IC7-Max3 MB RAID "Smart Event"

I have been using this MB for about 3 years, running RAID with the Intel
controller, without problems. When the system boots up in shows the status
of each HD in the raid chain and says normal next to it. Recently one of the
two drives is saying "Smart Event". The system still boots up and seems to
run OK, but I can't find the meaning of smart event. Can anyone explain this
indication?

Steve Selinger wrote:
> I have been using this MB for about 3 years, running RAID with the Intel
> controller, without problems. When the system boots up in shows the status
> of each HD in the raid chain and says normal next to it. Recently one of the
> two drives is saying "Smart Event". The system still boots up and seems to
> run OK, but I can't find the meaning of smart event. Can anyone explain this
> indication?
>
>
SMART is a type of internal diagnostic system, if I remember correctly.
From the info at wikipedia, it looks like your drive has triggered a
diagnostic message, but its not necessarily easy to tell whats wrong.
Perhaps the manufacturer of your drive has a diagnostic reporting tool
that you can download.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-Mo...ing_Technology

-Dylan C

"Steve Selinger" <> wrote in message...
>I have been using this MB for about 3 years, running RAID with the Intel
>controller, without problems. When the system boots up in shows the
> status of each HD in the raid chain and says normal next to it. Recently
> one of the two drives is saying "Smart Event". The system still boots up
> and seems to run OK, but I can't find the meaning of smart event. Can
> anyone explain this indication?

Dylan's suggestion is bang on the money. SMART is an internal diagnostics
system that was common on hard disks a few years back but never really
caught on in drive controllers. It is designed to monitor the drive's
functionality and log "events" - which can be anything from an unexpected
spindown/spin-up to a head crash, to a write failure, to whatever.

If you hunt around you'll probably find an OS-level SMART reporting tool
here and there, but these tend not to work properly on drives connected in a
RAID array. As such best way to diagnose it would be, as Dylan suggests, to
download the appropriate Fitness Test/Feature Tool for your drives from the
manufacturer's website.

These normally take the form of a boot floppy, or nowadays a bootable image
that can be burned to CD, and should give you full access to the SMART
status messages as well as allowing you to run full low level diagnostic
tests on the drives.

A full test on both drives is largely precautionary at this stage but you
want to do it in order either to be confident that both are A-OK, or,
alternatively, to get some advance warning if one of the disks is indeed
compromised/in the early stages of failure.
--


Richard Hopkins
Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom
(replace nospam with pipex in reply address)

The UK's leading technology reseller www.dabs.com

you should have the IAA app installed (intel application accellerator, or
the newer matrix storage manager); look for it in the start menu and/or
control panel [it's part of the driver]. It has a tab that shows the
smart info for your array. [I think! Mine uses SATA drives, with no smart;
but std ide's should show it]. IAA also can add events to the event log,
I'd suspect that a smart "error" would qualify as something worth logging,
so check there.

if that is not fruitful check the drive manufacturer's site, they should
offer a tool that interrogates the smart info.

you also might try invoking the raid bios, cntrl-I, at boot; since it's
showing the msg it makes sense that going into it may reveil more.

smart "errors" typically portend a disk failure, so backup up now!

no SMART tab on the IAA in my system...

--

Thomas Geery
Network+ certified



<> wrote in message
news:...
> you should have the IAA app installed (intel application accellerator, or
> the newer matrix storage manager); look for it in the start menu and/or
> control panel [it's part of the driver]. It has a tab that shows the
> smart info for your array. [I think! Mine uses SATA drives, with no smart;
> but std ide's should show it]. IAA also can add events to the event log,
> I'd suspect that a smart "error" would qualify as something worth logging,
> so check there.
>
> if that is not fruitful check the drive manufacturer's site, they should
> offer a tool that interrogates the smart info.
>
> you also might try invoking the raid bios, cntrl-I, at boot; since it's
> showing the msg it makes sense that going into it may reveil more.
>
> smart "errors" typically portend a disk failure, so backup up now!
>

"TomG" <> wrote in message...
> no SMART tab on the IAA in my system...

