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Smart Utility for 10.4 PPC

Zotaccian

Zotaccian

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Apr 25, 2012
645
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Is there some kind of S.M.A.R.T utility available for 10.4 PowerPC which I could use to determine how many hours hard disk has been used during its entire lifetime?

I did find two but first does not show much and second had dead link, so is there an app which actually can be downloaded?
 
Install smartmontools through TigerBrew. Install it with this command: brew install smartmontools. Then run this command to view the drive's data: smartctl -a /dev/disk0. You can check on other drives by changing the disk0 to disk1, etc.
 
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I just ran that utility on my MDD hard drives and two of them come back as FAILING. One has 31306 hours on it and 9 reallocated sectors. :eek: The other has 27092 hours, but no reallocated sectors.

I think I need to go hard drive shopping. :(
 
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Just because the SMART says failing, doesn't mean the drive will die. A few of my drives have said failing with a few sector reallocation, but are still going. Even after 7 years since the first failing message. Just make sure you have the drives backed up and you'll likely be fine for another ten years with them.
 
I use SMARTReporter. It's a menu bar app and all it does is report the SMART status, but I like it because it has the ability to email you when it detects a failing hard drive. It will also signal a failing hard drive by changing color in the menubar.

This is the last free version.

LINK EDITED: 07/06/2023 - https://www.dropbox.com/s/5kkh21yfi60yi92/SMARTReporter.zip?dl=0

Note, this post was originally made prior to Dropbox killing the Public folder.
 
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eyoungren said:
I use SMARTReporter. It's a menu bar app and all it does is report the SMART status, but I like it because it has the ability to email you when it detects a failing hard drive. It will also signal a failing hard drive by changine color in the menubar.

This is the last free version.
Click to expand...

Downloaded. Thanks!
 
archtopshop said:
I just ran that utility on my MDD hard drives and two of them come back as FAILING. One has 31306 hours on it and 9 reallocated sectors. :eek: The other has 27092 hours, but no reallocated sectors.

I think I need to go hard drive shopping. :(
Click to expand...

My HDDs shown that it's been failing with this same app, but not in Apple Hardware test, Disk Utility, or SMART reporter. Just SMART utility. I don't really trust it all that much..
 
archtopshop said:
I just ran that utility on my MDD hard drives and two of them come back as FAILING. One has 31306 hours on it and 9 reallocated sectors. :eek: The other has 27092 hours, but no reallocated sectors.

I think I need to go hard drive shopping. :(
Click to expand...
LOL! I've got one SATA drive in my Mac right now that has about 59K hours. But it's been on and in a Mac that's been left on 24/7 (with it's twin that has about 39K) since 2006! :)

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archtopshop said:
Downloaded. Thanks!
Click to expand...
No problem!
 
jrsx said:
My HDDs shown that it's been failing with this same app, but not in Apple Hardware test, Disk Utility, or SMART reporter. Just SMART utility. I don't really trust it all that much..
Click to expand...

Well, my SSD was new and SMART Utility was reporting it as failing (I checked the SMART report, it's totally fine). I think it's just too picky.
 
archtopshop said:
I just ran that utility on my MDD hard drives and two of them come back as FAILING. One has 31306 hours on it and 9 reallocated sectors. :eek: The other has 27092 hours, but no reallocated sectors.

I think I need to go hard drive shopping. :(
Click to expand...

That is only about three years of (continual) use. What model are your mechanisms?

If a drive is marked 'Failing', you should make a backup (clone), and make routine, incremental backups. I also advise against using one that is failing as a boot device.

A failing drive can run another three years, or another three hours. It depends on the cause of the failure. if these are just standard desktop drives (not enterprise rated drives), then you can anticipate they are ending their lifespan.

The MDD uses ATA/100 (PATA) drives. When you replace these, it would behove you to buy SATA drives and SATA adapters, as ATA/100 drives are more than twice the price per GB: In fact, you can buy enterprise-rated drive for less/GB than new/NOS PATA drives.

You can also use a CF to PATA adapter and a CF card, for a boot volume, if you want a NAND solution.

SMART Failing drives will also cause problems if configured as RAID, depending on the RAID system, which although not a problem for your MDD, is important to remember. An Apple XRAID will refuse to use any drive that is 'failing'.
 
eyoungren said:
I use SMARTReporter. It's a menu bar app and all it does is report the SMART status, but I like it because it has the ability to email you when it detects a failing hard drive. It will also signal a failing hard drive by changing color in the menubar.

This is the last free version.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I was also familiar with Smart Reporter but it didn't show power on hours.
When I bought this PowerBook I was amazed how well preserved it is, then suddenly I realised that hard disk does keep track about how long it has been powered on and since this is stock drive it will give some indication about the usage of this machine. Also I am still battling with that battery issue, if the battery has just died because it has been left empty for too long then there is a change that the machine is fine. 159 load cycles is also not that much for 9 year battery.
 
AmestrisXServe said:
That is only about three years of (continual) use. What model are your mechanisms?

If a drive is marked 'Failing', you should make a backup (clone), and make routine, incremental backups. I also advise against using one that is failing as a boot device.

A failing drive can run another three years, or another three hours. It depends on the cause of the failure. if these are just standard desktop drives (not enterprise rated drives), then you can anticipate they are ending their lifespan.

The MDD uses ATA/100 (PATA) drives. When you replace these, it would behove you to buy SATA drives and SATA adapters, as ATA/100 drives are more than twice the price per GB: In fact, you can buy enterprise-rated drive for less/GB than new/NOS PATA drives.

You can also use a CF to PATA adapter and a CF card, for a boot volume, if you want a NAND solution.

