You can turn off autoupdating in the prefs. It places itself in Login Items so it will be running for the user at startup. I could have used this app earlier. My eMac power supply failed intermittent and I didn't know if it was the hd or something else.

I don't think Apple will support firewire SMART status. FW drives are 'network' devices. For the home user, it's your network. In a business, that may not be so, and having that kind of info might be considered a security risk.