Existing users, 
SmartReporter is around for a while now and does the same for free.
There is NO need to monitor the individual parameters. This is because the inventors of SMART were so smart (haha) to not only ask for individual parameters but also for a treshhold for every parameter. And if one parameter which is critical gets over his treshold the drive is set from "check" to "failure". Everything is done in the BIOS of the hard drive. It is done by the people who know the most of the hard drive - the hard driver makers! No magic on client side needed, just a small utility that looks for the status and says Good or No Good in a way the user won't miss it. SmartReporter does exactly this.
SMART Utility
Checks hard drives' internal diagnostics systems.
Version: 2.1
SmartReporter does the job for free
Feedback Type: Review
Contributed by: Harry Hirsch Tuesday, January 22 2008 @ 12:00 AM PST
Product Platform: MacOSX
Used Product For: Less than a month
Overall Rating:
Quality / Stability:
Price:
Comments
SmartReporter does the job for free - cavenewt
As a professional Mac consultant, I swear by SmartUtility. It has forewarned me of drive failures (which had not failed the standard SMART yet) so I could take preventive action before disaster struck. In the instances where I put the drives back into service, even after a Write All Zeroes reformat, they still failed, and frequently enough so that I now trust SmartUtility when it says a drive is Failing.SmartReporter is useful for everyday users, but for support people or just anybody who can't afford to lose data or time, SmartUtility is well worth the modest license fee.
Thursday, October 09 2008 @ 10:36 AM PDT
SmartReporter does the job for free - fhirsch
You are wrong. Disk Utility, Smart Reporter and similar others are evidently using what Apple's functions tell them. And it's not enough, as I have seen time and again. I continually see drives which Disk Utility says are OK and they are not. If you are a plain user you can just download Smart Utility and use it every now and then free. If you are in the support business it's well worth it's priceReply to This
Tuesday, January 22 2008 @ 12:00 AM PST