Posted on Friday 9 December 2005 - Popularity: unranked
What’s the worst thing that could happen to your Mac? What do you fear the most? I’m sure for most computer users the worst case scenario is losing data because of a hard disk failure, especially for those that don’t do regular backups. Now wouldn’t it be cool to get a warning at least a few hours before this happens? Definitely and if your Mac isn’t too old, if the hard disk in it is an ATA or S-ATA drive, than that’s actually possible.
The application you need is SMARTReporter. The app periodically polls the S.M.A.R.T.-status of your hard-drives. S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology) is a technology built into most modern hard-drives that act as an “early warning system” for pending drive problems. Now of course it wont predict a headcrash because you’ve accidentally dropped your PowerBook from a few meters, but it does a great job of predicting failures that happen over time.
The status of your hard disk is displayed with a menu item. In case you don’t always watch that place, for example if you’re using the Mac as a server, the app can notify you of impending drive failures by sending you an e-mail, by displaying a warning dialog or it can execute an application, an app that does automatic backups for example. This app is definitely a must have if you care about your data.
Fredi
