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Are S.M.A.R.T failures real or symptoms of something else?

I recently purchased 4 x 2.5" 5 TB disks to create a 15 TB RAID-4. I'm using my Mac Mini from 2018. Two of the drives had S.M.A.R.T. warnings in the previous two days, and one of them also had three i/o faults.I have, however, experienced two unexpected panic attacks during the course of the same two days. Therefore, I believe that there is a physical issue with my computer and that the S.M.A.R.T. warnings and read errors are an effect of the computer issues. Does that make sense?

Best Answered by

Amanda Wong

Answered on Monday, April 29, 2024

Although the SMART tool appears to be a sophisticated program that sends you prompt alerts if the hard disk has any problems. But it's unquestionably far from ideal. It may occasionally provide you with erroneous alerts and prompt you to take appropriate action in response to transient problems.

Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology is also referred to as SMART or S.M.A.R.T. It is a monitoring system found in computer HDDs, SDDs, and eMMC devices. The main purpose of SMART is to automatically identify and report numerous drive reliability indicators in order to foresee impending hardware failures. 

On Mac, you can check the SMART status in the built-in Disk Utility. Just click the internal or external drive and check the drive info on the right. SMART status displays Verified implies that your Mac is in good working order, whereas SMART status of Failing warns that the disk needs immediate care.

To fix the SMART error on Mac, you can use First Aid to check and repair disk errors. If the issue remains, you can back up the drive data and erase it, otherwise, bring it to the get a warranty replacement.