Detect Hard Drive Issues Before Catastrophe Strikes
Hard Disk Sentinel is a hard disk monitoring software with highest possible support of HDD/SSD/SSHD (hybrid) drives. Its goal is to find, test, diagnose and repair hard disk drive problems, report and display SSD and HDD health, performance degradations and failures. Hard Disk Sentinel gives complete textual description, tips and displays/reports the most comprehensive information about the hard disks and solid state disks inside the computer or in external enclosures (USB / e-SATA). Many different alerts and report options are available to ensure maximum safety of your valuable data.
The software monitors hard disk drive / HDD status, including health, temperature and all S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology, built in most hard disks, solid state disks and hybrid drives (SSHD) today) values for each disks. Also it measures the disk transfer speed in real time which can be used as a benchmark or to detect possible hard disk failures, performance degradations.
Hard Disk Sentinel is the perfect data protection solution: it can be effectively used to prevent HDD failure and SSD / HDD data loss because it has the most sensitive hard disk health rating system which is extremely sensitive to hard disk problems. This way even a small HDD problem can’t be missed.
Improvements and new features:
- added support of Intel Virtual RAID on CPU (Intel VROC): detect NVMe RAID array members, complete self-monitoring S.M.A.R.T. status of NVMe M.2 SSDs managed by Intel VROC controller
- added support of HighPoint NVMe RAID controllers: detect NVMe RAID array members, complete self-monitoring S.M.A.R.T. status of NVMe M.2 SSDs managed by HighPoint NVMe RAID controllers
- added support of HighPoint SSD7101A-1 NVMe RAID controller
- added support of Lenovo 530-8I RAID adapter: detect complete S.M.A.R.T. status of SATA/SAS hard disk drives configured as RAID
- added support of ThinkSystem 930-8I 2GB Flash PCIe 12Gb Adapter: detect complete S.M.A.R.T. status of SATA/SAS hard disk drives configured as RAID
- added support of Dell PowerEdge Boot Optimized Storage Solution – BOSS: detect RAID array members, complete self-monitoring S.M.A.R.T. status of SSDs managed by the BOSS RAID controller
- added support for MOBIUS 5-bay RAID hard disk enclosure: detect complete status of SATA hard disks configured as JBOD or RAID
- added support of ICY DOCK MB662U3-2S R1 RAID external enclosure: detect status information about RAID disk members
- added support of Kingston Enterprise SSDs: DC500R and DC500M
- added detection of eMMC storage devices used in tablets: detect and display eMMC specific information and self-monitoring status. Display eMMC health (if supported by the eMMC device)
(THANKS so much for Tim Schuerewegen for his excellent work) - added support for Swissbit industrial SD cards, ATP industrial SD cards, Kingston SDCIT industrial SD cards: detect status information, health and statistics
(THANKS so much for Tim Schuerewegen for his excellent work) - added support of Minerva RAID R2056A adapter (M.2 B+M notch to SATA 7pin x2 RAID Card)
- added support of various Apacer SATA SSDs
Main Features
Easy to use interface
All information are displayed in the main window of the application. Quick controls allow easy navigation to access all hard disks, partitions and different information. Intuitive user interface elements display information by using green/yellow/red color to indicate the level of problem. Detailed text description and context sensitive help guides the user thru the features and options.
1. Install > 2. Configure > 3. Stay protected
Just install, configure alerts and your system is now safe. You’ll be notified about the problems – but if everything is correct, Hard Disk Sentinel just sits on tray and displays current status. The data is protected 24 hours daily, 7 days a week.
Instant S.M.A.R.T. analysing
Hard Disk Sentinel can communicate with all IDE, Serial ATA, NVMe, SCSI, SAS and most USB hard disk drives, SSD and hybrid drives (SSHD) to detect their status and temperature. Hard disk status are displayed immediately as you launch the application, there is no need to analyse hard disks for a long period. It displays the current and maximum temperature for the hard disk. It reads all general and vendor-specific attributes and monitor their values. For advanced users, all raw data are displayed also including power-on time and number of read/write errors. Hard Disk Sentinel interprets the performance and fitness related S.M.A.R.T. values and displays the calculated Performance and Health percentage, total power on time and estimated lifetime remaining.
