10.6.3 Broke my S.M.A.R.T.?

[Dwalls90]

After updating to 10.6.3, I ran disk utility, and unlike the typical clean-up it usually performs, it alerted me that my disk's S.M.A.R.T. status was unverified and that the disk was physically damaged. I find this odd because I had performed disk utility before installation and everything went smoothly. Furthermore, the current disk performance is identical to that of when the S.M.A.R.T. status was "okay". This leads me to believe this may be related to the update, in which I have also heard others are having their SATA 3.0Gb/s HDD's operate at 1.5Gb/s speeds ... because the performance of the drive seems fine. Note that the S.M.A.R.T. status didn't come back as "failing" until after running disk utility.

(No need to comment on backing up, I've already ordered another drive via RMA because it's not even a few months old, and I use TM religiously)

Any other takers? Suggestions or thoughts?

 

[Intell]

I'm not sure what it means, but I do know this. Backup your data now. That drive could fail at anytime.

 

[Dwalls90]

I appreciate your concern, but I would also appreciate it if you read the entire post and notice that I backup religiously already

 

[Intell]

The part of you backing up wasn't there before. One thing could be that your hard drive got too hot and the SMART chip fried or it got bumped to hard.

 

[fluffyx]

The way that S.M.A.R.T. "predicts" failures is not at all comprehensive.

The software update did not cause the problem. I wouldn't be worried that the failure notice appeared after running a Disk Utility check. Likely, the disk was on its way out, a lot of disk activity occurred during the 10.6.3 installation, and the drive noticed that it was failing.

Who knows, the drive could continue to work for 6 months or longer! But it could also quit tomorrow. With failing S.M.A.R.T., I would replace the drive immediately.