Hard Disk Health Status Check

For a long time, hard disks failures were like earthquakes: you would never know when disaster would strike. Save for some hints that were generally overlooked or not detected by most users, such as sluggish read/write operations, transfers completed with errors or strange sounds coming from the computer box, nothing would give away the fact that the hard disk was spinning its platters for the last time.
Fortunately, those days are gone and predicting drive failure is a simple matter of taking a look at the S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology) attributes readings. Software capable of offering this feature come in different shapes and sizes, but there is a newcomer in town, which combines disk failure warnings with backup alerts. This way, you can keep track of storage devices on the brink of collapsing and copy data off them to a different, problem-free unit.

This sort of tool has been recently introduced to users by Acronis and it is called simply Drive Monitor. The application is absolutely free of charge and comes as a 17.3MB package, which installs quickly, without complications on the system.

Simplicity and ease of use are the main attributes for the interface design and the way the application has been constructed. You can easily navigate from one section to another while the configuration panel poses no obstacle, not even for less experienced users. All the menus roll down in the left hand side of the interface and provide details about monitored disks, backup state and critical events. There is also a “Summary” page listing general information on the status of the three monitored areas (Disks, Backups and Critical events) giving you a warning in case something is not okay.




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