Sooner or later (better, of course, if early), any user asks himself the question of how long the installed on him computer hard drive and is it time to look for a replacement for it. There is nothing surprising in this, since hard disks by virtue of their design features are the least reliable among computer components. At the same time, it is on the HDD that most users store the lion's share of the most diverse information: documents, pictures, various software, etc., as a result of which an unexpected disk failure is always a tragedy. Of course, it is often possible to recover information on externally “dead” hard drives, but it is possible that this operation will cost you a pretty penny, and it will cost you a lot of nerves. Therefore, it is much more effective to try to prevent data loss.
How? It's very simple... First of all, don't forget about regular data backups, and secondly, monitor the status of disks using specialized utilities. We will consider several programs of such a plan in terms of the tasks to be solved in this article.

Control of SMART parameters and temperature

All modern HDDs and even solid state drives (SSDs) support S.M.A.R.T. ( from English. Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology - technology of self-monitoring, analysis and reporting), which was developed by major manufacturers hard drives to improve the reliability of their products. This technology is based on continuous monitoring and assessment of the state hard drive built-in self-diagnostic equipment (special sensors), and its main purpose is the timely detection of a possible drive failure.

HDD status monitoring in real time

A number of information and diagnostic solutions for hardware diagnostics and testing, as well as special monitoring utilities, use S.M.A.R.T. to monitor the current status of various vital parameters that describe the reliability and performance of hard drives. They read the relevant parameters directly from the sensors and thermal sensors that all modern hard drives are equipped with, analyze the received data and display them in the form of a brief tabular report with a list of attributes. At the same time, some of the utilities (Hard Drive Inspector, HDDlife, Crystal Disk Info, etc.) are not limited to displaying a table of attributes (the values ​​of which are incomprehensible to unprepared users) and additionally display brief information about the state of the disk in a more understandable form.

Diagnose hard state disk using such utilities is as easy as shelling pears - just get acquainted with brief basic information about installed HDDs: with basic data about disks in Hard Drive Inspector, a certain conditional percentage of hard disk health in HDDlife, the “Technical condition” indicator in Crystal Disk Info (Fig. 1 ) etc. In any of similar programs the minimum necessary information is provided about each of the HDDs installed on the computer: data on the hard drive model, its volume, operating temperature, hours worked, as well as the level of reliability and performance. This information makes it possible to draw certain conclusions about the performance of the carrier.

Rice. 1. Brief information about the "health" of the working HDD

You should configure the launch of the monitoring utility at the same time as the operating system starts, adjust the time interval between checks of S.M.A.R.T. attributes, and enable display of the temperature and “health level” of hard drives in the system tray. After that, to control the status of disks, the user will only need to glance at the indicator in the system tray from time to time, where it will be displayed brief information about the state of the drives available in the system: their level of "health" and temperature (Fig. 2). By the way, the operating temperature is no less important indicator than the conditional indicator of HDD health, because hard drives can suddenly fail due to banal overheating. Therefore, if the hard drive heats up above 50 ° C, then it would be wiser to provide it with additional cooling.

Rice. 2. HDD status display
in the system tray with the HDDlife program

It should be noted that some of these utilities provide integration with Windows Explorer, so that local disk icons display a green icon if they are healthy, and the icon turns red if problems occur. So you are unlikely to be able to forget about the health of your hard drives. With such constant monitoring, you will not be able to miss the moment when some problems begin to arise with the disk, because if the utility detects critical changes in the S.M.A.R.T. and / or temperature, it will carefully notify the user about this (by a message on the screen, sound message etc. - rice. 3). Thanks to this, it will be possible to have time to copy the data from the medium that inspires fear in advance.

Rice. 3. An example of a message about the need to immediately replace the disk

It is absolutely not burdensome to use S.M.A.R.T.

Control of S.M.A.R.T. attributes

Advanced users, of course, are unlikely to limit themselves to assessing the state of hard drives by viewing a brief verdict of one of the utilities presented above. It is understandable, because by decoding the attributes of S.M.A.R.T. it is possible to identify the cause of failures and, if necessary, prudently take some additional measures. True, to independently control S.M.A.R.T. attributes, you will need to at least briefly familiarize yourself with the S.M.A.R.T.

Among those who support this hard disks are equipped with intelligent self-diagnosis procedures, so they are able to "report" their current status. This diagnostic information is provided as a collection of attributes, i.e. specific hard drive characteristics used to analyze its performance and reliability.

B O Most of the important attributes have the same meaning for drives from all manufacturers. The values ​​of these attributes during normal disk operation may vary within certain intervals. For any parameter, the manufacturer has defined a certain minimum safe value that cannot be exceeded under normal operating conditions. Unambiguously determine critical and non-critical S.M.A.R.T parameters for diagnostics. problematic. Each of the attributes has its own informational value and indicates one or another aspect in the work of the carrier. However, first of all, you should pay attention to the following attributes:

• Raw Read Error Rate - frequency of errors in reading data from the disk due to the fault of the equipment;
• Spin Up Time - average spin up time of the disk spindle;
• Reallocated Sector Count - number of sector remapping operations;
• Seek Error Rate - frequency of occurrence of positioning errors;
• Spin Retry Count - the number of retries to spin up disks to operating speed if the first attempt fails;
• Current Pending Sector Count - the number of unstable sectors (that is, sectors waiting for the remapping procedure);
• Offline Scan Uncorrectable Count - total number of uncorrected errors during sector read/write operations.

Typically, S.M.A.R.T. are displayed in a tabular form with the attribute name (Attribute), its identifier (ID) and three values: current (Value), minimum threshold (Threshold), and the lowest value of the attribute for the entire time of the drive (Worst), as well as the absolute value of the attribute (raw). Each attribute has present value, which can be any number between 1 and 100, 200, or 253 (there is no general standard for upper bounds on attribute values). The Value and Worst values ​​for a completely new hard drive are the same (Fig. 4).

Rice. 4. Attributes of S.M.A.R.T. on the new HDD

Shown in fig. 4 information allows us to conclude that for a theoretically sound hard drive, the current (Value) and worst (Worst) values ​​should be as close as possible to each other, and the Raw value for most parameters (with the exception of the parameters: Power-On Time, HDA Temperature and some others ) should be close to zero. The current value may change over time, which in most cases reflects the deterioration of the hard drive parameters described by the attribute. This can be seen in fig. 5, which shows fragments of the S.M.A.R.T attribute table. for the same disk - the data are received with an interval of half a year. As you can see, in a more recent version of S.M.A.R.T. increased error rate when reading data from the disk (Raw Read Error Rate), the origin of which is due to the hardware of the disk, and the error rate when positioning the block of magnetic heads (Seek Error Rate), which may indicate overheating of the hard drive and its unstable position in the basket . If the current value of any attribute approaches or becomes less than the threshold, then the hard drive is considered unreliable, and it should be urgently replaced. For example, a drop in the value of the Spin-Up Time attribute (the average spin-up time of the disk spindle) below a critical value, as a rule, indicates complete wear of the mechanics, as a result of which the disk is no longer able to maintain the rotation speed specified by the manufacturer. Therefore, it is necessary to monitor the state of the HDD and periodically (for example, once every 2-3 months) carry out S.M.A.R.T. and save the received information in text file. In the future, these data can be compared with the current ones and certain conclusions can be drawn about the development of the situation.

Rice. 5. S.M.A.R.T. Attribute Tables Obtained at Semi-Annual Intervals
(more recent version of S.M.A.R.T. below)

When viewing S.M.A.R.T. attributes, first of all, you should pay attention to critical parameters, as well as to parameters highlighted with indicators other than the base color (usually blue or green). Depending on the current state of the attribute in the S.M.A.R.T. in the table, it is usually marked in one color or another, which makes it easier to understand the situation. In particular, in the Hard Drive Inspector program, the color indicator can be green, yellow-green, yellow, orange or red - green and yellow-green colors indicate that everything is fine (the attribute value did not change or changed insignificantly), and yellow, orange and red colors signal danger (worst of all is red, which indicates that the value of the attribute has reached its critical value). If any of the critical parameters is marked with a red icon, then you need to urgently replace the hard drive.

Let's look at the table of S.M.A.R.T. attributes of the same disk in the Hard Drive Inspector program, a brief assessment of which by monitoring utilities was given earlier. From fig. 6 shows that the values ​​of all attributes are normal and all parameters are marked in green. The HDDlife and Crystal Disk Info utilities will show a similar picture. True, more professional solutions for HDD analysis and diagnostics are not so loyal and often label S.M.A.R.T. attributes more meticulously. For example, such well-known utilities as HD Tune Pro and HDD Scan, in our case, were suspicious of the UltraDMA CRC Errors attribute, which displays the number of errors that occur when information is transmitted via the external interface (Fig. 7). The cause of such errors is usually associated with a twisted and poor-quality SATA cable, which may need to be replaced.

