Western Digital My Book Essential User Manual - Manual (Page 47)

MY BOOK ESSENTIAL
USER MANUAL
CHECKING DRIVE HEALTH – 42
Checking Drive Health
The files on your My Book drive are important to you. The WD SmartWare software has
several built-in diagnostic tools to help make sure that your drive is performing well. Run
the following tests if you are concerned that your drive is not operating properly:
The best time to run the drive diagnostics and status checks is on a regular basis, before
you encounter any problems with your drive. And, because they are so fast, running the
quick S.M.A.R.T. status check and the quick drive test provides a high level of assurance
with minimal inconvenience. Then, run all three whenever you encounter disk error
conditions when backing up or retrieving files.
To run drive diagnostics and status checks:
1. On the Drive Settings screen (see Figure 17 on page 27), click Diagnostics to display
the Run Diagnostics dialog:
Diagnostic Tool Description
Quick S.M.A.R.T. Status Check S.M.A.R.T. is a failure-prediction function that continuously
monitors key internal performance attributes of the drive. A
detected increase in drive temperature, noise, or read/write
errors, for example, can provide an indication that the drive
might be approaching a serious failure condition. With
advanced warning, you could take precautionary measures,
like moving your data to another drive, before a failure
occurs.
The result of a quick S.M.A.R.T. status check is a pass or fail
evaluation of the drive's condition.
The S.M.A.R.T. status check completes within a second or
two.
Quick Drive Test Your My Book drive has a built-in Data Lifeguard diagnostic
utility that tests the drive for error conditions. The quick drive
test checks the drive for major performance problems.
The result of a quick drive test is a pass or fail evaluation of
the drive's condition.
The quick drive test can take several minutes to complete.
Complete Drive Test The most comprehensive drive diagnostic is the complete
drive test. It methodically tests every sector for error
conditions, and inserts bad-sector markers as required.
The complete drive test can take several hours to complete,
depending on the size and data configuration of your drive.
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