Hard Disk Hardware and Software Tests
By using Hard Disk Sentinel, it is possible to start hardware hard disk self tests. These tests can be used to effectively find all hard disk problems because built-in hardware methods are used to verify hard disk components (for example heads, servo, internal buffer in theShort self test). The Extended self test also verifies the complete hard disk surface, finds and repairs all weak areas and re-allocates the possible bad sectors. This is not possible with the software-based hard disk surface scan methods (for example, by using scandisk).
Seek Noise Test
Seek Test – to verify hard disk noise, seek time performance and temperature. Longer tests can be used as very deep and intensive stress-tests for the hard disk and verify if additional cooling is required.
Logging
Hard Disk Sentinel logs all degradations in all SMART parameters and issues alerts in such cases to maximise data protection. For example, if a new bad sector is found on your hard disk, you will be notified.
Alerts
Hard Disk Sentinel has wide range of alerts upon different problems. It can send e-mail (with e-mail->SMS gateway it can be SMS warning to your mobile), network message, can play sound alerts and so.There is an option to send daily emails about current status.
Shutdown
Offers option to shut down the computer on hard disk failure, HDD overheat or health degradation. This option can be used in combination of the alerts to prevent further data loss.
Hard Disk Details
Detects and displays every information about the hard disk, from the revision number and buffer size to all features it has. The maximum available and current transfer modes are also displayed.
HDD status in Windows Explorer
View the current health status and used space in Windows Explorer or in any other application, so you’ll always know the amount of used space for each partitions and the hard disk drive condition.
Information on demand
Current hard disk temperatures and health are displyed on the system tray and can be displayed in a small status window, the desktop itself or in a sidebar gadget (under Windows Vista or newer operating system). Average and maximum temperatures are logged for all hard disks and these informations are displayed in graphs for statistical purposes.
Hard Disk Performance
Logs how much data were read from or written to the hard disk. Displays current transfer rates for both reading and writing and estimates the maximum available (theoretical) transfer rate for a particular hard disk.
Hard Disk Partitions
Displays partitions for each physical hard disks and type and usage informations about them so you cannot run out of space. Hard Disk Sentinel sends this information automatically in alert/status messages.
Acoustic Management
Offers option to control the acoustic level of IDE/S-ATA hard disk. It is possible to increase performance or make the hard disk drives more silent. Unique feature: control the acoustic level of your external USB hard disk (if your USB enclosure is equipped with one of the proper USB-ATA bridge chips which supports this feature).
Clock Synchronization
It offers option to synchronize the PC clock with an atomic clock via NTP (Network Time Protocol).
You are allowed to use this product only within the laws of your country/region. SharewareOnSale and its staff are not responsible for any illegal activity. We did not develop this product; if you have an issue with this product, contact the developer. This product is offered "as is" without express or implied or any other type of warranty. The description of this product on this page is not a recommendation, endorsement, or review; it is a marketing description, written by the developer. The quality and performance of this product is without guarantee. Download or use at your own risk. If you don't feel comfortable with this product, then don't download it.
Reviews for Hard Disk Sentinel
Been using this system utility for many years. At first, the User Interface (UI)
(as many say) does seem confusing, but without doubt, this is a very thorough
pc hardware utility. The author has (to me) been great quickly answering questions.
The “Pro” version has a “Portable”/USB version also , but is more than I need.
Two thumbs up!!
Been using this system utility for many years. At first, the User Interface (UI)
(as many say) does seem confusing, but without doubt, this is a very thorough
pc hardware utility. The author has (to me) been great quickly answering questions.
The “Pro” version has a “Portable”/USB version also , but is more than I need.
Two thumbs up!!
Witam .
Jestem samoukiem w obsłudze komputera i sam muszę poradzić sobie z obsługą.
Wiele programów testuję , a najłatwiejszy w obsłudze , intuicyjny ,
posiadający najwięcej przydatnych funkcji ,
Używam nadal od dawna ( poprzednie wersje ) Hard Disk Sentinel .
Jest to bardzo przydatny program ,
Korzystałem z innych aplikacji , ale żaden nie jest tak kompletny, łatwy w
obsłudze i intuicyjny jak ten ! Uwielbiam go i jestem pewien,
wielu użytkowników będzie cieszyć się też!
