I got this program about six months ago (same version) in a giveaway from another site - it's well worth having. It's the best of the HD monitoring programs I've tried.

David J Wilson  –  7 years ago  –  Vond je deze reactie nuttig? ja | nee (+17)

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This is a completely different program from all the utilities which show you your disks SMART status. In fact, the publisher has a very interesting technical page where he explains why SMART, by itself, is very inefficient in predicting hard drive failure. I'm not able to evaluate their arguments ; all I can say is their case is pretty convincing :

http://www.hdsentinel.com/smart/index.php

The FAQ page is also very educational :

http://www.hdsentinel.com/faq.php#q2

Browse the online help if you need more information :

http://www.hdsentinel.com/help/en/index.html

What Hard Disk Sentinel does is use the SMART system, but apply its own method on top of it. It tracks SMART data along time, and derives a health "percentage" from that. It also offers its own set of tests, unrelated to SMART if I understood correctly. You can compare your disks data to the average data for that specific model.

They pay particular attention to the working temperature of disks drives, because they say that's a major predictor of failure and remaining lifetime. They go as far as displaying the remaining, estimated lifetime of each disk. (No way to know what that's worth.) However temperature is but one of many monitoring points.

If you care about your PC and data and are the inquisitive type, I encourage you to try this program. Knowing if it really helps predict hard disk failure and protect data requires the surveillance of many PCs over an extended period of time, so I can't offer any help here.

The drawbacks of Hard Disk Sentinel are :

- It's quite technical. You need to master it. Don't expect a simple dashboard with green/red status graphics.

- It does not work completely seamlessly if you use a non admin Windows user account for your daily tasks, as I do.

- It's not high DPI-aware.

- The user interface, while functional, is one of the ugliest I have ever seen. It seems stuck in 1990's aesthetics (or lack of the latter) and looks incredibly amateurish (which, in my humble opinion, is very detrimental to the product). Horrible colours !

There are three editions (not counting free trial). The one on offer here is Standard, not Pro nor Enterprise. However, the feature set of Standard is already impressive. This is by no means a crippled version. The editions comparison page is well hidden :

http://www.hdsentinel.com/store.php

Clairvaux  –  7 years ago  –  Vond je deze reactie nuttig? ja | nee (+17)

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This is the same version I've been using from a prior giveaway -- there is a beta out BTW: neowin[.]net/news/hard-disk-sentinel-47114-beta

Basically Hard Disk Sentinel shows the S.M.A.R.T. data for hard drives, & provides it's own hard drive tests. It's a good app. I use it to monitor the temps when using conventional hard drives connected via USB 3.0, setting it for more frequent polling of the S.M.A.R.T. data. For internal drives & external drives connected via eSATA I just use the free HWMonitor, which also shows what's going on with my graphics card, CPU, & fans.

Do note that S.M.A.R.T. data is useful, & *may* be predictive, but it's not an absolute indicator of drive health -- I've had drives fail while still showing good S.M.A.R.T. data, right up until the time I could no longer access them. Many bios have a feature where they can read the S.M.A.R.T. data every time the system boots, warning you if necessary.

Hard Disk Sentinel's drive tests are informative & can give a good indication of a drive's health -- I always use it if/when I pick up a reman drive cheap. That said, if I suspect that there may be a problem I'll run the software from Western Digital for my WD drives -- some other brands have similar. One, it can remap a bad section to a spare, and two, it's required anyway if the drive is defective & needs RMA. Do Not use Windows disk check to attempt repair -- any sectors it marks bad will be recorded in the NTFS file tables, and they persist after you've replaced the drive, cloning the contents from the old one.

mike  –  7 years ago  –  Vond je deze reactie nuttig? ja | nee (+16)

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I've been running this software program for a couple of years now. And I couldn't be happier with it. It runs with windows, and puts an icon(configurable) in the desktop tray. The icon is a number, and the number is the temperature of my hard drive. It is the equivalent of the temperature gauge on your car dashboard. A good thing to know at a mere glance. Opening the program will show the overall health of your hard drive.

Injeun  –  7 years ago  –  Vond je deze reactie nuttig? ja | nee (+14)

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I picked up Hard Disk Sentinel on a previous giveaway (4.60). I though, what the heck, I will try it. It indicated that my backup drive had serious problems and was in danger of failing. To be cautious, I moved the data to a different drive. Four days later, the old back up drive DIED! For me, it was great timing by GOTD. This is a super program, and everyone should have it! For us folks who started with WIN 95 in days past have said: "if only I knew the hard drive was about to give out I would of done something". Now with Hard Drive Sentinel, you can!!!!!!

Crazy Denny  –  7 years ago  –  Vond je deze reactie nuttig? ja | nee (+12)

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