Extrnl HDDs and SMART

[Alir]

Anyone know of any decent external HDDs that you can perform SMART tests on?

 

 

I have a WD My Passport Ultra from 4/5+ years back that does not support SMART-over-USB. But I recently purchased a powered External Seagate Expansion Desktop Drive that does support SMART-over-USB. Are there any recent External 'portable'/2.5" HDDs that do support SMART-over-USB?

 

The only other way to perform SMART tests would be by taking the HDD out of the caddy, which would void warranty.

[heksenketelpc]

4 minutes ago, Pangea2017 said:

All of my after market 2.5" usb enclosures support this. I think this is now standard.

@seagate_surfer

there are still a lot of them in stores that don't. sadly

[Alir]

1 hour ago, Pangea2017 said:

All of my after market 2.5" usb enclosures support this. I think this is now standard.

@seagate_surfer

I'm not just concerned about enclosures. I'm concerned about actual external HDDs that come with an enclosure + HDD in one and where taking the HDD out of the enclosure voids your warranty. Speaking of which, does removing the HDD from the enclosure definitely void warranty?

 

My HDD is out of warranty (it's a WD My Passport Ultra; comes with 3 years warranty; died after 5 and was barely used) and appears to have a lot of bad sectors. I figured I'd take it out of the enclosure and connect it via SATA to perform SMART tests. Also found that parts of the metal on the HDD have gone brown/burnt maybe from overheating?

 

Just took it out to find out the interface on the HDD is... proprietary?

 

Example of what it looks like:

https://37prime.wordpress.com/2013/11/08/built-in-usb-interface-on-western-digital-hard-drive/

 

Do these HDDs support SMART tests at all and can I connect them internally?

[seagate_surfer]

Our free SeaTools program can be used with both internal and external drives, and that's our standard drive health diagnostic software. As a matter of policy (because we don't release drive attributes & threshold information), we don't recommend using 3rd party diagnostic software in general, and if you do, take the results with a grain of salt. 

[Alir]

8 hours ago, seagate_surfer said:

Our free SeaTools program can be used with both internal and external drives, and that's our standard drive health diagnostic software. As a matter of policy (because we don't release drive attributes & threshold information), we don't recommend using 3rd party diagnostic software in general, and if you do, take the results with a grain of salt. 

 

Woo! Seagate are posting! I'm famous. *Ahem*

 

Thanks for letting us know!

 

Do you have a program for checking SMART values that works on Linux? Or would you just suggest using the DOS version?

 

Would the DOS version write any data to the drive/ destroy any data? If the DOS program checks for badblocks, would it potentially damage/ corrupt data if the electricity gets cut halfway through/ the drive is disconnected/ the PC is turned off.
 

[seagate_surfer]

9 hours ago, Alir said:

 

Woo! Seagate are posting! I'm famous. *Ahem*

 

Thanks for letting us know!

 

Do you have a program for checking SMART values that works on Linux? Or would you just suggest using the DOS version?

 

Would the DOS version write any data to the drive/ destroy any data? If the DOS program checks for badblocks, would it potentially damage/ corrupt data if the electricity gets cut halfway through/ the drive is disconnected/ the PC is turned off.
 

The only program we have for drive diagnostics is SeaTools, so trying the DOS version would be a good place to start. Keep in mind that even powering a drive on at all when it may be having issues could destroy any chance of recovering the data. Unfortunately, the only way of being completely safe and sure is a professional data recovery service performed in a clean room, which can be quite costly. The best policy is to make sure you have your data backed up in multiple places, so that if one piece of storage hardware goes down, your data is still safe and the only cost should be a new drive.