S.M.A.R.T.

1. Short for Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology, S.M.A.R.T, or SMART, is a diagnostic method originally developed by IBM and introduced with the ATA-3 specification that at that time referred to as "Predictive Failure Analysis". This technology was developed for IBM mainframe drives to give advanced warning of drive failures. Based on this diagnostic, Compaq announced IntelliSafeTM, which was submitted to the ATA/IDE standards committees and the resulting standard was named S.M.A.R.T.

S.M.A.R.T. analyzes many of the mechanical attributes; over time, some failures can be predicted by detecting if the hard disk drive is moving out of tolerance. While the S.M.A.R.T. technology can detect upcoming issues, not all hard drive failures are predictable.

Some of the Major Hard Disk Drive manufacturers now including the S.M.A.R.T Technology in their hard disk drives are IBM, Western Digital, Maxtor, Quantum, Seagate and Fujitsu

Not all hard drive failures are predictable, but by analyzing many of the mechanical attributes over time, some failures are predictable and this is what S.M.A.R.T. does. S.M.A.R.T. measures many attributes of the user's drive over time and decides if they are moving out of tolerance.

• Information about S.M.A.R.T. errors when the computer boots can be found on document CH000184.
• Users with hard disk drives with S.M.A.R.T can utilize various utilities to view extended diagnostic information such as temperature, write errors, other errors, etc. Examples of these programs and other methods of testing your hard disk drive can be found on document CH001091.
  

2. When referring to software, smart or intelligence and is an ability of a program to function with little or no human interaction. 

Also see: Hard disk drive definitions