S.M.A.R.T. enabled hard drives?

[LegionX]

hi
wondering about the smart aspect of hard drives, what exactly it does and if it is worth using? also does it slow the hard drive down or overall performance?

any info would be appreaciated

 

[Pas2002]

smart is Self Monotoring somthing or other,
no it doesnt slow it down it is like an error correction i think, it is good to enable and all hard drives have it (all but ones that are over 5 years old)

 

[AndyHui]

You should find a lot of information in the AnandTech FAQ: What is S.M.A.R.T for hard drives?

 

[LegionX]

thanks
reading the faq it suggests that it does slow down performance. i tried the link to maxtor but it said file not found so will have to do a search on maxtor later when i have time since i run a maxtor drive.

i am wondering how much of a performance hit it takes and wether it is noticable. will it make a game stutter if it kicks in or is it always checking for errors or does it do it at interval times?

anyone who has experience with it please let me know if you notice a performance hit or anything else that can be problematic with it running please

i am going to do some research this weekend on it as well. not even sure if it is important enough to enable. none of my stuff is so irreplaceable if my hard drive dies but saying that if it is dying i would like time to arrange for it to be replaced without all of a sudden finding it dead and having no good computer to play with.

hmm also is this something that you can turn on - run for awhile to diagnose then disable again for a month or 2 - rince and repeat? or better to leave on... once again back to perforamnce hit.

anyway thanks for the info and any future info

 

[AndyHui]

With modern drives, effectively there is no reduction in performance.

 

[Alex]

plus, if you've ever spontaneously lost a hard drive before *cough* 75GXP *cough* then you'll appreciate that a minimal performance loss, if any, is well worth the extra warning, however small, allowing you to back important stuff up.