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| Thread ID: 90620 | 2008-06-10 05:04:00 | HDD Program - has anyone used it? What do the numbers mean? | Chikara (5139) | Press F1 |
| Post ID | Timestamp | Content | User | ||
| 677195 | 2008-06-10 05:04:00 | Hi everyone, For a while I've been using a free program called HDD Health, which monitors the SMART attributes of your Hard drive, with the idea that you can hopefully predict when it's on its way out. Mine shows health as 57%. Problems is I don't know if this is a good or a bad number. The help file and support pages for the software don't explain what the percentage means and what is good or bad. I'm assuming a brand new HDD would show as 100% health, and then gradually the number drops until it dies. I don't know how low the number should get before I need to get worried! (Everything is backed up anyway just in case). Has anyone else used this program before, and can further explain about the numbers it gives? Thanks! Tony |
Chikara (5139) | ||
| 677196 | 2008-06-10 05:55:00 | There is no standardisation in the way SMART attributes are reported amongst hard drive makers. Unless the creators of HDD Health know what the maker of your drive intended for that model of drive, they are just guessing. | PaulD (232) | ||
| 677197 | 2008-06-10 22:54:00 | are there any tools from your hdd manufacturer? They are typically more accurate. | utopian201 (6245) | ||
| 677198 | 2008-06-11 23:10:00 | Hiya, Well yeah there is a tool by Seagate called Seatools for Windows, but it only seems to give a pass or fail. The thing I liked about the HDD health program I'm trying, is that it supposedly measures changes in the SMART attributes over time, so that it can try and estimate when the drive will fail. It monitors about 15 attributes in total: spin up time, temperature, error counts, bad sectors, etc etc. As the values change over time, it's meant to give a prediction on when the drive will fail. (I know nothing is ever guaranteed though). PaulD - I suppose even if it reports numbers differently for different manufacturers, that doesn't really matter as it's looking for trends, rather than absolute numbers. But like i said, it translated all these attributes into a health % of your HDD. Mine is 57% so I don't know if that is a good or bad result! |
Chikara (5139) | ||
| 677199 | 2008-06-11 23:18:00 | Maybe flick the manufacturer of your HDD an email about it. | wratterus (105) | ||
| 677200 | 2008-06-12 00:18:00 | you can try using HDtune, that might provide slightly better information | utopian201 (6245) | ||
| 677201 | 2008-06-12 00:23:00 | I'm assuming a brand new HDD would show as 100% health A quick google shows several cases of HDD Health reporting low % on new Seagates. I've got an old version of SpeedFan and that is showing about 50% Fitness for a new Seagate, 100% for 2 other brand drives and 100% Performance for all. Obviously there's some Seagate value(s) that both HDD Health and SpeedFan are taking entirely the wrong way. |
PaulD (232) | ||
| 677202 | 2008-06-12 00:45:00 | The latest SpeedFan reports my Seagate as 100% for both Fitness and Performance. The author has modified how he interprets results based on the 1000s of user reports he receives. "Starting with SpeedFan 4.28, there is no longer the assumption that attributes' values are linear." |
PaulD (232) | ||
| 677203 | 2008-06-12 05:22:00 | I prefer speedfan for SMART interpretation | Agent_24 (57) | ||
| 677204 | 2008-06-14 10:51:00 | Thanks Agent24, I might give Speedfan a try then and see what it shows me. | Chikara (5139) | ||
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