Rice. 6. Table of S.M.A.R.T. attributes obtained in the Hard Drive Inspector program

Rice. 7. Results of assessing the state of S.M.A.R.T. attributes
HD Tune Pro and HDD Scan utilities

For comparison, let's get acquainted with the S.M.A.R.T. attributes of a very ancient, but still working HDD with intermittent problems. He did not inspire confidence in the Crystal Disk Info program - in the “Technical Condition” indicator, the state of the disk was rated as alarming, and the Reallocated Sector Count attribute (Reassigned sectors) turned out to be highlighted in yellow (Fig. 8). This is a very important attribute from the point of view of the "health" of the disk, indicating the number of sectors remapped when the disk detects a read / write error, during this operation, data from the bad sector is transferred to the spare area. The yellow color of the indicator next to the parameter indicates that there are not enough remaining spare sectors with which to replace the bad ones, and soon there will be nothing to reassign the newly emerging bad sectors. Let's also check how more serious solutions evaluate the state of a disk, for example, the HDDScan utility widely used by professionals - but here we see exactly the same result (Fig. 9).

Rice. 8. Evaluate a problematic hard drive in CrystalDiskInfo

Rice. 9. Results of HDD S.M.A.R.T. diagnostics in HDDScan

This means that it is obviously not worth pulling with the replacement of such a hard drive, although it can still serve for some time, although, of course, you cannot install the operating system on this hard drive. It should be noted that in the presence of a large number of reassigned sectors, the read / write speed drops (due to unnecessary movements that the magnetic head has to make), and the disk starts to noticeably slow down.

Surface scanning for bad sectors

Unfortunately, in practice, one control of SMART parameters and temperature is not enough. When there is the slightest evidence that something is wrong with the disk (in the case of periodic program freezes, for example, when saving results, reading error messages, etc.), you need to scan the disk surface for unreadable sectors. To carry out such a check of the media, you can use, for example, the HD Tune Pro and HDDScan utilities or diagnostic utilities from hard drive manufacturers, however, these utilities only work with their hard drive models, and therefore we will not consider them.

When using such solutions, there is a risk of data corruption on the scanned disk. On the one hand, with the information on the disk, if the drive really turns out to be faulty, anything can happen during the scan. On the other hand, one cannot exclude incorrect actions on the part of the user, who mistakenly starts scanning in write mode, during which sector-by-sector overwriting of data from the hard drive with a certain signature occurs, and based on the speed of this process, a conclusion is made about the state of the hard disk. Therefore, compliance with certain precautionary rules is absolutely necessary: ​​before starting the utility, you need to create a backup copy of the information and, during the check, act strictly according to the instructions of the developer of the corresponding software. To get more accurate results before scanning, it is better to close all active applications and unload possible background processes. In addition, it should be borne in mind that if you need to test the system HDD, you need to boot from a flash drive and start the scanning process from it, or completely remove the hard drive and connect it to another computer from which to start testing the disk.

As an example, using HD Tune Pro, we will check the surface of the HDD for bad sectors, which above did not inspire confidence in the Crystal Disk Info utility. In this program, to start the scanning process, just select the desired disk, activate the tab error scan and click on the button Start. After that, the utility will start sequentially scanning the disk, reading sector by sector and marking sectors on the disk map with multi-colored squares. The color of the squares, depending on the situation, can be green (normal sectors) or red (bad blocks), or it will have some shade intermediate between these colors. As we see from fig. 10, in our case, the utility did not find full-fledged bad blocks, but nevertheless, there is a solid number of sectors with one or another read delay (judging by their color). In addition to this, in the middle part of the disk there is a small block of sectors, the color of which is close to red - these sectors have not yet been recognized as bad by the utility, but they are already close to it and will go into the category of bad ones in the very near future.

Rice. 10. Scanning the surface for bad sectors in HD Tune Pro

Testing the media for bad sectors in the HDDScan program is more difficult, and even more dangerous, because in the case of an incorrectly selected mode, the information on the disk will be irretrievably lost. First of all, to start scanning, create a new task by clicking on the button New Task and selecting the command from the list Suface Tests. Then you need to make sure that the mode is selected read- this mode is set by default and when it is used, the hard disk surface is tested by reading (that is, without deleting data). After that press the button Add test(Fig. 11) and double click on the created task RD Read. Now in the window that opens, you can observe the process of scanning the disk on the graph (Graph) or on the map (Map) - fig. 12. Upon completion of the process, we will get approximately the same results that were demonstrated above by the HD Tune Pro utility, but with a clearer interpretation: there are no bad sectors (they are marked in blue), but there are three sectors with a response time of more than 500 ms (marked in red color), which represent a real danger. As for the six orange sectors (response time from 150 to 500 ms), this can be considered within the normal range, since such a response delay is often caused by temporary interference in the form of, for example, running background programs.

Rice. 11. Run a disk test in HDDScan

Rice. 12. Results of scanning a disk in Read mode using HDDScan

In addition, it should be noted that if there are a small number of bad blocks, you can try to improve the condition of the hard disk by removing bad sectors by scanning the disk surface in the linear recording mode (Erase) using HDD programs scan. After such an operation, the disk can still be used for some time, but, of course, not as a system disk. However, one should not hope for a miracle, since the HDD has already begun to crumble, and there are no guarantees that in the near future the number of defects will not increase and the drive will not completely fail.

Programs for S.M.A.R.T.-monitoring and HDD testing

HD Tune Pro 5.00 and HD Tune 2.55

Developer: EFD Software

Distribution size: HD Tune Pro - 1.5 MB; HD Tune - 628 KB

Work under control: Windows XP/Server 2003/Vista/7

Distribution method: HD Tune Pro - shareware (15 day demo); HD Tune - freeware (http://www.hdtune.com/download.html)

Price: HD Tune Pro - $34.95; HD Tune - free (for non-commercial use only)

HD Tune is a handy utility for diagnosing and testing HDD/SSD (see table), as well as memory cards, USB drives and a number of other storage devices. The program displays detailed information about the drive (firmware version, serial number, disk size, buffer size and data transfer mode) and allows you to set the device status using S.M.A.R.T data. and temperature monitoring. In addition, it can be used to test the disk surface for errors and evaluate the performance of the device by running a series of tests (sequential and random read / write speed tests, file performance test, cache test and a number of Extra tests). The utility can also be used to configure AAM and safe removal data. The program is presented in two editions: commercial HD Tune Pro and free lightweight HD Tune. In the HD Tune edition, only viewing detailed information about the disk and the S.M.A.R.T. attribute table is available, as well as scanning the disk for errors and testing for speed in read mode (Low level benchmark - read).

The Health tab is responsible for monitoring S.M.A.R.T. attributes in the program - data is read from the sensors after a set period of time, the results are displayed in the table. For any attribute, you can view the history of its changes in numerical form and on a graph. Monitoring data is automatically logged, but no user notifications are provided for critical parameter changes.

As for scanning the disk surface for bad sectors, the tab is responsible for this operation. error Scan. Scanning can be quick (Quick scan) and deep - during a quick scan, not the entire disk is scanned, but only some part of it (the scan area is determined through the Start and End fields). Bad sectors are displayed on the disk map as red blocks.

HDDScan 3.3

Developer: Artem Rubtsov

Distribution size: 3.64 MB

Work under control: Windows 2000(SP4)/XP(SP2/SP3)/Server 2003/Vista/7

Distribution method: freeware (http://hddscan.com/download/HDDScan-3.3.zip)

Price: for free

HDDScan is a utility for low-level diagnostics of hard drives, solid state drives and USB flash drives. The main purpose of this program is to test disks for bad blocks and bad sectors. Also, the utility can be used to view the contents of S.M.A.R.T., monitor temperature and change some hard drive settings: noise management (AAM), power management (APM), forced start / stop of the drive spindle, etc. The program works without installation and can be launched from portable media, like flash drives.

Display of S.M.A.R.T. attributes and temperature monitoring in HDDScan is done on demand. S.M.A.R.T. report contains information about the performance and "health" of the drive in the form of a standard attribute table, the temperature of the drive is displayed in the system tray and in a special information window. Reports can be printed or saved as an MHT file. S.M.A.R.T. tests are possible.

Checking the disk surface is performed in one of four modes: Verify (linear verification mode), Read (linear reading), Erase (linear writing) and Butterfly Read (Butterfly reading mode). To check the disk for the presence of bad blocks, a test in Read mode is usually used, with the help of which the surface is tested without deleting data (a conclusion about the state of the drive is made based on the speed of sector-by-sector data reading). When testing in the linear recording mode (Erase), the information on the disk is overwritten, but this test can somewhat heal the disk, ridding it of bad sectors. In any of the modes, you can test the entire disk or a certain fragment of it (the scanning area is determined by specifying the initial and final logical sectors - Start LBA and End LBA, respectively). The test results are presented in the form of a report (Report tab) and displayed on a graph (Graph) and a disk map (Map) indicating, among other things, the number of bad sectors (Bads) and sectors, the response time of which during testing took more than 500 ms (marked in red ).

Hard Drive Inspector 4.13

Developer: AltrixSoft

Distribution size: 2.64 MB

Work under control: Windows 2000/XP/2003 Server/Vista/7

Distribution method: shareware (14-day demo - http://www.altrixsoft.com/ru/download/)

Price: Hard Drive Inspector Professional - 600 rubles; Hard Drive Inspector for Notebooks - 800 rubles.

