Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting technology (S.M.A.R.T.) was developed by a number of major hard disk drive manufacturers
in a concerted effort to increase the reliability of drives. It
is a technology that enables the PC to predict the future failure
of hard disk drives. S.M.A.R.T. technology has become an industry
standard for hard drive manufacturers.
Through the Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting technology modern hard disk drives incorporate
a suite of advanced diagnostics that monitor the internal operations
of a drive and provide an early warning for many types of potential
problems. When a potential problem is detected, the drive can be
repaired or replaced before any
data is lost or damaged.
The S.M.A.R.T. system monitors the drive for anything that might
seem out of the ordinary, documents it, and analyzes the data. If
it sees something that indicates a problem, it is capable of notifying
the user (or system administrator). S.M.A.R.T. monitors disk performance,
faulty sectors, recalibration, CRC errors, drive spin-up time, drive
heads, distance between the heads and the disk platters, drive temperature,
and characteristics of the media, motor and servomechanisms. The
errors the system can detect can be predicted by a number of methods.
Currently the Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting technology can detect about 70% of all hard drive
errors.
Here's an example: motor and/or bearing failure can be predicted
by an increase in the drive spin-up time and the number of retries
it takes to get the drive spinning at full speed. Or, if the drive
notes that error correction is being needed excessively, it can
attribute this to a broken drive head or surface contamination,
and it will create an alert before the problem gets worse. Armed
with a prediction of failure, the user or system administrator can
make a backup copy of key data, replace a suspect device prior to
data loss, and avoid undesired downtime.
Active SMART is industry-leading
software for computers that use Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting technology.
It utilizes S.M.A.R.T. to monitor your hard drive health status
and disk temperature, predict possible drive fail and prevent data
loss. Download the free trial version of Active SMART and check
out your hard drive now. Using your personal notification settings,
Active SMART lets you know about a potential disk health problem
before you lose valuable data.
Active SMART works on all Windows versions.
Active SMART is S.M.A.R.T. system compliant software.
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Documentation
