This may seem completely off-topic, but when i worked at my University's computer store ten years ago, the official life expectancy of a 2.5in 7200RPM hard drive was two years, i gather most brands now have brought that down to the warranty period: one year.

i see a lot of drives fail (my tasks include IT work), and i can't remember a single one of those failed drives that had a negative SMART report...

To be honest, i never even thought anyone serious even paid attention to the 'SMART report'.
Cheers,
Peter

I have had SMARTReporter kick up a warning before a drive completely bit the dust, so at least it at least occasionally does give useful information.

The Wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.M.A.R.T. mentions that Google did find it to have some predictive ability in their testing.

Sorry, i just realized that my language was a little rough...
i guess i didn't mean that it has no predictive value at all; just that, in my experience, i never relied on it as one of my 'core' troubleshooting steps/tools...
Cheers,
Peter