Hard Drive Inspector is a handy solution for S.M.A.R.T. monitoring of external and internal HDDs. IN this moment the program is offered on the market in two editions: basic Hard Drive Inspector Professional and portable Hard Drive Inspector for Notebooks; the latter includes all the functionality of the Professional version, and at the same time takes into account the specifics of monitoring laptop hard drives. Theoretically, there is another version of the SSD, but it is distributed only in OEM deliveries.

The program provides automatic verification of S.M.A.R.T. attributes at specified intervals and, upon completion, issues its verdict regarding the state of the drive, displaying the values ​​of some conditional indicators: "reliability", "performance" and "no errors" along with a numerical temperature value and a temperature diagram. It also provides technical data about the drive model, its capacity, total free space and operating time in hours (days). In advanced mode, you can view information about disk parameters (buffer size, firmware name, etc.) and the S.M.A.R.T attribute table. There are various options for informing the user in case of critical changes on the disk. Additionally, the utility can be used to reduce the noise level produced by hard drives, and reduce HDD power consumption.

HD Life 4.0

Developer: BinarySense Ltd.

Distribution size: 8.45 MB

Work under control: Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista/7/8

Distribution method: shareware (15-day demo - http://hddlife.ru/rus/downloads.html)

Price: HDDlife - free; HDDLife Pro - 300 rubles; HDDlife for Notebooks - 500 rubles.

HDDLife is a simple utility designed to monitor the status of hard drives and SSDs (since version 4.0). The program is presented in three editions: free HDDLife and two commercial editions - basic HDDLife Pro and portable HDDlife for Notebooks.

The utility monitors S.M.A.R.T. attributes and temperature at specified intervals and, based on the results of the analysis, issues a compact report on the state of the disk, indicating technical data on the disk model and its capacity, hours worked, temperature, and also displays the conditional percentage of its health and performance, which allows to navigate the situation even for beginners. More advanced users additionally, they can look at the table of S.M.A.R.T.-attributes. In case of problems with hard drive it is possible to configure notifications; you can configure the program so that when the disk is in a normal state, the results of the check are not displayed. HDD noise level and power consumption can be controlled.

CrystalDiskInfo 5.4.2

Developer: Hiyohiyo

Distribution size: 1.79 MB

Work under control: Windows XP/2003/Vista/2008/7/8/2012

Distribution method: freeware (http://crystalmark.info/download/index-e.html)

Price: for free

CrystalDiskInfo is a simple utility for S.M.A.R.T. health monitoring of hard drives (including many external HDDs) and SSDs. Despite the freeware, the program has all the necessary functionality to organize disk health monitoring.

Disks are monitored automatically after a specified number of minutes or on demand. At the end of the test, the system tray displays the temperature of monitored devices; Detailed information about the HDD with S.M.A.R.T. values, temperature, and the program's verdict on the state of the devices is available in the main window of the utility. There is functionality to set threshold values ​​for some parameters and automatically notify the user if they are exceeded. Noise level management (AAM) and power management (APM) are possible.

Unfortunately, a large part of modern HDDs work normally for a little over a year, then all sorts of problems begin, which over time can lead to data loss. Such a prospect can be completely avoided if you carefully monitor the condition of the hard drive, for example, using the utilities discussed in the article. However, you should not forget about regular backup of valuable data either, since monitoring utilities, as a rule, successfully predict the failure of a drive due to the fault of "mechanics" (according to Seagate's statistics, about 60% of HDDs fail due to mechanical components), but they are not able to predict the death of the drive due to problems with the electronic components of the drive.

Modern HDD is a unique component of a computer. It is unique in that it stores service information, by studying which, you can evaluate the "health" of the disk. This information contains the history of changes in many parameters monitored by the hard drive during operation. No other component system block does not provide the owner with statistics of his work! Together with the fact that the HDD is one of the most unreliable computer components, such statistics can be very useful and help its owner avoid hassle and loss of money and time.

Information about the state of the disk is available thanks to a set of technologies called by the common name S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring, Analisys and Reporting Technology, i.e. technology of self-monitoring, analysis and reporting). This complex is quite extensive, but we will talk about those aspects of it that allow you to look at the S.M.A.R.T. attributes displayed in any hard drive testing program and understand what is happening with the disk.

I note that the following applies to drives with SATA and PATA interfaces. SAS, SCSI, and other server drives also have S.M.A.R.T., but its representation is very different from SATA/PATA. Yes, and it is usually not a person who monitors server disks, but a RAID controller, so we will not talk about them.

So, if we open S.M.A.R.T. in any of the numerous programs, we will see approximately the following picture (the screenshot shows the S.M.A.R.T. of the Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000. With HDS721010CLA332 in HDDScan 3.3):

Each line displays a separate S.M.A.R.T attribute. Attributes have more or less standardized names and certain number, which do not depend on the model and manufacturer of the disk.

Each S.M.A.R.T. has multiple fields. Each field belongs to a specific class from the following: ID, Value, Worst, Threshold and RAW. Let's look at each of the classes.

• ID(may also be called number) — identifier, attribute number in S.M.A.R.T. technology. The name of the same attribute can be given by programs in different ways, but the identifier always uniquely identifies the attribute. This is especially useful in the case of programs that translate the generally accepted attribute name from English into Russian. Sometimes it turns out such rubbish that you can understand what kind of parameter it is only by its identifier.
• Value (Current)- the current value of the attribute in parrots (i.e., in values ​​of unknown dimension). During the operation of the hard drive, it can decrease, increase and remain unchanged. By the Value indicator, one cannot judge the "health" of an attribute without comparing it with the Threshold value of the same attribute. As a rule, the smaller the Value, the worse the state of the attribute (initially, all value classes, except RAW, on the new disk have the maximum possible value, for example, 100).
• Worst- the worst value that the Value value has reached in the entire life of the hard drive. It is also measured in "parrots". In the course of work, it can decrease or remain unchanged. It also cannot be used to unequivocally judge the health of an attribute, you need to compare it with Threshold.
• Threshold- the value in "parrots" that the Value of the same attribute must reach in order for the attribute's state to be recognized as critical. Simply put, Threshold is a threshold: if Value is greater than Threshold, the attribute is fine; if less than or equal, with the problem attribute. It is by this criterion that utilities that read S.M.A.R.T. issue a report on the status of the disk or a separate attribute like “Good” or “Bad”. At the same time, they do not take into account that even with Value greater than Threshold, the disk can actually already be dying from the user's point of view, or even at all walking dead, so when assessing disk health, you should still look at another attribute class, namely RAW. However, it is the value of Value that falls below Threshold that can become a legitimate reason for replacing a disk under warranty (for the guaranteeers themselves, of course) - who can speak more clearly about the health of a disk than he himself, demonstrating the current value of the attribute is worse than the critical threshold? That is, if the value of Value is greater than Threshold, the disk itself considers that the attribute is healthy, and if it is less or equal, it is sick. Obviously, if Threshold=0, the attribute state will never be recognized as critical. Threshold is a constant parameter hardcoded by the manufacturer in the disk.
• RAW (Data)- the most interesting, important and necessary indicator for evaluation. In most cases, it does not contain "parrots", but real values ​​expressed in various units of measurement, directly talking about the current state of the disk. Based on this indicator, the Value value is formed (but by what algorithm it is formed is already a secret of the manufacturer, covered in darkness). It is the ability to read and analyze the RAW field that makes it possible to objectively assess the state of the hard drive.

This is what we will do now - we will analyze all the most used S.M.A.R.T. attributes, see what they say and what to do if they are not in order.

Attributes of S.M.A.R.T.

0x

0x

Before describing attributes and valid values ​​for their RAW field, let me clarify that attributes can have a RAW field. different type: current and accumulative. The current field contains the value of the attribute at the moment, it is characterized by a periodic change (for some attributes - occasionally, for others - many times per second; another thing is that such a quick change is not displayed in S.M.A.R.T. readers). Accumulating field - contains statistics, usually it contains the number of occurrences of a particular event since the first start of the disk.

The current type is typical for attributes for which it makes no sense to summarize their previous readings. For example, the disk temperature reading is current: its purpose is to show the current temperature, not the sum of all previous temperatures. The accumulative type is characteristic of attributes for which their entire meaning is to provide information for the entire period of the "life" of the hard drive. For example, the attribute that characterizes the time of disk operation is cumulative, i.e. it contains the number of units of time worked out by the drive during its entire history.

Let's start looking at attributes and their RAW fields.

Attribute: 01 Raw Read Error Rate

All Seagate, Samsung (starting with the SpinPoint F1 family (inclusive)) and Fujitsu 2.5″ drives have huge numbers in these fields.

For other Samsung drives and all WD drives, this field is 0.

For Hitachi disks, this field is characterized by 0 or a periodic change in the field in the range from 0 to several units.

Such differences are due to the fact that all Seagate hard drives, some Samsung and Fujitsu consider the values ​​​​of these parameters differently than WD, Hitachi and other Samsung. During the operation of any hard drive, errors of this kind always occur, and it overcomes them on its own, this is normal, just on disks that contain 0 or a small number in this field, the manufacturer did not consider it necessary to indicate the true number of these errors.

