The interesting thing (for me) was that the SMART data from the drive gave it an all clear right to the end. But unlike the SSDs, there was plenty of behavioural warning to remind me to have the backups up to date and a spare at the ready...
FWIW, of the three-four dozen or so drives I have actively SMART monitored over the years, of the ones that failed, *not* *one* gave a SMART warning before dying.
That includes a spinny disk in one of my Mac Minis. Of anyone, I would expect Apple to be in bed with their HD suppliers enough to have HD firmware that reliably reports SMART errors (since the disk utilities do pay attemtion to it). I spent a month listening to that drive's heads slam back to the home position as it tried to recalibrate itself, before eventually dying. To the bitter end, SMART reported "a-ok boss!"
--lyndon
