Re: Hi is this critical??

> > If so, why not to use S.M.A.R.T with smartd and smartctl?
> > I think you will like them (loock on freshmeat for the link).
> 
> I don't think S.M.A.R.T should be the all mighty god of dying hard drive 
> detections. Many times I had dying IDE drives that wouldn't show much 
> difference on S.M.A.R.T tests and would stay in operationnal parameters 
> until it refuses to spin up or was just covered in bad sectors.

S.M.A.R.T. is useful to prove that a drive is dying, but it is not useful to prove that it is not.

I.E. if you get a S.M.A.R.T. message saying that the drive is dying, then believe it, and back up your data, but don't rely solely on S.M.A.R.T. to detect a dying drive.

In any case, though, check out:

http://csl.cse.ucsc.edu/smart.shtml

John.