SMART Failing drives will also cause problems if configured as RAID, depending on the RAID system, which although not a problem for your MDD, is important to remember. An Apple XRAID will refuse to use any drive that is 'failing'.
Click to expand...

The drive with the 9 reallocated sectors is my boot drive. It is a 300GB Seagate 7200rpm ST3300631A. The second failing drive is my Linux drive. It is also a 120GB Segate 7200rpm ST3120025ACE. I received both drives in used systems a few years ago.

I have Superduper on an automatic schedule to clone my boot drive twice a week to a 200GB Maxtor 6L200P0. I purchased it new quite a few years ago. It only has 1000 hours on it.

I don't bother backing up my Linux drive because I only use it to access online financial records and make secure online transactions; I don't keep any permanent data on it. If it dies, I can easily reinstall it on a new drive.

Your advice to switch to SATA is well taken. I have been recently thinking about how to make that happen. The recent thread covering flashing a PC SATA card was promising, but I don't have access to a PC for the flashing, so it won't work for me. I've looked into adapters, but my understanding is one cannot boot from them. I would like the ability to boot from SATA. I may end up springing for the Sonnet/Seritek card.

I've also been considering switching to a G5 setup. The are getting pretty cheap on my local Craigslist. Decisions, decisions...

Thanks for the good information and advice.
 
You don't need a true SATA card, unless you are concerned with drive bus performance. A simple PATA/SATA bridge adapter should work in your situation.

The primary reason for buying a SATA card is for RAID support, and on a G4 MDD, you only have 33MHz PCI sockets, not PCI-X, or PCIe, so your selection is horribly limited. You probably wouldn't even notice the difference, as the speed would be comparable to ATA/133, due to the bottleneck. It really isn't worth the time, or expense, to install a dedicated SATA-I card in this system.

You would probably do better to buy a PATA SSD, or a very fast CF card and a CF/PATA adapter (which is in essence, a pin converter), as you would see a greater impact from the NAND operational speed, than from the bus speed change from ATA/100 to SATA on PCI.

You could find a SCSI-II or SCSI-III card from the era, and put a high-speed (10K or 15K RPM) drive in the system, which would be able to give you a nice boost, along with a with a faster drive bus speed, but this again, is an expense that you likely do not need, unless you see future use of the SCSI expansion.

You can find SCSI RAID chassis on the cheap now, and SCSI accessories, such as scanners, printers, and the like, and LTO/LTO2 tape drives (use with IOSCSITAPE), so that might be a more reasonable avenue to follow, if you want a better drive host that you can use as a boot device.

Converter boards (SATA/PATA or CF/PATA) sell at around £5. It would be easier, and much less expensive to buy a Dual-G5--a system twice as powerful, with SAT on the mainboard, plus three PCI-X slots--than to add a bootable SATA PCI-33 card to the MDD.

P.S. CF cards are already PATA devices, so a pin-converter from CF/PATA will allow you to use them as standard drives, without some of the worries over boot compatibility that some SATA/PATA adapters may present on G4 Macs.
 
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AmestrisXServe said:
The primary reason for buying a SATA card is for RAID support, and on a G4 MDD, you only have 33MHz PCI sockets, not PCI-X, or PCIe, so your selection is horribly limited. You probably wouldn't even notice the difference, as the speed would be comparable to ATA/133, due to the bottleneck. It really isn't worth the time, or expense, to install a dedicated SATA-I card in this system.
Click to expand...
Just a comment on this. I have a G4 Quicksilver and I flashed a PC SATA card. It cost me $10.

I knew going in that I was not going to have full SATA speed because I'm limited by the bus, but that wasn't THE reason I did this. I did it so I could have access to the two 500GB SATA drives I own, one of which already had a Leopard system on it. Yes, I could have used an adapter but this was my preferred method.

Again, I am limited by the bus, but I'm not copying several GBs around from drive to drive all day so that doesn't really factor in.

My point is that if speed is all we are going for then you are absolutely correct. But there are other factors. Because I installed a SATA card I can drop in SATA drives of much larger capacity, even SATA SSDs now too. Yes, again, I could use an adapter. But a dedicated card just works better for me.
 
I suggest the adapters primarily due to the OP not wishing to flash a card, which can either be easy-peasy, or a nightmare.

Yes, you can flash a PCI-33 card, but you can also use off-the-shelf adapters for about the same price, and in his case, I think those would be easier.

For the best performance, SCSI-II or SCSI-III are the way to go. For mid-line, a fast CF card, or a PATA SSD; or the longer road of obtaining, and flashing a PCI-33 SATA card (which may be a bloody pain to find, after you spend the time to deduce what cards are usable); and for ease and convenience, SATA/PATA bridges.
 
eyoungren said:
Just a comment on this. I have a G4 Quicksilver and I flashed a PC SATA card. It cost me $10.
Click to expand...

I would take this route if I had access to a PC.

I've flashed Radeon 9800 and 9700 Pro video cards without much trouble, but always flashed them using 2 Macs and VPN. (I admit I bricked a couple in the beginning. :( If I had a PC I could have saved the one's I bricked.)

I mainly want to go to SATA because of the availability of new, larger drives than what I can get in PATA.

I am going to research the SATA to IDE adapters and see if I can get one that will physically fit in my MDD. I'll report my progress, or lack thereof, here on the forum.
 
eyoungren said:
And I edited my link above for the earlier version.

I leave this stuff up, but Dropbox killed the Public folder (where I store the stuff) at some point so it killed the earlier link.
Click to expand...
Thank you for doing this. You'll be glad to know that in 2023, by using Smart Utility I discovered that my 2003 iMac G4's original hard disk had only logged 6087 power on hours. I'm guessing that's not too bad for such an old Mac? :)
 
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