Bardzo łatwy w użyciu, zainstalowany szybko i ma wspaniałe narzędzia.
Szczególnie podoba mi się elementy nadzoru nad stanem dysku w tle ,
i ostrzeganie gdy coś niedobrego zaczyna się dziać z dyskiem.
Poza tym współpraca z deweloper Janos Mathe na najwyższym poziomie.
Szybko i profesjonalnie!! Bardzo miły i rzeczowy kontakt, szybka pomoc
i instalacja przebiegła bez jakichkolwiek problemów,
a dzięki przysłanym na e-mail linkiem o samouczka i pomocy ,
poznałem jak i na co zwracać uwagę w ustawieniach programu .
a jego wiedza imponująca i bezcenna,
Z pełnym zaufaniem Polecam! “jest tak szybki że prędkość światła wpada w kompleksy”,
krzysztofikel
——————————-
Hello . I am a self-taught computer user and I have to handle myself. Many programs I test, and the easiest to use, intuitive, having the most useful features, I have been using the Hard Disk Sentinel for a long time now (previous versions). This is a very useful program, I have used other applications, but none is so complete, easy in service and intuitive like this one! I love it and I’m sure Many users will enjoy too! Very easy to use, installed quickly and has great tools. I especially like the elements of disk state monitoring in the background, and warning when something bad starts to happen with the drive. In addition, the cooperation with developer Janos Mathe at the highest level. Quickly and professionally !! Very nice and in-kind contact, quick help And the installation went through without any problems, And thanks to the tutorial email and help email, I met how and what to pay attention to in the program settings. With full confidence I recommend! “it is so fast that the speed of light falls into complexes”,
krzysztofikel
I’ve been using this for about a year, and found it impressive enough to buy a five computer lifetime license package. A comprehensive drive utility that shows the status of all your connected drives, and does both non-destructive and destructive diagnostics to determine drive health or ‘refresh’ a drive’s formatting.
There is nothing that will prevent a sudden catastrophic drive failure, but for most spinning drives and SSDs, it’s a degradation over time that this software will keep track of and inform you of consistently so you can make informed decisions about backup and replacement.
Highly recommended.
I’ve had HDS for many years and it’s saved me from one catastrophic failure that I remember. My onboard 3TB data drive ( companion to a solid state system drive) started losing sectors like crazy after only one year / 18 months so I made sure that I was backing up all the files at least daily to an external drive and got a spare. When the failure arrived I was able to reconstitute all my data on the new drive, which was fortunate because the failed disk was totally unreadable. Now I’m counting the days (111) until the solid state drive fails after 916 days of loyal powered-on service. If you don’t have it, get it!
An outstanding disk health monitoring program with many features to satisfy both the inexperienced user and the geeky tweaker.
I have it pop up on every boot for a quick drive health check, and it deals really well with both internal and external (USB, eSATA, etc.) drives. Diagnostics will non-destructively scan the disk surface for problems and ‘slow’ sectors, or destructively ‘refresh’ a drive by erasing everything and reformatting the sectors (after warning you TWICE what is about to happen).
I really like this utility, have it installed on all my machines at home.
Thank you. Köszönöm (thank you in Hungarian).
HDDs and SSDs are one of the most important part of a computer. These contain all your data and information including operating system, programs, photos, videos, text documents, music, and so on. Even though the hardware produced nowadays have become more reliable, but still there is always a risk of hardware failure, which could lead to loss of all your important data and information. So, continuous care and maintenance needs to be done, to ensure that HDDs and SSDs are in good health and status. There are many softwares for this purpose, but not all of them are effective and reliable.
Hard Disk Sentinel is a reliable hard disk health and performance monitoring software application, designed to prevent data loss caused by possible hardware failure. This too monitors hard drives activity and track it’s temperature, and send a notification as soon as something unusual like overheating takes place.
Installation & Set-up
The installer size is ~22MB and the installation process is very simple, taking no time at all. After the installation, the application takes around ~30MB space on the hard drive. The application automatically detects all the drives attached to your PC and upon launching lists them with their name, space, health, and temperature information.
