From version 5.96 of toolstar®testLX, toolstar®shredderLX, toolstar®testWIN and toolstar®shredderWIN A new automatic evaluation function is available in the area of SMART analysis. More information about the SMART values can be found in the knowledge base articles: General SMART, ATA-Smart and NVMe-SMART.
The settings and options in the program
The settings for the automatic evaluation of the SMART analysis can be set once for the entire program in the general settings and per endurance test. A total of 5 different attributes are available for evaluation. These attributes are automatically assigned and evaluated by the program depending on the type (ATA, NVMe, eMMC). The attributes are Life Remaining, Hours On, Power Cycles, Total Bytes Written (Absolute) and Total bytes written (multiple of drive size). The difference in the last two attributes is only the evaluation of the entered value. Both attributes refer to the same value in the disk SMART data Total Bytes Written. With variant 1 (absolute) the value is simply compared with the size of the hard drive. It is given as a value in TB (terabytes). If the current value is greater than the one entered, there is an error. For variant 2 (multiple of the drive size), the drive size is multiplied by the value you entered. So if the hard drive is 5TB and the value you entered was 2, an error would appear if the Total Bytes Written attribute in the SMART values has a value greater than 10TB. The life remaining checks whether the SSD storage (not for other types) still has more than X% left. Hours switched on checks whether the data carrier was switched on for less than the set number of hours. Power off and power cycles checks whether the disk has been powered on less than X times.
Considerations on the topic of ATA, NVMe, eMMC, SSD, etc.
When specifying the limit values, a distinction should be made between the ATA and NVMe protocols as well as between the storage technologies SSD and magnetic media. Not every attribute that you find in the ATA SMART specification can also be found in NVMe or eMMC driven storage media. Therefore, only attributes/values that occur in all 3 protocols were taken into account in the automatic evaluation. In addition, it can be useful to differentiate between the different storage technologies. A distinction between SSD and magnetic data carriers can be useful, especially in the area of written sectors. This distinction can be made in the endurance test settings, but not in the general settings.
The output of the evaluation in the logs/reports
If activated, you will receive the evaluation of the SMART analysis automatically in the individual tests and in the long-term test. In addition, an error in the evaluation leads to an overall error. In addition to the current values of the hard drive, the set limit values are also displayed.
