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3.7.3 Hard Drive S.M.A.R.T. Function
S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology) is a diagnostic tool
for hard drives to deliver warning of drive failures in advance. S.M.A.R.T. provides
users chances to take actions before possible drive failure.
S.M.A.R.T. measures many attributes of the hard drive all the time and inspects the
properties of hard drives which are close to be out of tolerance. The advanced notice
of possible hard drive failure can allow users to back up hard drive or replace the hard
drive. This is much better than hard drive crash when it is writing data or rebuilding a
failed hard drive.
“S.M.A.R.T.” function can display S.M.A.R.T. information of hard drives. There are
two values: the number on the left is the current value, and the number in
parenthesis is the threshold value. If the current value becomes lower than the
threshold value, the hard drive is in unstable state. The threshold values of hard drive
vendors are different. Please refer to vendors’ specification for details.