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Mac Forum / General / Hardware / June 2007a dumb question on S.M.A.R.T.
It looks like none of my FireWire had drives support S.M.A.R.T. Is this normal? Some of my drives are 4 years old but some are pretty new. My 2+ year old internal drives do support it. How can I buy S.M.A.R.T. drives? The drive description don't seem to discuss that. Also, should I start worrying, or not having the S.M.A.R.T. feature is not a big deal. Thanks, PaulN > It looks like none of my FireWire had drives support S.M.A.R.T. Is this > normal? Yes. http://homepage.mac.com/julianmayer/smartreporter/faq.html#FIREWIRE  SignatureW. Oates In comp.sys.mac.hardware.misc Warren Oates <warren.oates@gmail.com> wrote: > > It looks like none of my FireWire had drives support S.M.A.R.T. Is this > > normal? > Yes. > http://homepage.mac.com/julianmayer/smartreporter/faq.html#FIREWIRE Thanks! Now I understand...PaulN > It looks like none of my FireWire had drives support S.M.A.R.T. SMART works with PATA/SATA drives which are _directly connected to the motherboard_. This means no FireWire or USB drives. > Is this > normal? Yes. > Some of my drives are 4 years old but some are pretty new. My 2+ > year old internal drives do support it. > > How can I buy S.M.A.R.T. drives? The drive description don't seem to > discuss that. Buy an internal drive. > Also, should I start worrying, or not having the S.M.A.R.T. feature is not a > big deal. There are two kinds of hard drives: 1 those which have failed 2 those which have not failed... yet. > Thanks, PaulN Signatureemail to oshea dot j dot j at gmail dot com. In comp.sys.mac.hardware.misc J.J. O'Shea <try.not.to@but.see.sig> wrote: > There are two kinds of hard drives: > 1 those which have failed > 2 those which have not failed... yet. There is a third kind too; I have at least a dozen of those. Namely, those that have been retired from service but have not yet been donated to the Salvation Army. /PaulN > > There are two kinds of hard drives: > [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > that have been retired from service but have not yet been donated to the > Salvation Army. /PaulN No, all of those fall within the two categories J.J. specified. By the way, just this past week, for the very first time, I encountered a drive where a S.M.A.R.T. failure alerted us to a problem before the drive become unrecoverable. It's all too common to have a drive fail without any warning signs at all. Signature<http://designsbymike.info/shop/mac.cgi> Mac and geek T-shirts & gifts <http://designsbymike.info/shop/musings.cgi> Muckraking T-shirts <http://designsbymike.info/shop/prius.cgi> Prius shirts/bumper stickers <http://comedancing.biz> Ballroom dance shirts & gifts In comp.sys.mac.hardware.misc Mike Rosenberg <mikePOST@togroupmacconsult.com> wrote: > > > There are two kinds of hard drives: > > [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > > that have been retired from service but have not yet been donated to the > > Salvation Army. /PaulN > No, all of those fall within the two categories J.J. specified. I don't want to be picky but you are wrong since the third kind might remain unused. Of course, technically speaking, when the universe ends, then everything will fail, including my NeXT Cube. /PaulN > I don't want to be picky but you are wrong since the third kind might > remain unused. Which means they haven't failed yet. Signature<http://designsbymike.info/shop/mac.cgi> Mac and geek T-shirts & gifts <http://designsbymike.info/shop/musings.cgi> Muckraking T-shirts <http://designsbymike.info/shop/prius.cgi> Prius shirts/bumper stickers <http://designsbymike.info/shop/dance.cgi> Ballroom dance shirts & gifts > > I don't want to be picky but you are wrong since the third kind might > > remain unused. > > Which means they haven't failed yet. The way "yet" was written in that alternative suggested an implicit "but they will". If something is never used, it can never fail. Of course, if it's never used then it might as well not even exist. SignatureBarry Margolin, barmar@alum.mit.edu Arlington, MA *** PLEASE post questions in newsgroups, not directly to me *** *** PLEASE don't copy me on replies, I'll read them in the group *** > If something is never used, it can never fail. Not necessarily true, but you'll never find out. It's Schroedinger's disc drive. SignatureSupport the troops: Bring them home ASAP. In comp.sys.mac.hardware.misc Michelle Steiner <michelle@michelle.org> wrote: > > If something is never used, it can never fail. > Not necessarily true, but you'll never find out. It's Schroedinger's > disc drive. Schroedinger, Heisenberg, whatever... It's more like G\"odel's. /PaulN > > > If something is never used, it can never fail. > [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > > It's more like G\"odel's. /PaulN