On Fri, 10 Oct 2008 21:19:13 +0100 "Michal R. Hoffmann" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Hi, > > I have a WD external USB harddrive which I use for backups. How can I > check the drive? Is it possible to use S.M.A.R.T (is it supported on USB > drives)? As it is my backup drive I'd prefer to know if something's > going wrong. USB drives generally don't support SMART. From the smartmontools faq [0]: Smartmontools for FireWire, USB, and SATA disks/systems As for USB and FireWire (IEEE 1394) disks and tape drives, the news is not good. They appear to the operating system as SCSI devices but their implementations do not usually support those SCSI commands needed by smartmontools. A consortium associated with IEEE 1394 certified some external enclosures (containing a ATA disk and a protocol bridge) as being compliant to the relevant standards. Even still, that compliance means that they tend to only support the bare minimum of commands needed for device operation (i.e. SMART support is an unsupported extra). Hopefully external USB and Firewire devices will support SAT in the future, see below. Some USB device based on cypress chips support a proprietary protocol (ATACB) that allow to send raw ATA commands (i.e. SMART support). ***** Continue reading that page for more information. [0] http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/faq.html#testinghelp > Michal R. Hoffmann Celejar -- mailmin.sourceforge.net - remote access via secure (OpenPGP) email ssuds.sourceforge.net - A Simple Sudoku Solver and Generator -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
