the S.M.A.R.T. choice??

[koston]

Sorry i'm in one of those silly pun moods. I'm jsut wondering about the smart thing in the hard drives. Is it worthwhile to use this? I don't quite know what it is for and I was wondering if I should enable it? How will it affect me?

[sohailm6]

HI Koston

You should enable it as it is an early warning for your HD going bad. If your HD is on it's last legs it gives you warning at boot-up so you have chance to save your data etc.
I am not sure if it affects performance of the system.

Sohailm6

[Hatchetman]

Hi, I'm new here, but I can only agree with (sorry) him above, No silly the poster!!.

It does not slow your system down at all. The electronics in the HDD, once enabled, do all the donkey work of checking the drive on the fly, and as stated, if you can enable it do so as it can a be a real life saver.

:xtyping:

[Neomagic]

Then why doesn't it give a cry when our beloved IBM's go bad ? :p

Seems pretty useless to me, except for the temp monitoring, which is cool. By the time it would exceed one of those SMART tressholds, most of us would have upgraded already anyway, so what's the point ? Maybe it's good for people that keep their systems 25 years or so...

[Player0]

SMART is an older technology which doesnt do a heck of a lot to warn you of any failures. And yes, it WILL reduce drive performance, which you can measure using any decent hard drive tool. (mention sandra and i have to hurt you) ;)

Unless this is for a 24/7 server for some sort, it's probably best to leave SMART disabled.

There are utilities that will read HD temperature without resorting to SMART.

[sohailm6]

Hi Player

What utilities ??? and do all HD's have temp sensors I have a maxtor and a Fujitsu.

Sohailm6