Should I use S.M.A.R.T.?

[LotharJade]

My Motherboard offers to use S.M.A.R.T. for the hard drives. What is this and why do I care? Should I use this?

 

[pspada]

yes, assuming your hard drive supports it. SMART = Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology to monitor the health status of Hard Disk Drives, monitors the drive temperature, prevents data loss and predicts possible drive fails, using special algorithms.

 

[Megatomic]

SMART has saved my data on two occassions. I always leave it enabled.

 

[THUGSROOK]

SMART is slower, but safer.

disable it if you want speed

 

[LotharJade]

I have a special edition western digital 80 gig HD. I will look and see if it supports. I could see slowing down for safety sake.

 

[LotharJade]

WD said all their drives are s.m.a.r.t. capable. I am now using this and it seems to work greaat.
Thanks for help.

 

[bootoo]

On overclocking I consistently found a small but steady advantage to disabling SMART. Only in 3dmark2001 though.

I thought SMART was software controlled so tried disabling it (I used to enable it always before I overclocked, figured why not).

I probably am the dumb one for disabling it but never saw the good in what it did. Has any one else?

I would go with pspada's recommending SMART enabled, he always knows what he is talking about.

 

[VioletAura]

You might want to look into a SMART monitoring program so you can check the status of your drives anytime.

 

[AndyHui]

You can find out more about SMART in the AnandTech FAQ: What is SMART for hard drives? I recommend turning it ON.

 

[osage]

yes enable it, the performance hit is very small.

 

[The_Lurker]

S.M.A.R.T. saved my ass a few times, so I keep it on. It halts the BIOS and tells you that your drive is dying and tells u to backup stuff. Works most of the time... unless you get the click of Death and it just doesn't detect the drive... damn Maxtor drives... Western Digital from now on

 

[Peter]

Originally posted by: THUGSROOK
SMART is slower, but safer.

disable it if you want speed

Sorry, no. If you enable "SMART" in BIOS, it'll just make BIOS query the drive health ONCE, during POST. Afterwards, the performance hit is zero. Nada. Niente.

 

[SNC]

YES!!