Imagine that you are working on a very important document, you are red hot nonstop writing and suddenly the hard drive of your computer gives you a heart attack and everything goes to hell. Only those who have lived know how that feeling of “I cannot be happening to me” that keeps you in shock during the first few minutes before you put screaming hysterically.
Obviously, with the benefits of cloud or keeping backups every so often the drama could have been avoided, but neither had been nice to have a tool to go occasionally checking the health of your hard drive. So today we bring you seven free apps so you know what the status of your disks.
CrystalDiskInfo
CrystalDiskInfo is a complete tool that will show parameter information SMART, temperature, serial number, the manufacturer, the number of times it has been lit, the hours that has been running and a lot of data concerning each of your hard drives.
It also analyzes the state of external hard drives and has a notification feature that you can adjust to warn you when one of your disks is heating up too. It is an Open Source program and has a portable version to always take it with you. You know, for when you go to repair the PC of your friends.
HDDScan
The first thing that catches the attention of HDDScan is that it is a program that requires no installation, so you can also take you on a USB stick and run it directly on any computer. The interface looks like something out ten years ago, but as a tool is one of the best you can find. Especially as graphic options that teaches you after scans surface.
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Notifies you about overheating, SMART offers extensive and offers you various verification tests, reading and deleting data. It also analyzes the Conveyance or transport damage, perfect for when you send a hard disk by mail or you bought it in a store. The only thing you have to remember is that you should try not running your scans while you have other open applications using the hard disk.
EASIS Drive Check
If you are a person without much technical knowledge who wants easy to understand visual analysis, EASIS Drive Check is possibly the application of this list that you like. It is so simple that to run only give you two options: an analysis of the SMART values or a test surface.
The first will take only a few seconds and show the data as you see in the picture, very visually with red areas to tell the factors that may be slacking. The surface is much more comprehensive and will take at least two hours, but you will know in detail if you have a defective sector.
HD Tune
HD Tune offers the possibility of a graphical analysis of the internal or external behavior of the hard disk and analyzes the defective samples wake-up times and many other general information sectors, SMART. It also measures the temperature and actually put on your toolbar an icon that shows you at all times on your hard drive.
Unfortunately, the free version takes several discontinued years, so if you want better results have to pull a PRO version. Still it has a Free Trial with which we can perform quick scans.
DiskCheckup
Although not as powerful as previous, DiskCheckup is a simple tool that can make basic diagnoses the status of your hard drive. With it, you can monitor the status of the disc, set alarms for too high temperatures and inform keeping a record of the data SMART
It has no complicated charts or metrics that you will not be able to read, but it includes a reading and writing test so you can know how it is performing. Come on, that if you are not a computer expert and you settle whether the thing is right you have more than enough.
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Acronis Drive Monitor
Do not be fooled by the vintage look of the interface of Acronis Drive Monitor, because even as the former is not an advanced tool, it is possibly one of the easiest to understand from the list. On the main screen, you will teach your records and your health, with an overview with the temperature, a general note of your health and time in operation.
Next, you have two tabs that can easily see the SMART parameters and events tab for errors that might occur. On the side of the left have the vision of the app a Backup section if you have downloaded the application Acronis backup and a list of errors or critical events.
HDD Health
And we end up with the simplest yet because HDD Health is a simple monitoring tool that will keep working quietly in the background with an icon on the toolbar that, when you mouse over it, will show a pop-up the health status of your hard drives.
Double-clicking on this icon will open the application with some visual indicators of health and temperature, and the drive menu will have the option to analyze your SMART parameters can also trigger alarms when space is low or the health of your hard disk is under minimum, or see a list of all the extended information with data from each of your disks.
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