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I have an 1 TB data disk and the bios and Windows are reporting a "Smart" error. At least, I get a Smart event but it doesn't indicate how serious the failure could be. My system is about 6 months old, including the disk so the warranty will cover the damage. Unfortunately, I lack a second disk of 1 TB in size which I can use to make a full backup. The most important data on this disk is safe, but there's a lot of work data which can be regenerated but this would cost a lot of time.
So I ordered an USB disk of 1 TB which will arrive in three days. By then I can make a full backup of the data and afterwards, it can crash.
But will the disk live that long? (Well, I won't use the PC as long as I can't make a backup.) How serious is such a Smart event? I know it's serious enough to have it replaced, but will it live for another week or could it die any moment?
Update: I purchased an 1 TB external disk and spent most of the day making a backup of the 1 TB disk. It survived that. I then received a new disk, since it was still under warranty and replaced the hard disk. Then I had to spend most of a day again to put back the backup. I need to send back the faulty disk and now have an additional external disk, which could always be practical. :-)
The Smart Error report did not cause any failures on the original disk. I won't advise to ignore these warnings, but the disk still has enough life in it to last a few more days. (Just make sure you have a good back-up.)
And oh, the horror of having to make a complete backup such a huge disk. :-) If your data is important, make sure you have something that supports incremental backups and lots of space. (In my case, the data wasn't very important, just practical to have on-disk together.)
2SMART errors come in many flavors. Since Windows doesn't deem us worthy of knowing the actual error, what are we supposed to do? Guess? If you want to assume the worst to be on the safe side, do so, but we do not know any more than you do. – Teddy – 2009-12-13T14:18:39.653
Exactly what I was afraid of. So now I know my disk is a bit closer to failure than average. But an hour, day or even month? Then what's the use of a Smart error if it's not smart enough to estimate how long the disk will live? – Wim ten Brink – 2009-12-13T14:34:20.443
1From what @Shoeless posted I guess the use of SMART is to tell you to dig out the spare drive from storage, back up the failing one and replace it NOW. – ChrisF – 2009-12-13T16:52:14.103
i wouldn't trust this drive with important data anymore. but then, you can adopt the Irish way to deal with 'alerts' and get on with it (the part i'm referring to starts at 4:00 :) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ph7XHGmj1NA&feature=related
– None – 2009-12-13T18:39:07.373Get a copy of Speedfan, it is able to query SMART status of the drive and give you a drive health check. This should help pinpoint the error better. http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php
– Mokubai – 2009-12-14T08:40:42.310