What is the smart hard drive failure warning?

A smart hard drive failure warning is an alert from a hard disk drive indicating that a failure may be imminent. Hard disk drives contain built-in self-monitoring technology called S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology) that tracks various attributes related to drive health and performance. When certain SMART attributes cross predetermined thresholds, the drive will issue a failure warning so preventative action can be taken before catastrophic data loss occurs.

What causes a SMART failure warning?

There are a number of SMART attributes that can trigger a failure warning when they go out of spec. Some of the most common include:

• Reallocated sectors count – The drive has marked bad sectors and reallocated data to spare sectors.
• Current pending sector count – The drive has sectors flagged for reallocation.
• Seek error rate – The drive is having trouble physically reading/writing data.
• Spin retry count – The drive had trouble spinning up to access data.
• Hardware ECC recovered – The drive used hardware error correction code (ECC) to recover data.
• Read error rate – The drive is having errors reading data.
• Write error rate – The drive is having errors writing data.

A rise in any of these attributes indicates the drive is having difficulty reliably reading/writing data and is at an increased risk of failure. The thresholds are set conservatively so warning can occur well in advance of failure.

Should I be concerned about a SMART warning?

SMART warnings should not be ignored. They are an indication your hard drive health is degrading and taking action is recommended. However, SMART warnings do not necessarily mean immediate failure is imminent. The drive may continue operating reliably for days, weeks or even months after the initial warning.

But a SMART warning does mean failure is significantly more likely to occur in the near future. And once failure begins, it can spread rapidly across the drive surface leading to complete data loss. So a SMART warning is your early notification to take preventative action before that occurs.

How can I check SMART status?

There are a number of ways to check SMART status on your hard drives:

• Operating system utilities – Windows, Mac and Linux operating systems include built-in SMART monitoring tools.
• Manufacturer utilities – Most hard drive manufacturers provide free SMART monitoring software.
• Third party software – Many third party utilities can read SMART data from hard drives.
• Web monitoring – Hosting control panels and other web apps often let you monitor SMART status.
• Monitoring hardware – Servers often have hardware RAID controllers that will monitor drive SMART data.

The easiest way is usually through your operating system or third party hard drive utilities. This allows quickly scanning all drives in your system to check for any warnings.

How can I fix a drive with SMART warnings?

When a hard drive triggers SMART warnings, there are a few steps you can take to potentially extend its lifespan and avoid failure:

1. Address environmental issues – External factors like heat, vibration or power problems can sometimes trigger SMART errors. Fixing these may resolve the warnings.
2. Update firmware – Outdated drive firmware can lead to SMART misreporting. Install the latest firmware from the manufacturer.
3. Run drive diagnostics – Manufacturer and third party diagnostics tools may detect and fix drive problems.
4. Back up your data – With failure risk elevated, immediately backup your data in case the drive fails entirely.
5. Replace the drive – If the warnings persist after troubleshooting, replacing the drive entirely will be the most reliable long-term option.

Ideally backups are already taken regularly so no data is lost when a disk fails. If not, a SMART warning gives opportunity to get backups in place before failure.

Can SMART warnings be false positives?

SMART warnings are not always 100% accurate predictors of drive failure. In some cases, they may be “false positives” triggered by temporary conditions that do not actually indicate imminent failure risk. Some potential causes of false positive SMART errors include:

• External environmental factors like temperature, vibration or power issues.
• Incompatible or defective SATA cables, ports, controllers or drivers.
• Inappropriate threshold settings in monitoring utilities.
• Firmware bugs and SMART misreporting.
• Excessive or unexpected drive load outside normal parameters.

So SMART warnings should not be considered definitive evidence a drive will fail. But they do indicate a much higher risk that should not be ignored. When warnings occur, steps should be taken to rule out false conditions and diagnose true drive health.

How can I monitor SMART status?

