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IT Support & Hardware · Intermediate

Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology (S.M.A.R.T.)

Built-in drive health monitoring that tracks attributes such as reallocated sectors and wear level.

Definition

S.M.A.R.T. lets drives report health indicators like reallocated sector count, pending sectors, temperature, and SSD wear. Firmware or OS tools can warn of predicted failure before data is lost. A S.M.A.R.T. warning at POST means back up and replace the drive.

Example

smartctl -a /dev/sda shows reallocated and pending sector counts on Linux.

Exam tip

A S.M.A.R.T. failure warning is a reason to back up data immediately, not to run more tests first.

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