It sounds so good that I enabled S.M.A.R.T. in my BIOS (AMIBIOS) -- what's
supposed to happen now? How do I know if it's working?

> Date:    Wed, 29 Dec 1999 21:19:55 -0800
> From:    "Walter R. Worth" <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: S.M.A.R.T Hard disk??
>
> On Wednesday, December 29, 1999 3:14 PM,  Ian Newman <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
>
> > Hi All
> > I have seen for ages when I boot up that  H/D  S.M.A.R.T  capability is
> disabled.  Can anyone enlighten me as to what this means??
>
> Self Monitoring And Reporting Technology (S.M.A.R.T.) is a major
> step to the truly fault tolerant computing environment. As all of us
>  know that the Hard Disk Drive's, (HDD) in our servers, workstations
>  or even home computers hold vast amounts of critical data. The HDD
>  also has the greatest potential for failure of any component in a
>  system. To date we could check a system for "soft errors" like cross
>  linked files or lost clusters, we could scan for viruses and check
> the surface of the drives platters for defects, but there was really
>  no reliable way to detect hardware failure. Of course after the fact
> there are some diagnostics to check the drive out, but alas, our
>  precious data is gone. S.M.A.R.T. on the other hand monitors the
> drive's hardware performance with drive specific tests on the
> controller. When a fault is detected, a notification is given that
>  the hardware may fail and all data should be backed up immediately
>  and the drive sent for repair or replacement. S.M.A.R.T. Compliant
>  drives are the norm, and have been shipping for several years now,
>  and almost all drives available today are S.M.A.R.T. compliant.
>  S.M.A.R.T. is defined and endorsed by the Small Form Factor (SFF)
>  committee which includes Compaq Computer Corporation, Hitachi, Ltd.,  IBM
> Storage Products Company, Maxtor Corporation, Quantum
>  Corporation, Seagate Technology, Toshiba Corporation and Western  Digital
> Corporation among others. In fact, IBM has shipped nearly 3 million
> S.M.A.R.T. compliant drives which have logged over 20 billion hours.
> S.M.A.R.T. is an industry standard reliability            prediction
> indicator for both IDE/ATA and SCSI HDD. What S.M.A.R.T. means to the end
> user is simple. Now the single most
>  important device in the system can be accurately monitored for
> faults and potential failure so critical data can be moved before
>  the drive fails. Intelli-SMART takes the monitoring to a new level.
>  Now you can have every drive in your organization or on your network
>  monitored 24 hours a day for things that may lead to a crash. If a
> fault is detected, you are notified with various local alerting
> options or you can enable remote notifications via e-mail or other
>  network mail applications with the machine name, the drive ID and
>  the time of the first fault.
>
>
>  Basics of S.M.A.R.T. -- S.M.A.R.T. is actually a failure predication
method
> based on a device varying from a defined set of thresholds, the idea is an
> industry wide continuation of PFA (predictive failure analysis)
implemented
> and invented by IBM for its mainframe computers. The  first company to
> implement S.M.A.R.T. technology on desktop PC's was Compaq Computer with
> their DFP (drive failure prediction). A drive  that is S.M.A.R.T.
compliant
> has a series of tests embedded on the controller of the HDD. The data is
> constantly collected and monitored for variations within vendor specific
> thresholds. These  tests are designed to predict the impending degradation
> or failure of a drive. For instance, if a drive is designed to spin at
3500
> RPM and the manufactures threshold is +/- 100 RPM, the drive may be within
> threshold for a year, but as the drive ages the RPM's begin  to fluctuate
> and before long are at 3300 RPM. Once that happens, an error is logged and
a
> message is sent to the System Administrator and/or the user. The drive can
> now be scheduled for replacement  before the condition gets worse and
> becomes catastrophic. The various tests and thresholds that govern pass or
> fail are vendor  specific and usually proprietary. The type of failures
> monitored by SMART include head and servo issues which result in read and
> seek errors, motor failure or bearing problems that result in spin up
> problems, excessive bad sectors and thermal testing. The faults are
> categorized into predictable and unpredictable, with the
>  unpredictable usually being catastrophic. Unpredictable faults are
> normally electronics related or caused by static electricity or from
>  handling. Testing and data collection can be in an on-line or
>  off-line mode. In the on-line mode, data is collected during idle
>  times. In the off-line mode the drive is required to respond to
>  commands directly from the host and interrupt any operations.
>  Intelli-SMART has automatic settings for monitoring the drive in
>  on-line status as well as test now button for immediate off-line
>  testing and data collection where supported. In order to make the
>  implementation of S.M.A.R.T. practical, the system has to be able to
> alert the user, or in the case of a network, the system
>  administrator of a potential failure. To date the only way to
>  utilize the S.M.A.R.T. technology is through the newer BIOS or with
>  a simple desktop application that notifies the user of a failure.  Most
of
> these utilities are manufacturer specific and run under DOS.
>
> To go another  step further, Intelli-SMART runs natively under Windows
> 95/98/NT and has easy to use messaging options where notifications can be
> sent via MS Mail, Lotus Notes or Netscape MAPI. For online systems,
> messaging is available over the Internet allowing for alerts to be sent
via
> email. Intelli-SMART also monitors more than
> two physical drives, and in fact can monitor all of the drives in
> your system or RAID Array whether they are IDE/ATA, SCSI or both.
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date:    Thu, 30 Dec 1999 07:06:44 +0200
> From:    Marc Guise <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: S.M.A.R.T Hard disk??
>
> At 10:14 30/12/99 +1100, you wrote:
> >Hi All
> >I have seen for ages when I boot up that  H/D  S.M.A.R.T  capability is
> >disabled.  Can anyone enlighten me as to what this means?? Thanks   Ian
>
>
> Hi Ian
> SMART stands for Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology System
> . As far as I know, it's software built into a hard disk which analyses
> performance and reliability. There's more info at Quantum's site:
> http://www.quantum.com/src/whitepapers/wp_smart_toc.htm
>
> Here's an excerpt from that page:
> The S.M.A.R.T. system  is comprised of software that resides both on the
> disk drive and on the host computer. The disk drive software monitors the
> internal performance of the motors, media, heads, and electronics of the
> drive, while the host software monitors the overall reliability status of
> the drive. The reliability status is determined through the analysis of
the
> drive's internal performance level and the comparison of internal
> performance levels to predetermined threshold limits.
> Hope this helps you
> Marc Guise
>
> ------------------------------

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