To catch SMART warnings early, continuous monitoring of hard drive health is advised. There are several options for monitoring SMART status:

• Operating system – Many OSes like Windows 10 and Linux can be configured to show SMART status.
• Physical monitoring – Server hardware may monitor drive SMART data via controllers.
• Drive utilities – Hard drive manufacturer software can monitor SMART.
• Third party apps – Utilities like CrystalDiskInfo can track and log SMART.
• Web monitoring – Hosting panels and apps may provide SMART monitoring.
• Automated checking – Scripts can be created to read SMART data at set intervals.

For the best protection, using multiple monitoring methods is recommended. OS-level, physical, app-based and web-based checks will provide overlapping visibility into drive health.

Can bad sectors cause SMART warnings?

Accumulation of bad sectors is one of the most common causes of SMART failure warnings. Bad sectors are portions of the physical disk surface that become unreliable for storage of data. Some key points on bad sectors:

• Can develop due to natural wear, physical damage or manufacturing defects.
• Modern drives reserve spare sectors to automatically remap bad sectors.
• The reallocated sectors SMART attribute tracks bad sector remaps.
• Current pending sector attribute flags sectors pending remapping.
• Rising reallocated or pending sectors are strong warning signs.
• If all spares are used, writes may fail and drive fails.

So the detection of any bad sectors indicates potential reliability issues with the physical storage media. And steadily increasing bad sectors means failure risk is escalating as more of the drive surface succumbs to damage or degradation. That is why tracking these SMART attributes can provide early warning before drive failure.

What tools check SMART status?

There are many hardware and software tools available for monitoring SMART data to check drive health and get warning of imminent failure. Some of the most popular options include:

Tool	Description
Windows Disk Management	Built into Windows, provides basic SMART info.
Mac Disk Utility	Same ability as Windows tool for Mac OS.
smartctl	Powerful open source command line tool for SMART.
CrystalDiskInfo	Free app with drive health graphs and alerts.
Hard drive utilities	Apps from WD, Seagate, etc. monitor their drive SMART data.
HDD Guardian	Advanced but easy to use SMART monitoring and alerts.
RAID cards	Physical hardware RAID cards often include SMART tracking.

For typical users, the built-in operating system tools provide an easy way to do a quick check of all your drives. More advanced users may want a dedicated utility with richer options and tracking capabilities.

How can I prevent SMART warnings?

While SMART warnings cannot always be avoided, there are ways to help minimize the chances of your hard drives triggering failure alerts:

• Manage drive temperatures to keep within acceptable range.
• Ensure adequate airflow and cooling across drives.
• Prevent excessive vibration around server racks or NAS units.
• Use enterprise class drives designed for 24/7 operation.
• Deploy drives in fault tolerant RAID configurations.
• Follow manufacturer recommendations for use and maintenance.
• Avoid heavily fragmenting drives or overfilling capacity.
• Replace drives proactively before age exceeds reliability guidelines.

With proper precautions, most healthy drives should be able to operate for years without serious issues or SMART failures. But unexpected environmental stress or component defects can still cause warnings to occur unexpectedly.

Can bad SMART status be repaired?

Repairing drives that are triggering SMART warnings is generally not recommended or effective. Once identified, the physical issues within the drive causing bad SMART status will typically get progressively worse until complete failure occurs. However, there are a few steps that may help in some circumstances:

• Update firmware – May resolve buggy SMART reporting.
• Change interface – Can rule out faulty SATA cable or controller.
• Diagnose environment – Improve temperature, vibration, etc.
• Low level format – Repairs sectors and rewrites servo tracks.
• Disable SMART monitoring – Stops annoying alerts.

These steps might return SMART results to normal in rare cases. But performance and reliability will still likely degrade over time. Replacing the drive entirely is the only sure way to resolve imminent failure warnings.

Can firmware updates fix SMART errors?

