[bstone]

A few minutes ago I ran SMART Utility (downloaded from Apple downloads) and it reported the following

http://www.flickr.com/photos/10189127@N08/5483929117/

I ran the Disk Utility "verify disk" and it reports the disk is fine.

Should I go to the Genius tomorrow?

[reader50]

SMART Utility cries "wolf" too soon, and Disk Utility waits longer than it should.

That error means one block failed to read. It won't be reallocated until it fails a write operation. I wouldn't sweat a single pending reallocation. If you see more though, the drive will be on the way out.

[ghporter]

As reader50 says, SMART utilities, especially Apple's, provide "absolutely worst case in this or any nearby universe" indications of "failing" disks through the utility's interpretation of the SMART data. One or two blocks is to be expected through the life of a drive, and the drive typically attempts to recover the data and write it to good blocks - often so slickly that you never know it happened.

On the other hand, when the disk itself says "I'm bad," all SMART utilities I'm aware of just pass that on straight to the user without interpretation.

If SMART says BAD, it's bad. If it doesn't say "drive has failed," then the user needs to interpret the data, and apply a very critical analysis to what a utility concludes about that data.

[P]

Agree with the above posters - saying "failing" at that point is way too soon. I would read that error as:

1) Back up now. If you weren't already backing up regularly, take this as a hint that you should start.
2) Keep an eye on it. Run the SMART utility again to check for the total number of reallocated sectors. If it keeps climbing regularly, worry.

[bstone]

I don't need to back up now. I backup every night at 10pm. I have mozy and for years I have felt extremely safe if my HD were to die or laptop stolen.

I'll run the util once a week and if I see an upswing I'll bother Apple.