HDD Health Utilties

[c2d]

Hi, i wanted to get a hdd utility to tell me about the health of my drive. I found SIGuardian and HardDrive Inspector, however both tell me totally different things. The SiGuardian one tells me my drive is estimated to die tomorrow, and HardDriveInspector tells me january 2010.

Does anyone know of any decent reliable programs to use? Thanks alot.

P.s I have a hitachi travelstar 5k80 drive.

 

[Bludd]

Try HDTune. It's free.

 

[thehulk]

I use HDD Health.

 

[SugarCoat]

Hi, i wanted to get a hdd utility to tell me about the health of my drive. I found SIGuardian and HardDrive Inspector, however both tell me totally different things. The SiGuardian one tells me my drive is estimated to die tomorrow, and HardDriveInspector tells me january 2010.

Does anyone know of any decent reliable programs to use? Thanks alot.

P.s I have a hitachi travelstar 5k80 drive.

for failure detection? SMART, which is in many computers BIOS (sometimes turned off), will popup if it detects problems during boot (this is what most of the software ones use with some personal tweaks and obviously in windows), but drives can fail mechanically which very well may not give any warning other then audible ones like "clicking" when its spinning up. Basically if a HDD starts making noises it hasnt before its time to backup the data and wait for it to die or to replace it alltogether. Keep in mind also that programs that use SMART and SMART itself have no set guidelines on what exactly is considered a pass or fail in a test. What one program might deem as bad another might see as fine.

I've found alot of those programs really can be unreliable. One day they'll tell you the drive is going to die and the next it reports everything is fine. If the data is valuable always back it up. Even if its a brand new HDD its always good to have a backup.

 

[Frank]

The IBM SMART utilities are good, but probably not (much) better than any other decent SMART monitor. And the utilities offered by most manufacturers are pretty good as well. But don't look too much at anything but the SMART stats.

For throughput, HDTach is probably the most used.

Everything else isn't interesting.

 

[Frank]

Keep in mind also that programs that use SMART and SMART itself have no set guidelines on what exactly is considered a pass or fail in a test. What one program might deem as bad another might see as fine.

Yes, I think the IBM ones are the most honest. But you can simply look at the numbers itself: how many sectors have been moved, how often was a second pass needed, how often does it need to calibrate, etc.

 

[Randell]

I quite like the read-out in the speedfan HDD test (uses SMART of course). Can't vouch for its veracity though.

 

[Rainbow Man]

I read once on another message board that manufacturers are often intentionally dishonest (to at least some degree) regarding smart because it wouldn'tbe in their interests to advertise that their product perhaps is about to fail..

Somehow, that makes a scary amount of sense unfortunately. I wouldn't put too much ttrust in these smart monitors. I keep the most important of my stuff on a flashcard instead. Not that that is so much better perhaps seeng as flash degrades over time but at least there's no moving components to wear out..


Peace.

 

[SugarCoat]

I read once on another message board that manufacturers are often intentionally dishonest (to at least some degree) regarding smart because it wouldn'tbe in their interests to advertise that their product perhaps is about to fail..

Somehow, that makes a scary amount of sense unfortunately. I wouldn't put too much ttrust in these smart monitors. I keep the most important of my stuff on a flashcard instead. Not that that is so much better perhaps seeng as flash degrades over time but at least there's no moving components to wear out..


Peace.

actually that makes no sense since they'd want you to buy another one of their product in the future rather then going ballistic when you lose everything without warning causing you to never buy another HDD of that brand again.

 

[_xxx_]

Best for your HDD's health: regular defragmenting and backup and NOT messing with HDD health utilities. It's the same shite as reg cleaners, tends to make things worse instead of better.

 

[Bludd]

Best for your HDD's health: regular defragmenting and backup and NOT messing with HDD health utilities. It's the same shite as reg cleaners, tends to make things worse instead of better.

Yeah, monitoring SMART status is just like using a reg cleaner..