alan@deep-thought:~⟫ sudo smartctl -a /dev/sdc 
[sudo] password for alan: 
smartctl 6.4 2014-10-07 r4002 [x86_64-linux-3.19.0-22-generic] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-14, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Device Model:     0o,�@
                       ��d_�3$Ѕ%��l�}
                                     ��u
Serial Number:    5兛TQ�ִ
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LU WWN Device Id: 4 0096d7 316659f2e
Firmware Version: �@
Rotation Rate:    9307 rpm
Form Factor:      Unknown (0x2f70)
Device is:        Not in smartctl database [for details use: -P showall]
ATA Version is:   Unknown(0xd26d) (unknown minor revision code: 0x97be)
Local Time is:    Wed Jun 24 19:40:44 2015 BST
SMART support is: Unavailable - Packet Interface Devices [this device: Processor] don't support ATA SMART

A mandatory SMART command failed: exiting. To continue, add one or more '-T permissive' options.