Hard Drive S.M.A.R.T. Monitoring Software

I currently us DiskCheckup for monitoring the Hard Drive S.M.A.R.T. I just ran across Active@ Hard Disk Monitor. Has anyone tried/uses Active@ Hard Disk Monitor? What other Hard Drive S.M.A.R.T. Monitoring freewares are there that you would recommend?

http://www.ntfs.com/disk-monitor.htm

Thank you.

 

Just my 2 cents : there is a study by google technical teams that shows that smart monitoring is basically useless. Listening to the noise made by the drive or paying attention to write error messages, if any, is a better indication IMHO.

 

I agree, I have had drives that went bad even though SMART indicated otherwise showing 100% health. The sound is the best way to determine as well as mysterious frequently corrupted files and slow boot.

 

I have had the experience before when the S.M.A.R.T. did not predict the hard drive failure in advance. In one case the hard drive was acting suspicious for about a year before it failed. In that case the S.M.A.R.T. only showed the failure the day it rapidly deteriorated.

The Active @ Hard Disk Monitor "S.M.A.R.T. Background" page states "Approximately 30% of failures can be predicted by S.M.A.R.T."

http://www.ntfs.com/disk-monitor-smart-background.htm

Thanks for your help.

 

In my experience (of quite a lot of customers whose hard drives have failed), virtually 0% were actually predicted by SMART monitors, until way too late (in which case, actuality had arrived before its 'prediction'), but virtually 100% of marketing speak is nothing but empty hype.

 

Question: Any value in watching the hard drive temperature, fanspeed, etc.? Instead of focusing on predicted lifetime of the hard drive?

 

Here is what the Google study abstract says:

 

That study also says...

Maybe those who use HD cooling fans are doing themselves a disservice. To those who disagree with the low temperature effect; have you tested 100,000 hard drives? That's the number Google tested.

 

I guess I'll have to leave my laptop in the house when I go out onto the back porch to smoke a ciggie in the winter!

 

Good one!