S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology) is an integrated monitoring system on hard drives that detects and reports reliability, in the hope of anticipating failures.
If HDD Info on the video recorder reports an attached hard drive as having a Slight S.M.A.R.T. Status, it may be time to consider replacing the hard drive. A drive that has a “Slight” status, may work for months before it is no longer usable, but if no other back up of data is available, then replacement is recommended. A hard drive with a “Slight” status may cause a video recorder to reboot at random or cause other seemingly unrelated issues.
If the HDD Info menu on the video recorder reports an attached hard drive as having a Serious S.MA.R.T. Status, replace the hard drive immediately or risk losing data due to a faulty hard drive. Some video recorder issues can be directly tied with a malfunctioning drive.
To find out exactly what S.M.A.R.T. is reporting about the drive, attach the drive to a Windows PC (either internally or externally using an enclosure) and use software such as HDDScan to diagnose.