Thus, a non-zero parameter on WD and Samsung drives up to SpinPoint F1 (not included) and a large value of the parameter on Hitachi drives may indicate hardware problems with the drive. Be aware that utilities can display multiple values ​​contained in the RAW field of this attribute as one, and it will look quite large, although this will not be true (see below for details).

On Seagate drives, Samsung (SpinPoint F1 and newer), and Fujitsu can ignore this attribute.

Attribute: 02 Throughput Performance

The parameter does not give any information to the user and does not indicate any danger in any of its values.

Attribute: 03 Spin-Up Time

The acceleration time may vary for different disks (and for disks of the same manufacturer, too) depending on the spin-up current, the mass of pancakes, the nominal speed of the spindle, etc.

By the way, Fujitsu hard drives always have one in this field if there are no problems with spinning the spindle.

It says practically nothing about the health of the disk, so when assessing the state of the hard drive, you can ignore the parameter.

Attribute: 04 Number of Spin-Up Times (Start/Stop Count)

When assessing health, ignore the attribute.

Attribute: 05 Reallocated Sector Count

Let us explain what a “reassigned sector” is in general. When a disk encounters an unreadable/poorly readable/unwritable/poorly writable sector during operation, it may consider it irreparably damaged. Especially for such cases, the manufacturer provides on each disk (on some models - in the center (logical end) of the disk, on some - at the end of each track, etc.) a reserve area. In the presence of a damaged sector, the disk marks it as unreadable and uses the sector in the spare area instead, making the appropriate marks in a special list of surface defects - G-list. Such an operation to assign a new sector to the role of the old one is called remap (remap) or reassignment, and used instead of the damaged sector - reassigned. The new sector receives the LBA logical number of the old one, and now when software accesses the sector with this number (programs don't know about any reassignments!) the request will be redirected to the reserve area.

Thus, even though the sector is out of order, the volume of the disk does not change. It is clear that it does not change for the time being, because the volume of the reserve area is not infinite. However, the spare area may well contain several thousand sectors, and it would be very irresponsible to allow it to end - the disk will need to be replaced long before that.

By the way, repairmen say that Samsung drives very often do not want to perform sector reassignment in any way.

Opinions differ on this attribute. Personally, I believe that if it reaches 10, the disk must be changed - after all, this means a progressive process of degradation of the surface state of either pancakes, or heads, or something else hardware, and there is no way to stop this process. By the way, according to people close to Hitachi, Hitachi itself considers a disk to be replaced when it already has 5 reassigned sectors. Another question is whether this information is official, and whether service centers follow this opinion. Something tells me not :)

Another thing is that service center employees may refuse to recognize the disk as faulty if the proprietary utility of the disk manufacturer writes something like “S.M.A.R.T. Status: Good” or the Value or Worst values ​​of the attribute will be greater than Threshold (in fact, the manufacturer’s utility itself can evaluate by this criterion). And formally they will be right. But who needs a drive with constant deterioration of its hardware components, even if such deterioration is in line with the nature of the hard drive, and hard drive technology tries to minimize its consequences by allocating, for example, a spare area?

Attribute: 07 Seek Error Rate

The description of the formation of this attribute almost completely coincides with the description for attribute 01 Raw Read Error Rate, except that for Hitachi hard drives the normal value of the RAW field is only 0.

Thus, do not pay attention to the attribute on Seagate, Samsung SpinPoint F1 and newer and Fujitsu 2.5″ drives, the rest Samsung models, as well as on all WD and Hitachi, a non-zero value indicates problems, for example, with a bearing, etc.

Attribute: 08 Seek Time Performance

Does not give any information to the user and does not indicate any danger in any of its values.

Attribute: 09 Power On Hours Count (Power-on Time)

Says nothing about disk health.

Attribute: 10 (0A - Hexadecimal) Spin Retry Count

Most often, he does not talk about the health of the disk.

The main reasons for increasing the parameter are poor contact between the disk and the power supply unit or the inability of the power supply unit to supply the required current to the power supply line of the disk.

Ideally, it should be equal to 0. With an attribute value of 1-2, you can ignore it. If the value is greater, first of all, you should pay close attention to the condition of the power supply, its quality, the load on it, check the contact of the hard drive with the power cable, check the power cable itself.

Surely the disk may not start immediately due to problems with it, but this happens very rarely, and this possibility should be considered as a last resort.

Attribute: 11 (0B) Calibration Retry Count (Recalibration Retries)

A non-zero, and especially a growing value of the parameter may mean problems with the disk.

Attribute: 12 (0C) Power Cycle Count

Not related to disk state.

Attribute: 183 (B7) SATA Downshift Error Count

Doesn't say anything about the health of the drive.

Attribute: 184 (B8) End-to-End Error

A non-zero value indicates disk problems.

Attribute: 187 (BB) Reported Uncorrected Sector Count (UNC Error)

A non-zero attribute value clearly indicates that the disk is in an abnormal state (combined with a non-zero attribute value of 197) or that it was previously so (combined with a null value of 197).

Attribute: 188 (BC) Command Timeout

Such errors can occur due to the poor quality of cables, contacts, used adapters, extension cords, etc., as well as due to the incompatibility of the disk with a specific SATA / PATA controller on the motherboard (or discrete). Due to errors of this kind, BSODs are possible in Windows.

A non-zero value of the attribute indicates a potential "disease" of the disk.

Attribute: 189 (BD) High Fly Writes

In order to say why such cases occur, you need to be able to analyze the S.M.A.R.T. logs, which contain information specific to each manufacturer, which is not currently implemented in open source software - therefore, you can ignore the attribute.

Attribute: 190 (BE) Airflow Temperature

Doesn't say anything about the status of the disk.

Attribute: 191 (BF) G-Sensor Shock Count (Mechanical Shock)

Relevant for mobile hard drives. On Samsung drives, you can often ignore it, because they can have a very sensitive sensor, which, figuratively speaking, reacts almost to the movement of air from the wings of a fly flying in the same room as the drive.

In general, the operation of the sensor is not a sign of an impact. It can grow even from the positioning of the BMG with the disc itself, especially if it is not fixed. The main purpose of the sensor is to stop the recording operation during vibrations in order to avoid errors.

Doesn't talk about disk health.

Attribute: 192 (C0) Power Off Retract Count (Emergency Retry Count)

It does not allow to judge the state of the disk.

Attribute: 193 (C1) Load/Unload Cycle Count

Doesn't talk about disk health.

Attribute: 194 (C2) Temperature (HDA Temperature, HDD Temperature)

The attribute does not tell about the state of the disk, but it allows you to control one of the most important parameters. My opinion: when working, try not to allow the temperature of the hard drive to rise above 50 degrees, although the manufacturer usually declares a maximum temperature limit of 55-60 degrees.

Attribute: 195 (C3) Hardware ECC Recovered

Features inherent in this attribute on different discs fully correspond to those of attributes 01 and 07.

Attribute: 196 (С4) Reallocated Event Count

Indirectly speaks about disk health. The higher the value, the worse. However, one cannot unequivocally judge the health of a disk by this parameter without considering other attributes.

This attribute is directly related to attribute 05. With growth of 196, 05 most often grows. If attribute 05 does not grow when attribute 196 grows, it means that when trying to remap, the candidate for bad blocks turned out to be a soft bad (see details below), and the disk fixed it so that the sector was deemed healthy and no remapping was necessary.

If attribute 196 is less than attribute 05, it means that during some remapping operations several bad sectors were transferred at one time.

If attribute 196 is greater than attribute 05, it means that during some reassignment operations, later corrected soft-bads were found.

Attribute: 197 (С5) Current Pending Sector Count

If a disk stumbles upon a “bad” sector during operation (for example, the checksum of the sector does not match the data in it), the disk marks it as a candidate for remapping, enters it into a special internal list and increases parameter 197. It follows that the disk may have bad sectors, which he does not yet know about - after all, there may well be areas on the plates that the hard drive does not use for some time.

When attempting to write to a sector, the drive first checks to see if that sector is in the list of candidates. If the sector is not found there, the recording proceeds in the usual way. If it is found, this sector is tested by writing-reading. If all test operations pass normally, then the disk considers that the sector is healthy. (That is, there was a so-called “soft bad” - an erroneous sector arose not due to the fault of the disk, but for other reasons: for example, at the time of recording information, the electricity went out, and the disk interrupted the recording, parking the BMG. As a result, the data in sector will be underwritten, and the sector checksum, which depends on the data in it, will remain old at all.There will be a discrepancy between it and the data in the sector.) In this case, the disk performs the originally requested write and removes the sector from the list of candidates. In this case, the attribute 197 decreases, it is also possible to increase the attribute 196.

If the test fails, the disk performs a remapping operation, decrementing attribute 197, incrementing 196 and 05, and making marks in the G-list.

So, a non-zero value of the parameter indicates problems (however, it cannot say whether the problem is in the disk itself).

