A hard drive’s spec sheet usually displays information about the operating and non-operating temperatures. Most manufacturers set the operating temperature threshold at 5° Celsius to 55° Celsius. Others may have a slightly different threshold going up to 60° Celsius.

A lot of things can happen if a hard drive reaches non-operating temperatures. This ranges from data corruption and data loss to crashes and even hardware failures.

While it is not likely that most computer users will ever experience they hard drives reaching critical temperatures, it can happen if they work in environments with unusually low or high temperatures. Other reasons can be bad or no cooling, or other hardware close to the hard drive that is emitting lots of heat.

How can you check a hard drive’s temperature level? Most modern hard drives support a technology called SMART, which stands for Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology. Programs can read and display SMART data.

One of my favorite programs for the job is Speedfan, a lightweight program that reads the majority of PC sensors.

Speedfan scans the hardware for sensors and displays its findings directly in the main interface.

The hard drives are listed on the right side. Normal, falling and critical temperatures are all indicated with icons which makes identification easier. You can alternatively click on the SMART tab, select one of the hard drives available and look at the SMART values for additional information. Very interesting in this regard is the temperature reading, as it lists the worst temperature the hard drive has ever reached on the system.

You can use the value to find out if the selected hard drive ever reached critical temperature levels on your computer.

If it did, you may want to start thinking about proper backup of data and replacement.

The hard drive diagnostic software is free to use. It offers two tests which become available on program startup. The SMART test retrieves a drive’s SMART values which reveal many information about a drive’s health and status.

This includes the temperature, number of power cycles, power on hours or error count.

The values are presented to the user in the interface, but they are not interpreted or explained by the application. Users without the proper know how may have troubles understanding at least some of the values listed.

The second option is for drives that do not report SMART values. This may include storage devices such as external hard drives or other USB drives. The sector scan basically performs a read test on all sectors of the drive. Read errors can be the first sign of a failing hard drive. This test can take a long time, depending on the size and speed of the drive.

A test on a 2 Terabyte drive with a speed of 5400 rpm for instance took 5 hours to complete. Smaller or faster devices should test considerably faster.

One interesting option is the ability to configure email reports. This basically sends a report to an email address whenever a test is run in the application. It is necessary to enter not only the recipients email address but also the SMTP host, username and password.

An option to schedule regular scans is missing unfortunately. Windows users who are interested in Easis Drive Check can download the program from the developer website. The program is compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the Windows operating system.

Acronis Drive Monitor is a free hard disk monitoring software that uses SMART information and the Windows event log to display important events to the system user. The program is pretty basic, which is surprising considering its size of nearly 18 Megabytes.

On startup a summary is displayed, which displays disk problems, backup information and critical events. Disk problems are directly linked to SMART parameters, and the program will either report that all disks are working normally, or that problems have been encountered.

acronis drive monitor

Critical events taps right into the Windows event log and displays high risk events of the system’s storage devices. Backup finally has probably been added to distribute or sell Acronis products as it proposes to download Acronis backup software if no backup software is detected on the system.

Links lead to detailed information about each of the information provided by the software. Probably the most interesting feature of the program is the critical events listing which makes use of the Windows Event log. Not many hard drive monitoring applications offer this feature.

Then again, it is possible to create those custom alerts quite easily without third party software.

The page displays all critical events, sorted by date. Included in the listing is the risk evaluation rating, severity, source and event id. A double-click on an event displays detailed information about that specific event, with a link to the Acronis Knowledge Base website for additional information.

critical events

The Disks page lists the usual information about the primary partition of the computer. We did not find an option to make the drive monitor display those information for other connected drives.

Finally, the program can create four types of alerts that are send to an email address that needs to be configured in the program’s options. Alerts can be configured for temperature levels, critical events, disks monitoring errors and backup monitoring errors.

Acronis Drive Monitor does not offer anything that other tools or even Windows first party tools do not offer. Some users may still be inclined to give the program a try, it is free after all. The program supports both 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the Windows operating system. Downloads are provided at the Acronis website after registration.

