Many users rely on external USB drives for backups, including local backup drives and air-gapped disaster recovery drives. While QTS provides excellent SMART monitoring and scheduled self-tests for internal drives, there is currently no equivalent functionality for compatible USB storage devices.
Many modern USB-to-SATA and USB-to-NVMe bridge chipsets already support SMART passthrough. When the hardware exposes SMART information, QTS should be able to utilize those capabilities.
Requested Feature
Add SMART support for compatible USB storage devices under:
System → Storage & Snapshots → Storage → External Storage
When SMART passthrough is available, provide functionality similar to internal drives, including:
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SMART health status
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SMART attributes
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Drive temperature
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Power-on hours
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SSD wear/life remaining (when supported)
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Error logs (when supported)
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Manual Short SMART Self-Test
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Manual Extended SMART Self-Test
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Scheduled SMART self-tests
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SMART test history and results
If a USB bridge does not support SMART passthrough, simply display a message indicating that SMART monitoring is unavailable for that device.
Benefits
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Improves confidence in external backup media.
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Allows users to verify backup drives before and after backups.
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Reduces the need to connect backup drives to another operating system solely to run SMART tests.
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Provides a consistent management experience between internal and external storage.
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Helps identify failing backup drives before they are needed for disaster recovery.
Alternative Implementation
If adding this functionality to Storage & Snapshots is not feasible, exposing the same SMART capabilities within Hybrid Backup Sync 3 (HBS3) would also provide significant value.
For example, HBS3 could optionally:
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Run a SMART Short Self-Test before a backup.
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Run a SMART Short Self-Test after a backup.
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Include SMART test results in backup reports and notifications.
Use Case
I maintain several external backup drives, including air-gapped backups that are only connected a few times each year.
Before disconnecting and returning a backup drive to off-site storage, I would like to verify:
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The backup completed successfully.
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The backup passes a Content Check.
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The backup drive itself passes a SMART self-test.
Today, this requires using third-party tools or another operating system, even when the USB enclosure fully supports SMART passthrough.
Adding native SMART support for compatible USB storage devices would make QTS and HBS3 a more complete backup management platform while improving confidence in disaster recovery backups.