No, Schroedinger, like the cat. It's both dead and not dead until you try it. SignatureSupport the troops: Bring them home ASAP. > > > > If something is never used, it can never fail. > > [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > No, Schroedinger, like the cat. It's both dead and not dead until you > try it. Well, yeah, but keep in mind that checking on whether the cat is dead or alive and checking its SMART status are two entirely different measurements. A recent observation of mine has determined that the cat is alive, but I still have no idea whether she still functions has a SATA hard drive. André Signatureuse rot thirteen to email ntvfnnx@tznvy.pbz > > > > > If something is never used, it can never fail. > > > [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > or alive and checking its SMART status are two entirely different > measurements. We're talking about a disc drive that's not being used. If it's not being used you can't tell whether it has failed or not. It's both failed and not failed. SignatureSupport the troops: Bring them home ASAP. > > > > > > If something is never used, it can never fail. > > > > [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] > being used you can't tell whether it has failed or not. It's both > failed and not failed. Which is rather similar to my cat -- she isn't being used as a disk drive at the moment, therefore her SMART status has yet to collapse into a single eigenstate. I'd thought of plugging her into the bus to force the wave function to collapse, but I'm nervous that by doing so her liveness/deadness might revert to being indeterminate if it turns out that conjugate variables are involved. André Signatureuse rot thirteen to email ntvfnnx@tznvy.pbz In comp.sys.mac.hardware.misc Ymir <ymir@invalid.invalid> wrote: > I'd thought of plugging her into the bus to force the wave function to > collapse, but I'm nervous that by doing so her liveness/deadness might > revert to being indeterminate if it turns out that conjugate variables > are involved. What's a conjugate variable? If a bigamist is in a low security prison, then is he allowed variable conjugate visits? What about a trigamist? /PaulN > In comp.sys.mac.hardware.misc Ymir <ymir@invalid.invalid> wrote: > > I'd thought of plugging her into the bus to force the wave function to [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > What's a conjugate variable? If a bigamist is in a low security prison, then > is he allowed variable conjugate visits? What about a trigamist? /PaulN I'm pretty sure trigamists are people obsessed with angle trisection. As for variable conjugate visits, they are allowed those, but they are never quite certain whether they are taking place or not. André Signatureuse rot thirteen to email ntvfnnx@tznvy.pbz > > > > > > If something is never used, it can never fail. > > > > [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] > being used you can't tell whether it has failed or not. It's both > failed and not failed. And what about a drive that's thrown out before it failed? SignatureBarry Margolin, barmar@alum.mit.edu Arlington, MA *** PLEASE post questions in newsgroups, not directly to me *** *** PLEASE don't copy me on replies, I'll read them in the group *** In comp.sys.mac.hardware.misc Barry Margolin <barmar@alum.mit.edu> wrote: > And what about a drive that's thrown out before it failed? And what about the drive that was never built because the company went out of business [because every other drive failed]? /PaulN > If something is never used, it can never fail. Wanna bet? : ) Let an old hard drive sit long enough in a closet and the spindle will eventually freeze up. I've had it happen to many a drive. SignatureJR In comp.sys.mac.hardware.misc Barry Margolin <barmar@alum.mit.edu> wrote: > > > I don't want to be picky but you are wrong since the third kind might > > > remain unused. > > > > Which means they haven't failed yet. > The way "yet" was written in that alternative suggested an implicit "but > they will". If something is never used, it can never fail. Of course, > if it's never used then it might as well not even exist. I am glad I found a supporter from MIT. Now we need support from Harvard, Princeton, and, of course, from the Universit\'e Pierre et Marie Curie. Then I win. /PaulN In comp.sys.mac.hardware.misc Mike Rosenberg <mikePOST@togroupmacconsult.com> wrote: > > I don't want to be picky but you are wrong since the third kind might > > remain unused. > Which means they haven't failed yet. This is not in the spirit of the original hard driveology but more like Aristotelian logic (A || !A) == true. Similary, every hard disk either speaks French or doesn't speak French yet. /PaulN > This is not in the spirit of the original hard driveology but more like > Aristotelian logic (A || !A) == true. Similary, every hard disk either > speaks French