Sweet, Merciful Crap! My Drive!

Oh, great: from some Google employees, we learn that

results confirm the findings of previous smaller population studies that suggest that some of the SMART parameters are well-correlated with higher failure probabilities. We find, for example, that after their first scan error, drives are 39 times more likely to fail within 60 days than drives with no such errors. First errors in reallocations, offline reallocations, and probational counts are also strongly correlated to higher failure probabilities. Despite those strong correlations, we find that failure prediction models based on SMART parameters alone are likely to be severely limited in their prediction accuracy, given that a large fraction of our failed drives have shown no SMART error signals whatsoever. [Emphasis added.]

In other words, BACK. THE FUCK. UP. Because you might have warning signs before your drive fails, but then again you might not.