Comment 2 for bug 391576

Yes, it would be nice. Running it by default (and configuring it to make regular long surface checks by default) could prevent data loss on nearly correct discs - we "lost" several discs in this way in last weeks - the disc has enough spare sectors and S.M.A.R.T. can remap failing sectors, but it is not able to do it, because they are discovered too late and it is not possible to read weak data before remapping.

The current SuSE implementation does not turn it on by default and contains YaST install notify message:

---
To prevent system hangs from buggy devices, smartd is turned off by default.
Please test smartd manually first and then turn it on via
the Runlevel Editor or by /sbin/chkconfig --add smartd.
---

Most people don't see this message.

I personally never seen such device, but smartmontools developers say, that such devices exist. And we need a way, how to detect, that the current hardware is not broken - e. g. write /foo/broken before running smartd and delete it after successfull boot and don't run smartd if smartd is present (and not old).

For desktops we have to use desktop-neutral user notification (permanent or regular displaying of notification message, e. g. "Your disc is going to crash soon!"), otherwise fatal messages will be lost in the syslog.