What is S.M.A.R.T.?
'''Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology''', or '''S.M.A.R.T.''' is a system to watch [[computer]] [[hard disk]]s to help stop the risk of [[failure]]s. It does this by watching [[wikt:reliability|reliability]] of the hard disks to try and see when a failure might happen and where. == Background == Hard drive failures fall into two categories: *''Predictable failures''' happen over a long time period. Examples are mechanical wear, or degradation of the surface. *''Unpredictable failures'' happen suddenly, in an unforeseen manner. Examples are the failure of an [[electronic component]], or sudden mechanical failure, perhaps because of bad handling. Predictable failures can be detected by certain monitoring devices. This is like a [[thermometer]] in a [[vehicle]] that can alert the driver to do something before serious damage occurs, for example because the engine is too hot. About 60% of all drive failures are caused by mechanical failure,.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.seagate.com/docs/pdf/whitepaper/enhanced_smart.pdf|title=Seagate statement on enhanced smart attributes|publisher=Seagate|access-date=2008-09-13|archive-date=2006-03-28|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060328023033/http://seagate.com/docs/pdf/whitepaper/enhanced_smart.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref> Most result from gradual wear. An eventual failure may be [[catastrophic]]. Before complete failure occurs, there are usually signs that failure will happen. These may include increased [[heat]] output, a more [[Noise|noisy]] drive, problems with reading or writing data and a big increase in the number of damaged [[disk sectors]]. The purpose of S.M.A.R.T. is to warn a user or system administrator that a drive is about to fail. At the time of the warning, there is usually still time to do somethings to prevent data loss by copying the data to a different drive. About 30% of failures can be predicted by S.M.A.R.T.<ref>[http://smartlinux.sourceforge.net/smart/faq.php?#2 How does S.M.A.R.T. work?]</ref> Work at [[Google]] on over 10