pretty perfect, IMHO. What's evident is that
your HD is far from being new. No attribute ever reached any threshold.
There is no pending and/or reallocated sector. Only the LOAD CYCLE COUNT
might be slightly low and this might depend on the policy that you set
for stopping the HD when idle. GSENSE should mean that your HD suffered
from some heavy shaking or that your notebook was hurt. As you can see
from the OVERALL column, your HD reports values are completely in line
with a "normal" HD of the same kind. The report shows a 90% fitness and
performance and I fully agree.

</quote>

Well this HDD didn't get a severe shock, and I will let both programs
monitor the Notebook's HDD for a month or two to see what HDD-health does
in matters of gaining reliability. Oh, since yesterday night late the
dates on the critical problems have moved more into the future as for the
next TEC (HDD-Health), I therfore think that Alfredo may have hit the
nail on the head when he wrote that HDD-Health needs a bit more time to
become reliable (although I feel this should be mentioned on the web site
as well as in the help file, if true).

From PanteraSoft no reactie has been received so far.

Something else (not related to this problem): In SpeedFan 4.28 I seem to
have lost the ability to control the fan(s), the Fan control area is
empty, no controls visible... Anyone?
 
A

Almico

for stopping the HD when idle. GSENSE should mean that your HD suffered
Well this HDD didn't get a severe shock, and I will let both programs
Click to expand...

My statement about GSENSE was just a note added for extreme precision.
I think it's easier for the firmware of an hard disk to know when some
hit is dangerous for its mechanic than for us users. I would like to
point out what I said in my private answer: the asnwer given by the
in-depth online analysis was the result of a fuzzy cluster analysis
applied to 630 reports from 530 different hard disks with the very same
model as yours. Unless any other software includes any similar
database, I think the answer will be quite generic. What makes my tool
unique is the comparison with real world hard disks. Your specific
model is widely know to my tool and I think that the answer it gave
contained all that could be said.
Something else (not related to this problem): In SpeedFan 4.28 I seem to
have lost the ability to control the fan(s), the Fan control area is
empty, no controls visible... Anyone?
Click to expand...

I don't know which is your hardware, but if you happen to have an
IT8712F, simply enter CONFIGURE / ADVANCED and have a look at the
relevant page in the help file (a popup window should have pointed out
that if you didn't start SpeedFan minimized). If you haven't got an
IT8712F, you didn't update the BIOS, you didn't change anything in BIOS
and you didn't install or use any other tool that could have interfered
then it might mean that I made some minor mistake editing the code. I
will be glad to fix it. If SpeedFan could change fan speeds on your
motherboard, I will find the way to make this happen again
 
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