If the value is non-zero, it is necessary to start sequential reading of the entire surface in the Victoria or MHDD programs with the option remap. Then, when scanning, the disk will definitely stumble upon a bad sector and try to write to it (in the case of Victoria 3.5 and the option advanced remap- the disk will try to write the sector up to 10 times). Thus, the program will provoke a “treatment” of the sector, and as a result, the sector will either be fixed or reassigned.

In case of reading failure, both with remap, so with advanced remap, you should try to start sequential recording in the same Victoria or MHDD. Keep in mind that the write operation erases data, so be sure to make a backup before using it!

Sometimes the following manipulations can help prevent a failure to perform a remap: remove the disk electronics board and clean the contacts of the hard drive HDA connecting it to the board - they can be oxidized. Be careful when performing this procedure - because of it, you can lose your warranty!

The impossibility of remapping may be due to another reason - the disk has exhausted the reserve area, and it simply has nowhere to remap sectors.

If the value of attribute 197 is not reduced to 0 by any manipulations, you should think about replacing the disk.

Attribute: 198 (C6) Offline Uncorrectable Sector Count (Uncorrectable Sector Count)

This parameter changes only under the influence of offline testing, no program scans affect it. During self-test operations, the behavior of the attribute is the same as that of attribute 197.

A non-zero value indicates problems on the disk (just like 197, without specifying who is to blame).

Attribute: 199 (C7) UltraDMA CRC Error Count

In the vast majority of cases, errors are caused by a poor-quality data transfer cable, overclocking of the computer's PCI / PCI-E buses, or poor contact in the SATA connector on the disk or on the motherboard / controller.

Errors during transmission over the interface and, as a result, the growing value of the attribute can lead to switching operating system the operating mode of the channel on which the drive is located, to PIO mode, which leads to a sharp drop in read / write speed when working with it and processor load up to 100% (seen in the Windows Task Manager).

In the case of Hitachi hard drives of the Deskstar 7K3000 and 5K3000 series, the growing attribute may indicate incompatibility between the disk and the SATA controller. To remedy the situation, you need to forcibly switch such a drive to SATA 3 Gb / s mode.

My opinion: if there are errors, reconnect the cable from both ends; if their number grows and it is more than 10 - throw away the cable and put a new one in its place or remove the overclock.

Attribute: 200 (C8) Write Error Rate (MultiZone Error Rate)

Attribute: 202 (CA) Data Address Mark Error

Attribute: 203 (CB) Run Out Cancel

Health effects are unknown.

Attribute: 220 (DC) Disk Shift

Health effects are unknown.

Attribute: 240 (F0) Head Flying Hours

Health effects are unknown.

Attribute: 254 (FE) Free Fall Event Count

Health effects are unknown.

Let's summarize the description of the attributes. Non-zero values:

When analyzing attributes, keep in mind that some S.M.A.R.T. several values ​​for this parameter can be stored: for example, for the penultimate run of the disk and for the last one. Such multi-byte parameters are logically composed of multiple values ​​of fewer bytes - for example, a parameter that stores two values ​​for the last two runs, each with 2 bytes, would be 4 bytes long. Programs that interpret S.M.A.R.T. are often unaware of this, and show this parameter as one number rather than two, which sometimes leads to confusion and excitement for the disk owner. For example, "Raw Read Error Rate", which stores the last value"1" and the last value "0" will look like 65536.

It should be noted that not all programs can correctly display such attributes. Many just translate an attribute with several values ​​​​into the decimal number system as one huge number. Correctly display such content - either with a breakdown by values ​​(then the attribute will consist of several separate numbers), or in hexadecimal system reckoning (then the attribute will look like a single number, but its components will be easily distinguishable at a glance), or both at the same time. Examples of good programs are HDDScan, CrystalDiskInfo, Hard Disk Sentinel.

Let's demonstrate the differences in practice. This is what the instantaneous value of attribute 01 looks like on one of my Hitachi HDS721010CLA332 in Victoria 4.46b, which does not take into account the feature of this attribute:

And this is how it looks in the “correct” HDDScan 3.3:

The advantages of HDDScan in this context are obvious, aren't they?

If we analyze S.M.A.R.T. on different disks, you may notice that the same attributes may behave differently. For example, some S.M.A.R.T. Hitachi hard drives are reset to zero after a certain period of disk inactivity; parameter 01 has features on Hitachi, Seagate, Samsung and Fujitsu drives, 03 on Fujitsu. It is also known that after flashing a disk, some parameters may be set to 0 (for example, 199). However, such a forced reset of the attribute will by no means indicate that the problems with the disk have been resolved (if any). After all, a growing critical attribute is consequence trouble, not cause.

When analyzing multiple datasets, S.M.A.R.T. it becomes obvious that the set of attributes for disks different manufacturers and even different models of the same manufacturer may differ. This is due to the so-called vendor-specific attributes (i.e. attributes used by a certain manufacturer to monitor their drives) and should not be cause for concern. If the monitoring software can read such attributes (for example, Victoria 4.46b), then on disks for which they are not intended, they can have "terrible" (huge) values, and they simply do not need to be paid attention to. This is how, for example, Victoria 4.46b displays the RAW values ​​of attributes that are not intended for monitoring in Hitachi HDS721010CLA332:

Often there is a problem when programs cannot read S.M.A.R.T. disk. In the case of a working hard drive, this can be caused by several factors. For example, S.M.A.R.T. is not displayed very often. when connecting a drive in AHCI mode. In such cases, it is worth trying different programs, in particular HDD Scan, which has the ability to work in this mode, although it does not always succeed, or it is worth temporarily switching the disk to IDE compatibility mode, if possible. Further, on many motherboards, the controllers to which the hard drives are connected are not built into the chipset or the south bridge, but are implemented by separate microcircuits. In this case, the DOS version of Victoria, for example, will not see the hard disk connected to the controller, and it will need to force it by pressing the [P] key and entering the channel number with the disk. Often not read S.M.A.R.T. from USB drives, which is explained by the fact that the USB controller simply does not skip commands for reading S.M.A.R.T. Almost never read S.M.A.R.T. for disks operating as part of a RAID array. Here, too, it makes sense to try different programs, but in the case of hardware RAID controllers, this is useless.

If, after purchasing and installing a new hard drive, any programs (HDD Life, Hard Drive Inspector, etc.) show that: the disk has 2 hours left to live; its productivity is 27%; health - 19.155% (choose to taste) - then you should not panic. Understand the following. First, you need to look at the S.M.A.R.T. indicators, and not at the numbers of health and productivity that come from nowhere (however, the principle of their calculation is clear: the worst indicator is taken). Secondly, any program when evaluating S.M.A.R.T. looks at the deviation of the values ​​of various attributes from previous readings. At the first launch of a new disk, the parameters are unstable, it takes some time to stabilize them. The program that evaluates S.M.A.R.T. sees that the attributes are changing, makes calculations, it turns out that if they change at such a pace, the drive will soon fail, and it starts signaling: “Save the data!” Some time will pass (up to a couple of months), the attributes will stabilize (if everything is really in order with the disk), the utility will collect data for statistics, and the timing of the death of the disk as S.M.A.R.T stabilizes. will be carried farther and farther into the future. Evaluation of Seagate and Samsung disks by programs is a separate conversation altogether. Due to the peculiarities of attributes 1, 7, 195, even for an absolutely healthy disk, programs usually give the conclusion that it is wrapped in a sheet and crawling to the cemetery.

Note that the following situation is possible: all S.M.A.R.T. - normal, but in fact the disk is with problems, although this is not noticeable for anything yet. This is explained by the fact that S.M.A.R.T. works only “after the fact”, i.e. attributes change only when the disk encounters problem areas during operation. And until he stumbled upon them, he does not know about them and, therefore, in S.M.A.R.T. he has nothing to record.

So S.M.A.R.T. is a useful technology, but it must be used wisely. Besides, even if S.M.A.R.T. your disk is perfect, and you are constantly checking the disk - do not rely on the fact that your disk will "live" for many more years. Winchesters tend to break down so quickly that S.M.A.R.T. it simply does not have time to display its changed state, and it also happens that there are obvious problems with the disk, but in S.M.A.R.T. - Everything is fine. We can say that a good S.M.A.R.T. does not guarantee that everything is fine with the drive, but bad S.M.A.R.T. guaranteed to indicate problems. At the same time, even with a bad S.M.A.R.T. Utilities may indicate that the disk is "healthy" because critical attributes have not reached thresholds. Therefore, it is very important to analyze S.M.A.R.T. himself, without relying on the "verbal" evaluation of programs.

Although S.M.A.R.T. and works, hard drives and the concept of "reliability" are so incompatible that it is customary to consider them simply consumables. Well, like ink cartridges in a printer. Therefore, in order to avoid losing valuable data, make periodic backups to another medium (for example, another hard drive). It is best to do two backups on two different media, not counting the hard drive with the original data. Yes, this leads to additional costs, but believe me: the cost of restoring information from a broken HDD will cost you many times - if not an order of magnitude or two - more. But the data is not always able to recover even professionals. That is, the only way to ensure reliable storage of your data is to backup them.

Finally, I will mention some programs that are well suited for the analysis of S.M.A.R.T. and testing hard drives: HDDScan (Windows, DOS, free), MHDD (DOS, free).