Pros
Well-arranged UI
At first, the UI seems to be cluttered and overcrowded, and I was overwhelmed seeing a lot of things going on around in a single window with a lot of information being displayed. But using it for a few hours, I realized it’s actually arranged in a great way providing convenience and comfort to the user. The menu bar, as usual, comes with drop-down menus, and the tool bar under it contains icons that lead to different main tools of the application. The lower part is divided into two sections, the left-side lists all the drives and partitions present on them with info like name, space, health, and temperature. The right-side is for detailed information, and it is divided into seven tabs, namely Overview, Temperature, S.M.A.R.T., Information, Log, Disk Performance and Alerts.
Detailed information about disks
In the ‘Overview’ tab, brief information on performance and health is shown, including power on time and estimated remaining lifetime. The ‘Temperature’ tab shows the current temperature value, and also the average and maximum temperature of the selected drive. Moreover, there are four graphs showing, current temperature, Daily Average, Minimum and Maximum.
‘Disk Performance’ section shows the transfer rate information, including total data read and write, current, average and maximum transfer rate, along with disk activity. There are two graphs that show Disk activity and transfer rate. Moreover, the information tab displays a lot of information divided into many categories like Hard Disk Summary, ATA Information, ATA Features, Acoustic Management Information, SSD Features, S.M.A.R.T Information.
Disk Tests & Great customization
There are several test types that this application allows you to perform on your disk. These are Short Self-Test, Extended Self-Test and Conveyance Self-Test. Tests include Read test, Write test, Read +Write, Read + Write + Read, Disk Surface Test and more.
Moreover, the application let’s you configure hotkeys, disk control, message settings, alerts and even the way the hard disk temperature icon will look in the System Tray.
Conclusion
Hard Disk Sentinel is a tool definitely worth having in your PC if you are afraid of hardware failure and data loss. It will keep your disks running healthy and notify you as soon as something goes wrong. I recommend it to all the users.
Another reason to use Hard Disk Sentinel…
You Should Use external hard drives that are normally disconnected to store backups of your stuff & optionally Windows. The why is simple — ransomware can target files on any attached storage, and it’s not nice enough to let you know your files are in the process of being encrypted, so you know to do stuff like disconnect whatever/wherever you store your backups. And if you use & depend on regular hard drives connected via USB, you need Hard Disk Sentinel [or similar] to monitor those drive temps. Conventional hard drives need active cooling for sustained use or they can get hot enough to effect reliability of the drive itself or the data being written to or read from the drive, though that cooling can be temperature regulated [e.g. in a NAS] rather than constant. Long story short, when a HDD is connected via USB, cooling can often be iffy — use Hard Drive Sentinel to be safe. Adjust the polling interval [I set it to update once a minute], & watch the data &/or graph of the temp in the S.M.A.R.T. data.
I’ve been running this version on all my machines for about six months or so (since the last giveaway?).
It is a very good safety net with early warning of drive failure where appropriate, displays many useful parameters for your connected drives, can do various tests and configuration changes if your drive supports those, and even predicts length of drives’ life depending on what it finds. Small footprint. I really like it.
I’ve had HDS for many years and it’s saved me from one catastrophic failure that I remember. My onboard 3TB data drive ( companion to a solid state system drive) started losing sectors like crazy after only one year / 18 months so I made sure that I was backing up all the files at least daily to an external drive and got a spare. When the failure arrived I was able to reconstitute all my data on the new drive, which was fortunate because the failed disk was totally unreadable. Now I’m counting the days (111) until the solid state drive fails after 916 days of loyal powered-on service. If you don’t have it, get it!
You may have not experienced a hard drive failure but the experience is common among regular computer users. In most cases, hard disk issues and failures lead to loss of important files and information. Although data recovery options exist, you would want to avoid the process all together. The certain way of doing so is by remaining aware of your drive’s health. While searching for an application that could help me accomplish this process, I came across Hard Disk Sentinel. Here is what I noted while using this program.
Hard Disk Sentinel at a glance
The installation process is straightforward. After you are through with this process, you would want to configure the program regarding receiving alerts. You wouldn’t go without noticing the rather clustered UI that this program presents. Features and options are notably many, hence that could be the reason for the developer to settle for such an arrangement. However, after you find your way in using the application, you will do a myriad of tasks from finding, testing, diagnosing, and repairing your HDD’s problems.
