> SMART says there's a problem, it's very likely to fail catastrophically within a short time period.
Exactly.
> SMART says there's no problem, doesn't mean a thing.
Right. Mechanical failures are probably not easy to predict, and can happen at any time without warning. And smart cant record or report if the electronics blow up.
Reallocated sectors are a hard drive's way of failing gracefully. If you catch it in time, you might be able to save your files.
Mechanical failure is not so graceful...