or doesn't speak French yet. Or in the case of southern California... school kids either speak spanish, or don't speak spanish yet. Signature-=Elden=- http://www.moondog.org >> I don't want to be picky but you are wrong since the third kind might >> remain unused. > >Which means they haven't failed yet. Or they have, but you don't know about it yet. Just because hardware is sitting on a shelf and was working the last time you used it doesn't mean it hasn't failed in the interim. SignatureThere's no such thing as a free lunch, but certain accounting practices can result in a fully-depreciated one. > In comp.sys.mac.hardware.misc J.J. O'Shea <try.not.to@but.see.sig> wrote: >> There are two kinds of hard drives: [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > that have been retired from service but have not yet been donated to the > Salvation Army. /PaulN That group could be further split into sub-categories of: i. drives whose spindles have not frozen up yet ii. drives whose spindles are completely frozen up : D SignatureJR > SMART works with PATA/SATA drives which are _directly connected to the > motherboard_. This means no FireWire or USB drives. Actually, Granite Digital makes a FireWire enclosure that supports S.M.A.R.T. As far as I know, they are the only ones who do. There is no technical reason why it can't be done. The FreWire bridge chip merely needs to be programmed to pass the appropriate diagnostic information packets back and forth. Most aren't. SignaturePhotography, kink, polyamory, shareware, and more: all at http://www.xeromag.com/franklin.html > > It looks like none of my FireWire had drives support S.M.A.R.T. > > SMART works with PATA/SATA drives which are _directly connected to the > motherboard_. This means no FireWire or USB drives. Also note that it doesn't work with a RAID array either. SignatureAndy Hewitt <http://web.mac.com/andrewhewitt1/> > It looks like none of my FireWire had drives support S.M.A.R.T. Is this > normal? Some of my drives are 4 years old but some are pretty new. My 2+ > year old internal drives do support it. Apparently firewire itself doesn't support SMART. If enough people aks for it, we might get it, http://www.apple.com/macosx/feedback/ > How can I buy S.M.A.R.T. drives? The drive description don't seem to > discuss that. > > Also, should I start worrying, or not having the S.M.A.R.T. feature is not a > big deal. We managed fine without it before, but if it works as advertised, it's nice to have a warning. Andy > Also, should I start worrying, or not having the S.M.A.R.T. feature is not a > big deal. According to a PDF published by Google, the world's largest user of off-the-shelf hard drives, S.M.A.R.T. is actually very poor at predicting hard drive failures. If the S.M.A.R.T. status of a hard drive says the drive is failing, it is; but if the status shows that the drive is OK, that may or may not be true. In other words, it can report that a drive has failed but is surprisingly poor at anticipating when a drive is close to failure. Full report (warning, very technical reading) is at http://216.239.37.132/papers/disk_failures.pdf SignaturePhotography, kink, polyamory, shareware, and more: all at http://www.xeromag.com/franklin.html >> Also, should I start worrying, or not having the S.M.A.R.T. feature is not a >> big deal. [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > > http://216.239.37.132/papers/disk_failures.pdf I couldn't open that link but found a review here: http://storagemojo.com/?p=378 The disks with an average temperature about 20 C have a higher failure rate than those around 30 - 45. I don't know how a disk would be as cool as 20 C unless it was in a cold environment or air was blowing through the case. Google loses about 7.5% per year for five years, so 62% are still running after 5 years. There doesn't seem to be much difference between hard use and lighter use. Storagereview.com says the most common cause of failure is being bumped, perhaps in shipping, in the store, or in installation. It says it may take years before the damage from a bump results in failure. Drives tested at the factory are less likely to have been bumped than drives in service at Google, aren't they? Could that be one reason Google's failure rates are higher? >> Full report (warning, very technical reading) is at >> http://216.239.37.132/papers/disk_failures.pdf >> > I couldn't open that link but found a review here: > http://storagemojo.com/?p=378 Which includes a working link to http://labs.google.com/papers/disk_failures.pdf SignatureHylton >It looks like none of my FireWire had drives support S.M.A.R.T. Is this >normal? SMART monitoring doesn't work through Firewire. SignatureThere's no such thing as a free lunch, but certain accounting practices can result in a fully-depreciated one. |
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