Pros
Reliable and useful alerts
Given my busy schedules, I find minimal time for continuously monitoring my HDD’s performance. Thankfully, I rely on this program’s alert. Be it a major or minor problem, the software will alert you about the same. For instance, if the drive’s transfer speed drops, you will get an alert for the same. The alerts also work for other HDD status, temperature, and health.
Apart from the health-related information about your hard drive, Hard Disk Sentinel comes in handy in finding out additional details regarding your drive. Such information include the disk’s rotational speed, physical dimension, firmware, and serial number.
Sufficiently handles eminent hard disk failure
Sending you alerts regarding certain problems about your HDD is not enough. Hard Disk Sentinel can take action to prevent data loss. For instance, if your hard disk’s temperature is above the healthy level, the program can shut down your computer to avoid further data loss.
Cons
Cluttered interface
It is great that Hard Disk Sentinel presents a load of features. The downside that comes with such an approach is the notable cluttered interface. As such, users miss a nice experience were the interface clean and intuitive. At the beginning, the many options could come across as confusing for novice users.
Verdict
Hard Disk Sentinel is a comprehensive program with useful tools and features to help you monitor various performance aspects of your HDD or SDD. This program further stamps its presence as a go-to tool for your hard disk monitoring through its comprehensive set of information it provides. As a result, you can avoid data loss by heeding to the actions it sends you via alerts.
I’ve had this software for about 6 months and have been impressed with it, it does what it claims to do, as it says it will, unlike some other software. It is easy on resources and very useful for those who like to keep an eye on what is happening under the hood as it were.
Unobtrusive with valuable information. Do you need it ?? up to you. Works great recommend. A++
Hard Disk Sentinel is a tool designed to oversee the operations of HDDs, SDDs, and removable devices. It tests, analyzes, diagnoses, and repairs HDD and SDD problems and informs you whenever your disks are performing poorly. This tool has a variety of features including system tray indicators that display the temperature and disk health. It is capable of sending e-mail notifications to notify you in case of critical issues.
User Interface and Functionality
Installing Hard Disk Sentinel is pretty easy and fast. Once launched, the software displays a homepage that is filled with lots of information about your disks. The interface looks a bit cluttered, especially because of the multiple features included. The first panel of the homepage features a summary of the status of the hard and solid state drives. You can check the temperature, health, available space, and performance among others.
Check the temperature of the disks on the second tab –which is handy, especially when you want to know whether the fans are working perfectly. The S.M.A.R.T section uses the performance and health ratings to perform calculations. This section is mainly a preserve of advanced users who know what they are doing to the system. There is also a log, alerts, disk information, and a disk performance feature.
Pros
Information on disk performance – Hard Disk Sentinel provides comprehensive information about hard disks and solid state drives’ performance. You can easily notice whenever your disk’s performance is declining and repair issues affecting it. The software also provides a whole range of information including the firmware type, hard disk cylinders, disk controller, serial number, physical dimension, time it has been in operation, and rotational speed.
Temperature monitoring –The software allows you to easily monitor the temperature of the hard drives. It displays the lowest and highest temperatures recorded, as well as the average for the day, week, or month.
Sends alerts about critical issues– Hard Disk Sentinel activates sound alerts when the disk health is low, a failure is anticipated, or the temperature is too high. Use the settings section to enable the software to send you messages on such issues.
Availability of hotkeys
You can configure hotkeys for easy viewing of the hard disk information. Check the HDD temperature history, configuration panel, and partition information, among many other features.
Password protection -If your computer is used by many people, you can apply a password to Hard Disk Sentinel to avoid other users from accessing configuration files.
Cons
Cluttered UI –Novice users may find it hard to use the software due to its technical feel. The panels are fitted with multiple statistics that make it feel cluttered.
Conclusion
Although there are many free tools that can be used to check hard disks, Hard Disk Sentinel offers way more than they do. It is an excellent tool with rich setting dedicated to monitoring and maintenance of hard disks for novice and experienced PC users.
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