Corrections and reading questions
Contact SMART Drive Health
Use this page to send a correction to the attribute database, ask about a reading you cannot place, or suggest a manufacturer or attribute that should be added. Include as much identifying detail as you can: drive model, vendor, and the raw attribute values in question.
Written and phone contact
Reach the office directly
SMART Drive Health is run from one office in San Jose. The phone line and inbox are answered by the people who maintain the attribute reference, so a correction or a reading question reaches the same place the data lives.
- Postal address
- SMART Drive Health
452 Silicon Drive, Suite 102
San Jose, CA 95110, USA - Phone
- +1-408-555-0192
- Working hours
- Monday–Friday, 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM (Pacific Time)
Visits to the office are by appointment only, since the team is usually working from the reference database or testing drives. Call or email first and you will get a time window rather than a locked door.
Three kinds of messages get a real answer here: a correction, a reading you cannot place, and a missing drive or attribute.
Anything outside those three — recovery work, warranty claims, repair bookings — sits with someone else. The sections below say exactly what to send and what happens after you send it.
Send the detail, not the summary
The message form below goes straight to the inbox that maintains the SMART attribute reference. Two things make a message easy to act on: the exact drive identity, and the raw numbers as your diagnostic tool printed them. A screenshot pasted into a text document is fine; a paraphrase is not, because attribute names and vendor thresholds differ between Seagate, WD, Toshiba, Samsung, Kingston, and Crucial.
If you are writing about a reading, copy the value columns rather than only the status column. The status word is the firmware's short opinion; the raw value is what the answer will be built from.
What to send, by the kind of message
What to send for a correction
For a correction, include the attribute ID, the vendor and drive model, and what you believe the correct meaning is. If the correction comes from a vendor document, a citation or link helps — a page reference or a document number is enough, it does not have to be a public link.
Two corrections are worth sending even if they look small. One is an attribute that a vendor reuses for a different meaning than the database records. The other is a threshold: the value at which a vendor utility starts flagging an attribute as failing. Both change how a reading should be read, and both are checked against the source before anything on the site changes.
If you are the only source for a change and no document backs it, say that too. It will be labelled as reported rather than confirmed, so nobody mistakes one drive's behaviour for a rule that covers the whole model line.
What to send for a reading question
For a question about a specific reading, include the raw values for attributes 05, 197, 09, and temperature, plus the drive type. If you have a second set of readings, include those too. Trend matters more than a single snapshot, and the answer will usually reflect that.
Say which diagnostic tool produced the numbers, and whether the drive is currently installed or sitting in a drawer. A value read after a long idle period can behave differently from the same value read during a heavy workload, and it is easier to explain that when the context is on the table from the start.
What this contact form is not for
This is not a data-recovery request line, a warranty channel, or a way to request a repair. If a drive is failing and the data matters, back it up first and contact the manufacturer or a specialist. The form here is for reference-data questions and corrections.
A message that asks the site to recover a partition, honour a warranty, or accept a drive for repair will be answered with a pointer to the right channel, and that costs you a round trip. A message with attribute values in it gets an answer on the first try.
Where the other messages belong
- Failing drive, data at risk — stop writing to it, copy what you can, then talk to a recovery specialist. Nothing sent from this page recovers data.
- Warranty and returns — the drive vendor handles those. Keep the serial number and proof of purchase with the drive.
- A drive you are about to buy second-hand — the Diagnostic Guides cover the check sequence, and it takes minutes rather than days.
Response expectations
Messages are read in the order they arrive. Corrections are usually reviewed within a few business days. Reading questions may get a shorter reply that points to the relevant database entry or guide, because the answer often already exists there.
Nothing here is an emergency line. If a drive is making noise, disappearing from the system, or holding the only copy of something important, treat that as urgent on your side right away rather than waiting for a reply.
Privacy of what you submit: information you send through the form is used to answer your message and, for corrections, to update the reference data. It is not sold, and it is handled per the privacy policy linked in the footer.
- Arrives Your message lands in the same inbox that holds the attribute reference, with the drive model and the raw values attached to it.
- Checked A correction is compared against the vendor documentation or the cited source before anything changes. A reading question is compared against the database entry for that attribute and drive family.
- Answered You get a reply naming the attribute, what the value means for that vendor, and which part of the reading is worth watching next. Short answers usually link the entry so you can keep the detail.
- Applied If a correction holds up, the database entry is updated and the change is noted so the next visitor reading the same attribute gets the corrected version.
Questions that arrive often enough to answer here
Can I send a screenshot instead of typed values?+
Yes. Paste it into the message or describe the numbers from it. Typed value columns are faster to compare, but a screenshot is read the same way as long as the attribute names are visible next to the numbers.
My vendor uses a different name for an attribute. Which name do I use?+
Send the name your tool shows and the ID if it displays one. Vendor utilities rename and renumber attributes, and a mismatch between names is often the exact puzzle that needs solving, so the original wording is more useful than a translation.
How many readings should I include for a trend?+
Two are enough to show a direction, and three are better if they are weeks apart. Say roughly when each set was taken; a change over days and a change over months are read differently against Power-On Hours.
Can you tell me whether to replace the drive?+
What comes back is an explanation of the values and what each one implies, plus which attributes to watch. The replacement call depends on what the drive holds and what you can tolerate losing, and that part stays with you.
Do you accept suggestions for drives not yet listed?+
Yes — that is one of the three things this page is for. Send the vendor, the model or family, and which attributes your tool reports for it. Coverage currently centres on Seagate, WD, Toshiba, Samsung, Kingston, and Crucial, and gaps in that list are worth reporting.
Where do I read about a specific attribute before writing?+
The SMART Attribute Database explains each parameter against the vendor that defines it, the Manufacturer Notes cover the differences between vendor tools, and the Diagnostic Guides walk through failing drives, second-hand checks, and temperature.
Not ready to write yet? Check the reference first.
Most reading questions already have an answer in the attribute database, and a set of numbers can be tested with the calculator before you send anything. If something still does not add up, the form above is the shortest route to a person who maintains the data.