S.M.A.R.T. - Does this use any system overheads?

[hotfusion]

Quite simply, should S.M.A.R.T. be enabled in BIOS or is there an advantage in disabling it?
I'm vaguely aware of what this function does, but if a sector becomes unusable with this function disabled, is it simply not replaced with one of the HDD's 'spares'?
Would it cause any other problems with alignment and drift? My suggestions are what I would try myself. If incorrect, I welcome corrections to my rather limited knowledge. Andy.

 

[chaps]

S.M.A.R.T. stands for (Self Monitoring Analysis, and Reporting Technology). S.M.A.R.T. was designed to detect pending mechanical hard disk failures by monitoring the hard disk mechanical action looking for a gradual degradation of the harddisk performance.

S.M.A.R.T. detects the degradation of pending failure and makes a status report available so that the system BIOS or a software driver can notify the user that a failure is about to occur.

Scandisk only monitors, or works on the data sectors of the disk surface and does not monitor the disk functions that are monitored by S.M.A.R.T.

Mike

 

[Speccie]

As Chaps says, it monitors the drive dynamically and yes it does take a small overhead. Alignment doesn't exist as such. Between each track is a 'guard band' so ergo one each side of a track and the heads track by dynamically using the guard bands.

regards Michael.