The only possible explanations I have for the difference in your results and mine with Etrecheck, and confirmed by Disk Utility, TechTool Pro, Tinkertool System, and Drive Genius are:
  1. I am using a different version of MacOS (10.13.2 beta 4)
  2. My SSD is formatted APFS (but S.M.A.R.T. is purely hardware and the format should not effect the hardware)
  3. I have a different model MacBook Pro
  4. I am not holding my mouth right when I run Etrecheck or any of the other utilities

Originally Posted By: artie505
Originally Posted By: joemikeb
Smart Alec apparently has a much lower "verified" tolerance and I concur in its estimate.

How did you determine that if Smart Alec couldn't see your SSD?

I base that on
  • a previous version of Smart Alec that I beta tested on my Mac mini
  • Assumed from comments made by Smart Alec developers (I know — assumed)
  • Knowledge of S.M.A.R.T. test limitations reported many years ago by Google Labs
  • Years of experience seeing all the various parameters via TechTool Pro
  • Two occassions of drives reporting "verified" in Disk Utility while TechTool Pro was showing multiple failed S.M.A.R.T. parameters when the drive had actually failed

If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?

— Albert Einstein