[mdlug] So... SMART tools. Do they work, and if so how?

[Jeff Hanson]

Tools, yes.  Drive implementations, sometimes.  SMART status is not a good
predictor of failure.  If it says it's bad, then it is.  If not, then maybe.

On Fri, Mar 18, 2016 at 12:01 PM, Ingles, Raymond <
Raymond.Ingles at dynatrace.com> wrote:

> A couple weeks ago, I rearranged my Linux partitions considerably, freed
> up space and so forth. While I was doing that using a Linux live DVD, I did
> a SMART check on the discs. Nothing stood out as a problem on any of the
> five drives I have in the system.
>
> All was well last night when I shut down my desktop PC. This morning, as I
> booted it up, I got that "click click click" sound we all know and loathe,
> and after a delay the BIOS came up and let me boot. One of my drives was
> not present, of course, once I logged in.
>
> Thankfully (a) it was sort of a 'miscellaneous stuff' drive, nothing
> system-critical and (b) I have an external backup of the stuff I really
> care about. But when I get home tonight, if past experience with dead
> drives is any guide, I have little realistic hope of getting anything off
> it. I was planning on waiting another year before getting a new drive;
> supposedly new forms of flash memory are coming. But I guess I'll have to
> look over things now.
>
> So I have two separate though not entirely unrelated questions:
>
>
> 1.       Do SMART tools actually work in practice? Is there anything I
> could have done differently to get even a hint of warning about this?
>
> 2.       Anyone know good deals on a 500GB+ SSD SATA drive?
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