In order to prevent damage and, as a result, prevent the loss of user data, modern hard drives are equipped with S.M.A.R.T. What kind of technology is this, how to analyze its data, through what programs this can be done - we will get acquainted with these questions in detail below.

1. S.M.A.R.T.: about the essence of technology

S.M.A.R.T is a self-diagnostic system, a set of characteristics recorded by the electronics of hard drives. This technology appeared in 1995 thanks to the joint efforts of manufacturers of hard drives. It was preceded by IntelliSafe and Predictive Failure Analysis technologies developed in 1992. S.M.A.R.T. is, in comparison with its predecessor technologies, a more advanced mechanism for determining important characteristics hard drives, which is still in use today. Drives with this technology are equipped with a built-in processor that provides counting of hours worked, identification of bad blocks (bad, bad sectors), temperature measurement, and also monitors other characteristics. S.M.A.R.T. equipped with both HDD and SSD. Naturally, due to the difference in the arrangement of these types of disks, the parameters monitored by the technology will be different.

S.M.A.R.T. - This is only a diagnostic, its data are informative. This technology does not cure HDD. With a critical value of individual parameters (in particular, when the limit of permissible bad blocks is reached), it can make itself felt when the computer boots with a message like “S.M.A.R.T. Status BAD". This means that soon the HDD may fail, and it is urgent to start backing up (or placing it in online file storages) of significant data. If the technology issues such a message within the warranty period of purchased PCs, laptops, or hard drives, these devices must be taken to the point of sale where they were purchased and the hard drive replaced. If the warranty period has expired and it is impossible to present a claim to the seller, after Reserve copy data computer must be carried in service center.

As it does not heal, S.M.A.R.T. also does not give even rough time predictions of how fast the HDD will fail. It may be that with certain critical values ​​of the parameters, the disk will last for several more years. And vice versa: there are known cases of HDD failure without warning of the condition assessment technology.

You don't have to wait for a message when you boot your computer to see the status of your hard drive based on S.M.A.R.T. diagnostics. The report can be viewed using special utilities that can be a conductor, an interface for displaying its data. Below we will consider several tools that, among their functionality, provide for the output of a SMART report. But first it is necessary to understand the values ​​of the parameters that this technology operates on.

2. S.M.A.R.T.

S.M.A.R.T. report in applications to display the results of its diagnostics, as a rule, it is presented in a table where one or another value is opposite the hard disk parameters (also called attributes). A graph with several values ​​in the report:

• The “Value” column, displayed in applications with a Russian-language interface as “Current”, is, accordingly, the current value of the hard disk parameter;
• Column "Worst" ("Worst") - the lowest value of the parameter that was recorded for the entire time of the disk;
• The “Threshold” column, also known as “Threshold” or “Threshold”, is a critically low, undesirable value of the parameter.

The state of the hard disk is mainly determined by comparing the values ​​of the current (“Value”) and the threshold (“Threshold”). These values ​​are expressed as a numerical value from 1 to 255. Some HDD manufacturers may have from 1 to 200.

The logic of the current values ​​("Value") is something like a scoring system, the more the better. A high current value (“Value”) of parameters usually means they are stable.

Threshold is often defined as 0, but this is not the rule for all parameters. Individual parameter thresholds are set to a value greater than 0 (for example, 51 or 140). This means that the current values ​​of such parameters may be below the threshold.

So, the greater the difference between the current value (“Value”) and the threshold (“Threshold”), the better the condition of the hard disk. Reducing the current value (“Value”)” to the threshold (“Threshold”) or below it means that the hard drive may soon fail. However, a low current value ("Value") is not always a bad thing. For example, state estimation technology can estimate the impressive operating time hours of hard disk drive is low, but this is not a reason to worry if the values ​​​​of other parameters are normal. The number of hours worked is a “bare” indicator, without taking into account the loads that the disk succumbed to during operation, this figure will say little. In any case, it is necessary to evaluate the diagnostic data taking into account the specifics of each parameter.

The current ("Value"), the worst ("Worst") and the threshold ("Threshold") are the main values ​​displayed by the programs for the output of the report. But individual programs may contain other data in the report, for example, Raw values ​​​​(data in hexadecimal form) or specific indicators for individual parameters (number of starts / stops of the spindle, number of bad blocks, total time work hard dial in hours, etc.).

To make the diagnostic data easier to understand, certain programs assign specific color indicators to the parameter values. As a rule, the interface theme indicator of such programs means that the hard drive is in good condition. And yellow (sometimes it can be orange) and red indicators indicate a deterioration in health, respectively, moderate and very serious.

3. Programs for displaying S.M.A.R.T.

AIDA64

View the S.M.A.R.T. it is possible in the well-known program for the complex analysis of computer components AIDA64. In the tree structure on the left, open the “Data storage” branch, click on the “SMART” section, select the desired disk at the top and look at the report on it below.

In addition to the main values, AIDA64 in the "Data" column displays specific indicators for individual parameters, and in the "Status" column gives its assessment to the values.

CrystalDiskInfo

A small free utility called CrystalDiskInfo is the most convenient way tracking diagnostics S.M.A.R.T. In the utility window at the top, you must select the HDD, and all its parameters will be displayed in the table below. Pluses of CrystalDiskInfo - display of additional data, parameter names in Russian, color indication, accent block "Technical condition".

HDDScan

To view the S.M.A.R.T. report, free program HDDScan needs to select the HDD in the "Select Drive" menu.

And press the button with the name of the technology.

HDDScan displays the main values ​​and has an additional column with the output of the Raw value. At the top of the report, the program shows the characteristics of the hard drive - model, serial number, firmware, etc. Color indication of parameter values ​​is provided.

HD Tune Pro

In the paid HD Tune Pro, to receive data, select the desired HDD in the drop-down list at the top and switch to the "Health" tab.

In addition to the table columns with the main values, HD Tune Pro provides additional columns with specific parameter indicators (“Data”) and its own assessment of S.M.A.R.T values. ("State"). There is a color indication. The advantage of the program is the display of parameter names in Russian.

Hard Disk Sentinel

Free in standard edition or trial version Pro program Hard Disk Sentinel report S.M.A.R.T. will display for the selected hard drive when you select the item with the name of the technology in the "View" menu.

In addition to the basic S.M.A.R.T. this tool displays the Raw value (column "Date") and has its own assessment of indicators (column "Status"). Color indication provided.

Victoria

Victoria's free portable utility will provide S.M.A.R.T. after selecting the desired hard drive in the "Standard" tab.

Next, you need to switch to the SMART utility tab and click the Get SMART button. Raw-values ​​and hard drive health indicators ("Health") have been added to the main values ​​of the technology. Health is determined by a color and level indicator.

4. Detailed help on S.M.A.R.T. and the nuances of their display in different programs

The names of the same parameters in different programs may not coincide verbatim. If you are interested in the value of any of the parameters, you can find out in more detail what this parameter is, how important it is, how it affects the performance of the hard drive, etc., on the Internet. Some of the programs discussed above provide for copying the names of parameters and values ​​in context menu interface. Those that do not provide such an opportunity may offer data export to a TXT file or other formats.

In addition, the names of the parameters may not match (even in programs with their display on English language), different programs may produce different sets of parameters. It is necessary to compare the same parameter in different programs by its identifier - the column "ID", it is also "Num", it is also "No." But the identifiers will also be different if we compare S.M.A.R.T. in programs with display of parameters in different languages.

Have a great day!

HDDScan

The program is designed to check hard drives and SSDs for bad sectors, view S.M.A.R.T. attributes, changing special settings, such as power management, spindle start/stop, acoustic mode adjustment, etc. Drive temperature value can be displayed on the taskbar.

Opportunities and Requirements

Supported drive types:

• HDD with ATA/SATA interface.
• HDD with SCSI interface.
• HDD with USB interface (see Appendix A).
• HDD with FireWire or IEEE 1394 interface (see Appendix A).
• RAID arrays with ATA/SATA/SCSI interface (only tests).
• Flash drives with USB interface (only tests).
• SSD with ATA/SATA interface.

Drive tests:

• Test in linear verification mode.
• Test in linear reading mode.
• Test in linear recording mode.
• Butterfly reading mode test (artificial random reading test)

S.M.A.R.T.:

• Reading and analyzing S.M.A.R.T. parameters from ATA/SATA/USB/FireWire drives.
• Reading and analysis of log tables from disks with SCSI interface.
• Launching S.M.A.R.T. tests on drives with ATA/SATA/USB/FireWire interface.
• Temperature monitor on drives with ATA/SATA/USB/FireWire/SCSI interface.

Additional features:

• Reading and analysis of identification information from drives with ATA/SATA/USB/FireWire/SCSI interface.
• Changing AAM, APM, PM parameters on drives with ATA/SATA/USB/FireWire interface.
• View information about defects on a SCSI drive.
• Spindle start/stop on drives with ATA/SATA/USB/FireWire/SCSI interface.
• Save reports in MHT format.
• Print reports.
• Skins support.
• Command line support.
• Support for SSD drives.

