T.E.C. & S.M.A.R.T.

The interpretation of the T.E.C. and the S.M.A.R.T.

The T.E.C. stands for "Threshold Exceeded Condition" and basically means a failure. When Hard Drive Inspector reports "Nearest forecasted T.E.C." you should read "Failure date".

Yet first of all, know that the S.M.A.R.T. has been approved by the HDD manufacturers as nothing but an advisory argument. In other words, it is reliable, but none can be 100% sure in this.

Hard Drive Inspector predicts T.E.C. on the basis of the values of the S.M.A.R.T. attributes and the speed of their changes. The prognosis of the T.E.C. has to be treated with care because there are several well-known facts that have occurred with the HDDs of some manufacturers, when the values of the S.M.A.R.T. attributes slump right after turning on the HDD, and then rectify. Therefore, it is not worth worrying about the insignificant attribute's changes for a new HDD. There also are some cases, when a HDD continues working even if the attribute's value is less than its threshold value.

Conclusion

Generally, the main conclusion of this topic is not to hurry when Hard Drive Inspector shows a change of the value and/or a date of T.E.C. becomes closer. It is a signal for you to watch out the attributes for a few days. Then, if the decrease in the attribute's value stops, it will be all right for a while. In this case, the T.E.C. date will be postponed.

Nevertheless, if the decrease in the attribute's value persists, we strongly recommend you promptly backup all valuable data on the HDD and replace it by another HDD as soon as possible.

S.M.A.R.T. may be however a useless technology in preventing your HDD failure, if you do not meet the terms of use made by the HDD manufacturer.