Mine neither. Methinks the reason Frodo doesn't see this tab on his own
system is because the IAA Utility/Matrix Storage Manager doesn't support
SMART status reporting, period.

The IAA RAID BIOS definitely doesn't, so the suggestion to try Ctrl+I isn't
any good either.

As previously mentioned, utility from the drive manufacturer is the first
and best way to go.
--


Richard Hopkins
Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom
(replace nospam with pipex in reply address)

The UK's leading technology reseller www.dabs.com

TomG wrote:
|
| no SMART tab on the IAA in my system...
|

Why would your system need a gizmo designed to improve the performance of
your boat?

http://www.nauticusinc.com/smart_tabs.htm

Just curious.

Lurking Rat in 'Da Hood® -
Jef

Unlike most (if not all) Windows-based "SMART" utilities, the SMARTUDM
utility (DOS-based) is able to get past most RAID controllers and read
SMART data for individual hard drives without having to break the
array, move drives around to other controllers or connections, etc.

http://www.sysinfolab.com/files/smartudm.zip

It works on my IC7-MAX3 using SI3114, as well as previously BD7II-RAID
using HPT372. Not sure if it supports Intel RAID, but worth a try.

- g0pher

On Tue, 17 Oct 2006 15:54:04 +0100, "Richard Hopkins"
<> wrote:

>"Steve Selinger" <> wrote in message...
>>I have been using this MB for about 3 years, running RAID with the Intel
>>controller, without problems. When the system boots up in shows the
>> status of each HD in the raid chain and says normal next to it. Recently
>> one of the two drives is saying "Smart Event". The system still boots up
>> and seems to run OK, but I can't find the meaning of smart event. Can
>> anyone explain this indication?
>
>Dylan's suggestion is bang on the money. SMART is an internal diagnostics
>system that was common on hard disks a few years back but never really
>caught on in drive controllers. It is designed to monitor the drive's
>functionality and log "events" - which can be anything from an unexpected
>spindown/spin-up to a head crash, to a write failure, to whatever.
>
>If you hunt around you'll probably find an OS-level SMART reporting tool
>here and there, but these tend not to work properly on drives connected in a
>RAID array. As such best way to diagnose it would be, as Dylan suggests, to
>download the appropriate Fitness Test/Feature Tool for your drives from the
>manufacturer's website.
>
>These normally take the form of a boot floppy, or nowadays a bootable image
>that can be burned to CD, and should give you full access to the SMART
>status messages as well as allowing you to run full low level diagnostic
>tests on the drives.
>
>A full test on both drives is largely precautionary at this stage but you
>want to do it in order either to be confident that both are A-OK, or,
>alternatively, to get some advance warning if one of the disks is indeed
>compromised/in the early stages of failure.

Bird Janitor® wrote:

> TomG wrote:
> |
> | no SMART tab on the IAA in my system...
> |
>
> Why would your system need a gizmo designed to improve the performance of
> your boat?
>
> http://www.nauticusinc.com/smart_tabs.htm
>
> Just curious.

:-)

Hes' never been quite the same ,
after he fell off that cruise ship ... well out to sea.

I also suspect he got called to "duty" ... once too often ...
Those Cancun expat "Ladies" can be deadly to an old geezer like him ,
esp in quick 'sequence'.

'RIP', TomG.

Qed

"0_Qed" wrote in message...
> Hes' never been quite the same ,
> after he fell off that cruise ship ... well out to sea.
>
> I also suspect he got called to "duty" ... once too often ...
> Those Cancun expat "Ladies" can be deadly to an old geezer like him ,
> esp in quick 'sequence'.
>
> 'RIP', TomG.

Good grief! Qed, Jef, Tom, me all posting on the same thread. All we need is
the dearly departed sheep worrier to return to the fold and the circle will
be complete. Everything changes, yet everything stays the same!
--


Richard Hopkins
Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom
(replace nospam with pipex in reply address)

The UK's leading technology reseller www.dabs.com