Firmware updates may sometimes resolve SMART errors, but this should not be considered a reliable fix. The circumstances where firmware helps include:

• Buggy firmware misreporting SMART data – Updates may improve reporting accuracy.
• Incompatibility issues with operating systems or hardware – New firmware may add compatibility.
• SMART miscalibration – The thresholds and assessments get recalibrated.

However, if the SMART attributes indicating errors are reporting legitimate physical problems with the drive, a firmware update will be unable to repair those underlying issues. The media degradation or component failures causing imminent failure cannot be fixed by firmware alone. So while worth trying, consider any resolution from a firmware update temporary at best.

Should I disable SMART if I get errors?

It is not advisable to disable SMART monitoring if your hard drive is reporting failures. SMART data provides vital visibility into the internal operation and health of your drive. Ignoring warnings by disabling SMART removes your ability to monitor degradation and predict imminent failures. However, reasons you may still choose to disable it include:

• Resolve false positive errors triggered by other hardware problems.
• Prevent annoying repetitive alerts and warnings.
• Older drives often inaccurate predictions when nearing end of life.
• Continue using failing drive temporarily until replacement.

But this comes at the risk of catastrophic failure occurring without warning. The ideal solution is to replace failing drives entirely rather than disabling this vital reporting. Use SMART data to make informed decisions about drive condition.

Can changing SATA cable fix SMART errors?

Changing out the SATA data cable connected to a drive displaying SMART errors can sometimes resolve the issue. Possible explanations include:

• Faulty SATA cable damaged or providing intermittent connectivity.
• Poor quality or improperly shielded cable causing signal noise.
• Incompatible SATA cable or incorrect version for speed of drive.
• Loose cable connections leading to detection issues.

A damaged, low quality or incompatible cable can cause the drive controller to repeatedly retry operations. This may trigger SMART errors like spin retry count or hardware ECC recovered. Swapping cables rules out any cabling faults and may quiet the SMART errors.

However, if SMART attributes indicate physical media problems, a bad cable is likely not the root cause. Resolving cabling issues cannot repair a drive with component wear or media damage. But trying a cable swap is an easy troubleshooting step.

Should I replace a drive with SMART warnings?

Replacing a hard disk drive that is consistently showing SMART failure warnings is definitely recommended. Once a drive starts demonstrating imminent failure attributes, deterioration often progresses rapidly. Failure becomes a matter of “when”, not “if”.

Drives providing critical data or used in mission critical systems should be immediately swapped once SMART warnings appear. For non-critical data, limited life extension may be possible through troubleshooting steps like firmware updates or low level formatting.

But the only way to fully resolve an unreliable drive proving imminent failure via SMART is complete drive replacement. Relying on a drive with known issues significantly risks unrecoverable failure, so replacement provides true long term resolution.

How can I avoid data loss from SMART warnings?

To avoid catastrophic data loss when your hard drives start providing SMART imminent failure warnings, proper precautions should be taken:

• Maintain good backups – Critical data should already be backed up remotely or to multiple drives.
• Stop writing to drive – Freeze usage to prevent further damage.
• Clone the drive – Duplicate data to a new healthy drive.
• Monitor SMART data – Watch for any indication of accelerated failure.
• Replace the drive ASAP – Get it out of service before it dies entirely.

With redundant backups and quickly taking failing drives out of service, the risk of data loss should be mitigated. But ignoring warnings or continuing heavy usage can convert impending failure into full drive death.

Conclusion

In summary, SMART hard drive warnings provide advance notice of imminent failure, but should not be ignored or assumed 100% accurate. Heed warnings by getting redundant backups immediately. Troubleshoot potential false conditions like firmware, cables or environment. But ultimately, failed drives need replacement as physical issues like bad sectors spread once triggered. Monitoring tools help track health, with OSes like Windows and MacOS offering integrated SMART status. Be proactive and watchful of changes to avoid getting caught off guard by drive failure. The SMART warning system plays a valuable role in monitoring reliability and predicting lifespan. Use it prevent data disasters through early action.