
Its primary function is to detect and report various indicators of drive reliability with the intent of anticipating imminent hardware failures. SMART technology is now included in all computer HDDs, SSDs, and embedded MultiMediaCard drives. In 1995, Compaq also placed Intellisafe in the public domain. In 1995, Compaq, with support from most of the hard disk drive (HDD) manufacturers, submitted Intellisafe to the small form factor (SFF) committee for standardization, and it was adopted under the name of SMART (or S.M.A.R.T.). Although this utility provided more advanced health-monitoring capabilities, the system was not standardized, and each disk manufacturer independently decided which parameters would be provided for monitoring and what thresholds would be used for reporting analytics. In the mid-1990s, Compaq developed the Intellisafe utility, which could measure a disk’s health parameters and values and transfer them to the operating system and user-space monitoring software. Predictive failure technology for computer storage media was introduced into computer systems in the early 1990s however, this technology initially provided a binary result of either the device being functional or likely to fail soon, which was insufficient for predictive analytics. The results of the research are consolidated in this response report.Ģ.0 SMART for Computer Storage Media Health Monitoring 2.1 A Brief History of SMART

SSD manufacturer drive health-monitoring tools.Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology (SMART) attributes.The Defense Systems Information Analysis Center (DSIAC) staff conducted research using the Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC) Research and Engineering (R&E) Gateway and open sources to find information on the following:

The technology must also provide the option for an intuitive user interface to display the results of the assessment. The inquirer specified that the technology must accomplish these tasks without disrupting the data on the drive or causing additional damage.

The inquirer requested information on technologies that can, without operator action, assess the health of SSDs to measure performance and predict potential failures. The unexpected and unpredictable nature in which many SSDs fail may necessitate additional measures, like more frequent backups, scheduled early drive replacement, built-in redundancy, and/or use of drive array configurations that can automatically rebuild a failed drive. When considering employment of SSDs in critical Department of Defense applications, DSIAC found that health-monitoring tools likely do not provide the necessary risk mitigation. Some of these factors could be mitigated by matching a manufacturer’s SSD to the health-monitoring tools they developed to monitor it. The possible lack of environmental sensor data.The possible lack of error logs for assessing past performance.The failure of some manufacturers to fully disclose what their SMART attributes are or specifics in data they report.Discrepancies in how different manufacturers define their reported SMART attributes.

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This information was provided to the requester.įor normal consumer and many industry applications, DSIAC found that both the OEM and second-party software health-monitoring be used to continually monitor and automatically send notifications about SSD issues. DSIAC also reviewed information on SSD reliability and software utilities provided by original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) or second parties for SSD health monitoring. The Defense Systems Information Analysis Center (DSIAC) received a technical inquiry requesting information on technologies that can, without operator action, assess the health of solid-state drives (SSDs) to measure performance and predict potential failures.ĭSIAC staff reviewed information found using the Defense Technical Information Center Research and Engineering Gateway and open sources on to Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology (SMART) embedded in modern computer storage media devices and their control electronics.
