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Data Center Study Reveals Top 5 SMART Stats That Correlate To Drive Failures
Lucas123 writes Backblaze, which has taken to publishing data on hard drive failure rates in its data center, has just released data from a new study of nearly 40,000 spindles revealing what it said are the top 5 SMART (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology) values that correlate most closely with impending drive failures. The study also revealed that many SMART values that one would innately consider related to drive failures, actually don't relate it it at all. Gleb Budman, CEO of Backblaze, said the problem is that the industry has created vendor specific values, so that a stat related to one drive and manufacturer may not relate to another. "SMART 1 might seem correlated to drive failure rates, but actually it's more of an indication that different drive vendors are using it themselves for different things," Budman said. "Seagate wants to track something, but only they know what that is. Western Digital uses SMART for something else — neither will tell you what it is."
Do the words on the drive "Seagate OEM" when you are buying it from as a stand-alone unit from a store count? I built the computer I am using now about 5 years ago. 3 drives (apparently new). All were replaced within 2.5 years. Bad Sectors, Bad clusters, "Cannot read from drive", etc. I only got warranty on two of them (after running Seatools, confirming the drive manufacture date, serial number, giving the Seatools error codes, and then sending it in the foam padded box).