Re: Tool to inspect the SMART infos of USB harddiscs (not only of IDEs)

Previously David A.Lethe <david@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On 20 Aug 2005 23:33:45 GMT, Arno Wagner <me@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>>Previously Discordia <goaway@xxxxxxx> wrote:
>>> On Mon, 1 Aug 2005 19:57:25 -0700, "Eric Gisin"
>>> <ericgisin@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>
>>>>Nope, it is almost impossible.
>>>>
>>>>USB uses SCSI commands, which don't have IDE SMART features.
>>>>
>>>>"Jeff Korn" <under@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
>>>>news:42ee9c4d$0$6990$9b4e6d93@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>>>> I have seen some tools which inform me about the SMART data/status of internal IDE hard discs.
>>>>> Unfortunately these tools do not offer the same for external USB harddiscs (connected through USB
>>>>2.0).
>>>>>
>>>>> Is this possible at all?
>>>>>
>>
>>> I was about to ask this same question. So, if SMART won't work on an
>>> external drive, will the manufactures drive test programs do as good a
>>> job as SMART in determining the health of the drive?
>>
>>Today many of these just read the SMART status. That means they will
>>likely not work on external drives unless the USB interface was
>>made by the same manufactuere and they put in some vendor-specific
>>extensions that allow SMART pass-through.
>>
>>Best option IMO: Remove the external drive from its case and connect it
>>internally to read smart status.
>>
>>Arno
> No that is not the case. The reason that the USB hard disks don't
> "support SMART" is because many of the USB dongle chips have very poor
> protocol conversion & drivers that don't translate the full
> instruction set.

> From the software perspective, a USB device makes the disk speak
> "SCSI" instead of "ATA" instruction set, and their emulation is only
> good enough to satisfy using the disk as a storage device, not to
> support the type of diagnostic commands required to obtain and control
> SMART.

You do know that IDE and SCSI SMART is different?

Arno
.

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