Requirements:

• Operating system: Windows XP SP3, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10(NEW).
• The program must not be run from a drive that is in read-only mode.

User interface

The main view of the program at startup

Rice. 1 Main view of the program

Main window controls:

• Select Drive is a dropdown list that contains all supported drives in the system. The drive model and serial number are displayed. Nearby is an icon that determines the expected type of drive.
• S.M.A.R.T button – allows you to get a drive status report based on S.M.A.R.T attributes.
• TESTS button - shows a pop-up menu with a choice of read and write tests (see Fig. 2).
• TOOLS Button - Shows a pop-up menu for selecting available dial controls and functions (see Figure 3).
• More button - shows a drop-down menu with program controls.

When you press the TESTS button, a pop-up menu will offer you one of the tests. If you select any test, the test dialog will open (see Figure 4).

Rice. 2 Test menu

When you press the TOOLS button, a pop-up menu will prompt you to select one of the following options:

Rice. 3 Function menu

• DRIVE ID - Generates an identification information report.
• FEATURES - opens a window of additional features of the program.
• S.M.A.R.T. TEST - opens the S.M.A.R.T. tests: Short, Extended, Conveyance.
• TEMP MON - starts the temperature monitoring task.
• COMMAND - opens the command line build window.

Test Dialog Box

Rice. 4 Test dialog box

Controls:

• The FIRST SECTOR field is the initial logical sector number for testing.
• The SIZE field is the number of logical sector numbers for testing.
• The BLOCK SIZE field is the block size in sectors for testing.
• Button Previous - returns to the main window of the program.
• Next button - adds the test to the task queue.

Features and limitations of tests:

• Only one surface test can be run at a time. This is due to the fact that the author of the program has not yet been able to obtain stable high-quality results when running 2 or more tests simultaneously (on different drives).
• A test in Verify mode can have a block size limit of 256, 16384, or 65536 sectors. This is due to the peculiarities of Windows.
• Test in Verify mode may not work properly on USB/Flash drives.
• When testing in the Verify mode, the drive reads the data block into the internal buffer and checks their integrity; no data is transmitted through the interface. The program measures the drive readiness time after performing this operation after each block and displays the results. Blocks are tested sequentially - from the minimum to the maximum.
• When testing in the Read mode, the drive reads data into the internal buffer, after which the data is transmitted through the interface and stored in the program's temporary buffer. The program measures the total drive readiness and data transfer time after each block and displays the results. Blocks are tested sequentially - from the minimum to the maximum.
• When testing in the Erase mode, the program prepares a data block filled with a special pattern with a sector number and transfers the data to the drive, the drive writes the received block ( information in the block is irretrievably lost!). The program measures the total time of transferring and writing a block and the readiness of the drive after each block and displays the results. Blocks are tested sequentially - from the minimum to the maximum.
• Testing in Butterfly Read mode is similar to testing in Read mode. The difference lies in the order in which the blocks are tested. Blocks are processed in pairs. The first block in the first pair will be Block 0. The second block in the first pair will be Block N, where N is the last block of the given section. The next pair will be Block 1, Block N-1, and so on. Testing ends in the middle of a given section. This test measures reading and positioning time.

Task management window

Rice. 5 Task manager

This window contains the task queue. This includes all the tests that the program runs, as well as the temperature monitor. The manager allows you to remove tests from the queue. Some tasks can be paused or stopped.

Double clicking on an entry in the queue brings up a window with information about the current task.

Test Information Window

The window contains information about the test, allows you to pause or stop the test, and also generates a report.

Graph tab:

Contains information about the dependence of the testing speed on the block number, which is presented in the form of a graph.

Rice. 6 Graph tab

Map tab:

Contains information about the dependence of the testing time on the block number, which is presented as a map.

Rice. 7 Map tab

You can select "Block Processing Time" in milliseconds. Each tested block that took longer than the "Block Processing Time" will be logged in the "Report" tab.

Report tab:

Contains information about the test and all blocks whose testing time is greater than "Block Processing Time".

Rice. 8 Report tab

Identification Information

The report contains information about the main physical and logical parameters of the drive.

The report can be printed and saved to an MHT file.

Rice. 9 Example of an identification information window

S.M.A.R.T. report

The report contains information about the performance and "health" of the drive in the form of attributes. If, according to the program, the attribute is normal, then next to it is a green icon. Yellow indicates attributes that you should pay special attention to, as a rule, they indicate some kind of drive malfunction. Red indicates attributes that are outside the norm.

Reports can be printed or saved to an MHT file.

Rice. 10 Sample S.M.A.R.T.

Temperature monitor

Allows you to estimate the temperature of the drive. Information is displayed in the taskbar, as well as in a special test information window. Rice. 11 contains readings for two drives.

Rice. 11 Temperature monitor in the taskbar

For ATA/SATA/USB/FireWire drives, the information window contains 2 values. The second value is displayed in the taskbar.

The first value is taken from the Airflow Temperature attribute, the second value is taken from the HDA Temperature attribute.

Rice. 12 Temperature monitor for ATA/SATA drive

For SCSI drives, the information window contains 2 values. The second value is displayed in the taskbar.

The first value contains the maximum allowable temperature for the drive, the second shows the current temperature.

Rice. 13 Temperature monitor for SCSI disk

S.M.A.R.T. tests

The program allows you to run three types of S.M.A.R.T. tests:

1. Short test - usually lasts 1-2 minutes. Checks the main components of the drive, and also scans a small area of ​​the drive surface and sectors in the Pending-List (sectors that may contain read errors). The test is recommended for a quick assessment of the condition of the drive.
2. Extended test - usually lasts from 0.5 to 60 hours. Checks the main components of the drive, and also completely scans the surface of the drive.
3. Conveyance test - usually lasts a few minutes. Checks drive nodes and logs that may indicate that the drive has been stored or shipped incorrectly.

A SMART test can be selected from the SMART Tests dialog, accessed by pressing the SMART TESTS button.

Rice. 14 SMART Tests dialog box

Once selected, the test will be added to the Tasks queue. Information window S.M.A.R.T. test can display the progress and completion status of a task.

Rice. 15 Information window S.M.A.R.T. test

Additional features

For ATA/SATA/USB/FireWire drives, the program allows you to change some parameters.

1. AAM - the function controls the noise of the drive. Enabling this feature allows you to reduce the noise of the drive due to smoother positioning of the heads. In this case, the drive loses a little in performance during random access.
2. APM - the function allows you to save drive power by temporarily reducing the speed of rotation (or completely stopping) of the drive spindle during idle time.
3. PM - the function allows you to set the spindle stop timer for a specific time. When this time is reached, the spindle will be stopped provided that the drive is idle. Accessing the drive by any program causes the spindle to be forced to spin up and the timer to reset to zero.
4. The program also allows you to stop or start the drive spindle forcibly. Access to the drive by any program causes forced spinning of the spindle.

Rice. 16 Information window for additional features of the ATA/SATA drive

For SCSI drives, the program allows you to view defect lists and start/stop the spindle.

Rice. 17 SCSI drive advanced features information window

Using the command line

The program can build command line to control some drive settings and save this string to a .bat or .cmd file. When such a file is launched, the program is called in the background, changes the drive settings in accordance with the specified ones, and closes automatically.

Rice. 18 Command line build window

Appendix A: USB/FireWire Drives

If the drive is supported by the program, then tests are available for it, S.M.A.R.T. features and additional features.

If the drive is not supported by the program, then only tests are available for it.

USB/FireWire drives supported by the program:

Maxtor Personal Storage (USB2120NEP001)

Storage device	Controller chip
StarTeck IDECase35U2	Cypress CY7C68001
WD Passpopt	unknown
Iomega PB-10391	unknown
Seagate ST9000U2 (PN: 9W3638-556)	Cypress CY7C68300B
Seagate External Drive (PN: 9W286D)	Cypress CY7C68300B
Seagate FreeAgentPro	Oxford
CASE SWEXX ST010	Cypress AT2LP RC7
Vantec CB-ISATAU2 (adapter)	Micron JM20337
Beyond Micro Mobile Disk 3.5" 120GB	Prolific PL3507 (USB only)
Maxtor Personal Storage 3100	Prolific PL2507
In-System ISD300A
	SunPlus SPIF215A
Toshiba USB Mini Hard Drive	unknown
USB Teac HD-15 PUK-B-S	unknown
Transcend StoreJet 35 Ultra (TS1TSJ35U-EU)	unknown
AGEStar FUBCP	Micron JM20337
USB Teac HD-15 PUK-B-S	unknown
	Prolific 2571
All Drives That Support SAT Protocol	Majority of Modern USB controllers

USB / FireWire drives that the program may support:

Storage device	Controller chip
AGEStar IUB3A	Cypress
AGEStar ICB3RA	Cypress
AGEStar IUB3A4	Cypress
AGEStar IUB5A	Cypress
AGEStar IUB5P	Cypress
AGEStar IUB5S	Cypress
AGEStar NUB3AR	Cypress
AGEStar IBP2A2	Cypress
AGEStar SCB3AH	Micron JM2033x
AGEStar SCB3AHR	Micron JM2033x
AGEStar CCB3A	Micron JM2033x
AGEStar CCB3AT	Micron JM2033x
AGEStar IUB2A3	Micron JM2033x
AGEStar SCBP	Micron JM2033x
AGEStar FUBCP	Micron JM2033x
Noontec SU25	Prolific PL2507
Transcend TS80GHDC2	Prolific PL2507
Transcend TS40GHDC2	Prolific PL2507
I-O Data HDP-U series	unknown
I-O Data HDC-U series	unknown
Enermax Vanguard EB206U-B	unknown
Thermaltake Max4 A2295	unknown
Spire GigaPod SP222	unknown
CoolerMaster-RX-3SB	unknown
MegaDrive200	unknown
RaidSonic Icy Box IB-250U	unknown
Logitech USB	unknown

USB / FireWire drives that the program does not support:

Storage device	Controller chip
matrix	Genesis Logic GL811E
Pine	Genesis Logic GL811E
Iomega LDHD250-U	Cypress CY7C68300A
Iomega DHD160-U	Prolific PL-2507 (modified firmware)
Iomega
Maxtor Personal Storage 3200	Prolific PL-3507 (modified firmware)
Maxtor One Touch	Cypress CY7C68013
Seagate External Drive (PN-9W2063)	Cypress CY7C68013
Seagate Pocket HDD	unknown
SympleTech SympleDrive 9000-40479-002	CY7C68300A
	Myson Century CS8818
	Myson Century CS8813

Appendix B: SSD Drives

Support for a particular drive largely depends on the controller installed on it.

SSD drives supported by the program:

Storage device	Controller chip
OCZ Vertex, Vertex Turbo, Agility, Solid 2	Indilinx IDX110M00
Super Talent STT_FTM28GX25H	Indilinx IDX110M00
Corsair Extreme Series	Indilinx IDX110M00
Kingston SSDNow M-Series	Intel PC29AS21AA0 G1
Intel X25-M G2	Intel PC29AS21BA0 G2
OCZ Throttle	JMicron JMF601
Corsair Performance Series	Samsung S3C29RBB01
Samsung SSDs	Samsung Controllers
Crucial and Micron SSDs	Some Marvell Controllers

SSD drives that the program may support:

Additional Information

HDDScan version 3.3 can be downloaded version 2.8

Support:

A hard drive is a complex electronic-mechanical device that has its own self-diagnostic technology that can predict the imminent failure of your hard drive. Which is usually a very sad event...

Technology S.M.A.R.T.(English) S elf M monitoring A scribing and R eporting T echnology ) - a technology for assessing the state of a hard disk with built-in self-diagnostic equipment, as well as a mechanism for predicting the time of its failure.

We will not consider this technology in all details, because this is too broad a question and each of the drive manufacturers has its own vision and the number of monitored parameters. Consider the most important from a practical point of view.

To do this, we need a program to view the monitored parameters.

In it, on the "Data storage-> SMART" tab, select the hard disk and the monitored parameters are displayed in the window:

01 Raw Read Error Rate- the number of reading errors. Modern disks have a very high data storage density, so they constantly read data with errors, and the information is restored due to the ECC error correction code. It is these errors that this parameter considers. These non-critical errors are shown in Seagate hard drives, while other manufacturers prefer to remain modestly silent about this. For Seagate drives, the state can be considered very good when the Raw Read Error Rate and Hardware ECC Recovered parameters are equal. This means that how many errors there were, so many were corrected using the correction code. If these values ​​are not equal, then you should not be afraid. This is not a critical parameter and the disk can live for years without any problems.

03 Spinup Time- time to spin up the disk to a working state. You should only worry if the value is less than half of the initial value. But there are still a few nuances, such as how many platters are in the hard drive. The maximum at present is 5 platters (Hitachi), of course, it will take more time to spin up such a package of disks than for the 1st platter. Nobody canceled the force of inertia.

04 Start/Stop Count- total number of starts/stops of the spindle. For Seagate, the number of times the spindle stops when going into power save mode.

05 Reallocated Sector Count- number of reassigned sectors. That is, when a disk detects a read/write error, it marks the sector as "remapped", and transfers the data to a specially designated spare area. In general, this is a terrible parameter, if its value is more than 10, then this at least means that it is time to check the entire surface of the disk in order to understand whether this process will continue. Judging by practice, laptop disks suffer from reassigned sectors somewhere after a year of use. Because they work in very harsh conditions. I'm not talking about strikes - most are more or less protected from this. The reason is temperature. The laptop case is usually poorly ventilated and the drive overheats, then we turn off the laptop and go where? That's right, on the street! And it's -10 Celsius. That's just the rate of heating-cooling and destroys the delicate magnetic layer on the disc plates. According to the specifications of all disk manufacturers, the so-called "temporal temperature gradient", that is, the rate of temperature change should be no more than 20 degrees / hour - in working condition and no more than 30 degrees / hour in the off state. This rule is always violated, but for laptops it is especially often and cruelly.

09 Power-on Time Count (Power-on Hours)- the amount of time spent in the on state. Usually for modern drives it is measured in hours (for Fujitsu in seconds). For old Maxtor drives, not for those now produced by Seagate under this brand, but for original Maxtor drives, the time changes in minutes. This is a very useful parameter if you buy old disk, then I want to know how much he worked in his life. And besides, this time usually coincides with the time of the computer and you can determine how many people spend at the computer on average. As practice and my survey on one of the major forums dedicated to computer hardware shows, disks with an operating time of more than 20,000 hours (approximately 2.5 years of continuous operation) already have some kind of defects, for example, the same "reassigned" sectors and are not so far from senile death. From the same manufacturer's specifications, you can find out that desktop drives are not designed to work around the clock, but are designed to work in 8/5 mode, that is, 8 hours 5 days a week. This works out to about 2400 hours per year. And it turns out that the warranty is calculated for 3 years - 7200 hours, for 5 years - 12000 hours. Not so much, considering that there are 8760 hours in a year.

0A Spinup Retry Count- The number of retries to spin up disks to operating speed if the first attempt was unsuccessful. If the attribute value increases, then mechanical/bearing damage is likely. It is very rare, modern discs are made with hydrodynamic bearings, and in the event of a malfunction of such a bearing, it jams immediately and tightly or works happily ever after. Not so long ago, Toshiba drives suffered greatly from this, and to a lesser extent western digital. Jamming occurs from overheating.

0C Power Cycle Count- number of disk on/off cycles.

C2 Temperature- disk temperature. Unfortunately, the temperature sensors are located on drives from different manufacturers in different places, so there are overestimations and underestimations of the real temperature. But on average, as shown by a recent Google study, the optimal operating temperature is in the range of 35 to 45 degrees. Above 50 degrees, operation is highly discouraged, but such temperatures and even higher can often be seen in laptops.

The number of sectors that are candidates for replacement. They have not yet been identified as bad, but reading from them is different from reading a stable sector, these are the so-called suspicious or unstable sectors. In the case of a successful subsequent reading of the sector, it is excluded from the list of candidates. In the event of repeated erroneous reads, the drive tries to recover it and performs a remapping operation. A non-zero value usually occurs if there are already remapped sectors on the disk. If this is the case, then with a high probability we can say that the disk is actively "stripping", that is, the magnetic layer of the hard disk platters is being destroyed.

The number of uncorrected errors, that is, severe damage to the disk surface. Such errors appear when the space in the reserve zone of the disk for sector remapping runs out. They can also appear when the power is suddenly turned off at the moment when the disk is writing data - these are the so-called "software bad blocks". If their number is one or two, and the rest of the parameters relating to the surface of the disk are normal, then you should not worry. If it is large, then the data must be saved and the "body to be taken out" should be prepared. :)

C7 Ultra ATA CRC Error Rate- number of transmission errors in the external interface. Usually the cable is to blame or poor contact of the cable with the connectors, especially manifested on SATA drives. Occurs quite often.

C8 Write Error Rate- Errors when writing to disk. Occurs rarely. Usually on very old discs. If there are errors, then this means the physical wear of the hard disk drive. Or with serious damage to the surface of the disk. (when the number of reassigned sectors and uncorrected errors exceeds all reasonable values).

So we briefly reviewed the main parameters of the hard drive self-diagnosis system. If you want to know more about this, you can refer to Wikipedia materials:

Unfortunately, SMART cannot always predict disk death. As a study by the same Google showed, about 50% of disks die abruptly and without visible reasons. But in one this technology is definitely useful. Using it, you can quickly find out the state of the disk surface, that is, the parameters:

05 Reallocated Sector Count

C5 Current Pending Sector Count

C6 Offline Uncorrectable Sector Count

And it is very useful to know the time that a disk has worked in its life in order to roughly guess what you can expect from it.

And now a little about the future. A sufficient number of offers of really "hard drives" have already appeared on sale. They are made on flash-type solid-state memory chips and are much more reliable both in terms of mechanical stress and temperature. However, manufacturers have not yet agreed on a standard self-diagnostic system for this type of drive. But it will be much easier than for the good old electromechanical drives. And most importantly, it will predict the possibility of failure with a much higher probability! Flash memory is more predictable in this sense. Well, let's wait for this bright future!