Well I found this GAOTD pretty much accurate with regard to S.M.A.R.T. attributes in order to predict any possible HD failure (raw read error rate, spin up time, error rate etc...); and it's also noobs friendly since it can interpret the S.M.A.R.T. data it found with a very easy expanation.

So overall it does the job pretty well and as GAOTD it's ABOVE AVERAGE, but seems to be more suitable for PC DESKTOPS rather than LAPTOPS (support for external drives also appears to be limited).

Personally I prefer a tool designed to check the health of my USB and External drives, as most of my backup data are there....how about you dudes?

And anyway, as usual charging money for a product like this doesn't make too much sense to me nowadays...what do you make of it dudes?

http://gsmartcontrol.berlios.de/home/index.php/About (==> unlike this GAOTD it's more suitable for external HDs and USB flash Drives)
http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Hard-Disk-Utils/Western-Digital-DLG-Diagnostics.shtml

Wanna a FREE & PORTABLE app?? No problem, with Giovanni you can do that for FREE:

http://www.softpedia.com/get/PORTABLE-SOFTWARE/System/System-Info/Portable-CrystalDiskInfo.shtml

To monitor the fan speed, voltage and chip temperature, so as to avoid damaging your system by restraining the excessive heat of both HD and CPU, try these 2 FREE GEMS:

* SpeedFan (==> Softpedia Editor Pick & my Personal First Choice)
With this magic FREE TOOL users can tweak both voltage and temperature parameters speed fans, according to the detected temperatures, so as to avoid damaging their system by restraining the excessive heat of both HD and CPU.
It can also perform an in-depth analysis on your HDs, by monitoring the S.M.A.R.T. readings of your EIDE, SATA and SCSI hard disks and RAID controllers, thus allowing users to anticipate any possible system failures in the future.

http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php

* eFMer TThrottle (==> Supports both Intel and AMD Processors sporting an internal temperature sensor)
Can monitor the CPU & GPU (CUDA/ATI) temperatures and set the runtime of any running program, to make sure that the CPU or Gpu Processor temperature doesn't exceed a certain temperature.
Yes, you heard that right: what it does is adjusting the amount of time a certain process (program) may run, and then stop all threads of it for a short amount of time should the Core temperature exceed the warning level.
This way you'll always keep the temperature of your system below the “Set Temperature”: cool, isn't it? Must have program especially for LAPTOP users!!

http://efmer.eu/boinc/index.html

Enjoy!

Cheers by Giovanni Mr FREE!!!

Giovanni Mr FREE  –  10 years ago  –  A fost util acest comentariu? da | nu (+245)

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Pros
*Analyzes and monitors the health of hard drives using S.M.A.R.T.
*Instead of just giving you raw S.M.A.R.T. data, provides some easy-to-understand stats about the health of your drive
*Has multiple different ways of you warning you of potential failure, such as via email
*Works with all types of internal and external drives that support S.M.A.R.T. -- which is pretty much all modern drives

Cons
*As is typical with all programs of this type, failure detection/prediction is not 100% accurate

Free Alternatives
Ashampoo HDD Control 2 (freebie, not freeware)
HDD Expert
HDDScan

Final Verdict
Click here for final verdict and full review

Ashraf  –  10 years ago  –  A fost util acest comentariu? da | nu (+123)

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The analogy that comes to mind is getting a flat tire... if you keep an eye on your tires, checking wear periodically, assuming you replace tires before they're badly worn, your odds of having a flat tire [or worse, a blowout] go down. Does it prevent a flat? No. It just shifts the odds a little more in your favor.

Checking hard drive S.M.A.R.T. data works the same way -- it [hopefully] lets you know your hard drive is wearing out in time to replace it before it gets worse or fails. Modern hard drives are more forgiving than in the past [they can usually do some self-healing], and PCs/laptops are faster, so you don't always know when a drive has to repeat reading or writing data because the 1st time(s) it could not. This is the type of info that S.M.A.R.T. data can provide. It's also something that your PC &/or laptop might well already be monitoring...

Lots of people never turn off their PCs, whether they leave them constantly running or maybe have their laptop go to sleep or into hibernation. And when you start a PC or laptop that's been shut off, usually the manufacturer has it set to display some sort of logo screen. Behind that logo is data that's displayed as the system boots, & it usually can check your drive(s) S.M.A.R.T. data, warning you if anything is amiss.

The main caveat with recorded S.M.A.R.T. data is that data from say Western Digital & Seagate drives will be different -- they don't all record the same things, & the results they do record don't always mean the same thing. Hard Drive Inspector will hopefully save you from having to Google for info to translate results for your particular drive(s).

Now should you run Hard Drive Inspector constantly, or start it with Windows? That's entirely up to you. People should check their tires pretty regularly -- it can save not just your life but the lives of anyone riding in your car or truck, as well as the lives of other drivers etc. Many [most?] people don't want to bother, so they came up with a recommendation to check them weekly, or at the least monthly, hoping that way more people will actually check. I don't wish to offend anyone, but some folks will only use something like Hard Drive Inspector if they make it part of a weekly or monthly routine the same way, say just before a backup &/or whatever other maintenance. Since you're looking more for signs of wear & tear, that's usually fine.

[A quickest note: since we're concerned about hard drive health today, mechanical hard drives (rather than SSDs) generate a lot of heat -- they usually benefit from some sort of cooling. In a PC case or laptop housing that's usually done by airflow over the drives -- in an external drive housing adequate cooling is much less common. If you use the drive to read/write data is shorter bursts, storing a few files now & then that's not so much a problem -- if that reading/writing is sustained, say copying a backup, external drives can get hot enough to increase wear &/or promote early failure. Myself, I use external housings that have fans & use desktop USB fans with docks. HWMonitor does read their temps over eSATA.]

mike  –  10 years ago  –  A fost util acest comentariu? da | nu (+49)

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The majority of manufacturers of prebuilt machines usually include software of this nature for free.

If you visit the website of your hard drive manufacturer, you should be able to download a whole bunch of diagnostics and utilities for free.

At the end of the day, A warning that my hard drive is not doing so well is nice. A quality backup done that is maintained twice a week is far better.

Entruchio  –  10 years ago  –  A fost util acest comentariu? da | nu (+42)

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Thanks to AltrixSoft & GOTD.
Downloaded,installed and activated.
Tested it.

Result: Very Good.
• you can choose whether to run it at Windows start up
• you can choose whether to display disk's death time estimation

It will run minimised. You can right click and choose to [Open Hard Drive Inspector] to see the main window.

The software displays the hard disk's health under 3 main areas:
• Reliability [e.g. "Good"]
• Performance [e.g. "Good"]
• Error resistance [e.g. "Good"]

It shows the temperature of your various hard disks.
You can choose to display in Fahrenheit or Celsius.

It will also display the temperatures in small font in the system tray area.

It displays data about the hard disks:
• capacity
• total free space
• the accumulated total power-on time (since it was first used)

Well thought through software product and good programming.
Excellent user interface.

This is on par with the other very good software named Hard Disk Sentinel.

ric  –  10 years ago  –  A fost util acest comentariu? da | nu (+34)

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