Hard drive diagnostics are essential in analyzing hard drives to have enough time to react when signals indicate a failing hard drive. The only viable option here is to backup all relevant data to other drives or storage devices and disconnect the failing hard drive from the computer.

GSmartControl is a free hard drive diagnostics program for Windows, Mac and Linux that is offered as a portable version, installer and Live CD to suite all work environments and scenarios.

The name implies that the software is only able to analyze hard drives that support S.M.A.R.T., the Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology, which most modern hard drives support. GSmartControl will automatically scan and display all connected hard drives on startup.

Each hard disk is displayed with a drive icon and name which usually is enough to identify it. Basic drive information are displayed at the top of the screen after a drive has been selected with the mouse. Information displayed there include the drive’s capacity and if it did pass the basic health check.

Some users might not see the basic health check information after selecting a drive. This usually means that SMART is either not activated or that the drive is not supporting SMART at all. SMART can be activated by right-clicking a drive and selecting Enable SMART. This will not work if the hard drive is not supporting the SMART technology or if SMART is disabled in the computer bios.

The best option in this case is to reboot the computer and check the BIOS to make sure that SMART is enabled there. If SMART cannot be activated after this it is not supported by the hard drive.

A double-click on any drive will open the Device information, a tabbed window with extensive information about the selected hard drive.

The Identity tab displays important information about the drive. It will list the device model, serial number, firmware, capacity, ATA version, if SMART is supported and enabled and if the overall health self-assessment test has been passed.

The attributes tab displays SMART attributes data. The important information are listed in the failed column which should show never to indicate a good drive health. Another indicator are the norm-ed value and worst which should not diverge at all for best results.

The Error log tab displays the five most recent errors that the hard drive has encountered. No errors are another indicator of a good drive health.

The Perform Tests tab lists various tests that can be performed. This includes a short self-text, extended self-test and conveyance self-test. It is usually a good idea to begin with the short self-test and execute the extended self-test afterwards.

• Short self-test consists of a collection of test routines that have the highest chance of detecting drive problems. Its result is reported in the Self-test Log. Note that this test is in no way comprehensive. Its main purpose is to detect totally damaged drives without running the full surface scan.
  Note: On some drives this actually runs several consequent tests, which may cause the program to display the test progress incorrectly.
• Extended self-test examines complete disk surface and performs various test routines built into the drive. Its result is reported in the Self-test Log.
• Conveyance self-test is intended to identify damage incurred during transporting of the drive.

A log file is generated for every test that can be viewed by clicking on the View Output button. The log file contains detailed information about the hard drive and a final assessment. Completed without error indicates that the drive is in good health.

GSmartControl comes with an option to perform a self test every few hours. This test is not affecting the performance of the drive or computer system and can be helpful in monitoring a drive’s health over time.

The hard drive diagnostics tool can also be executed from the command line. All command line options are explained in the program’s help file or by adding -? to the executable.

GSmartControl is a invaluable diagnostics software for hard drives. It’s tests and automatic options make it a recommended tool for every system administrator and end user.

Versions for all operating systems are available at the developer’s website.

Additional information and tabs are provided at the bottom which display information about a hard drive’s work time, model, temperature and health status. The first tab which is the active tab after selecting a hard drive will display detailed basic information about the selected drive including serial number and the firmware version. The next two tabs contain information about the S.M.A.R.T. status of the active hard drive and a temperature graph that displays the hard drive’s temperature changes over time.

The fourth tab can be used to scan the selected hard drive for bad sectors. The very same menu offers to schedule disk scans. A viable alternative is Speedfan which combines all of the possibilities offered by Active Hard Disk Monitor with advanced information and options including the display of all relevant system temperatures and fan speeds. The information and options are however not presented that clearly as in Active Hard Disk Monitor.

Active Hard Disk Monitor is compatible with many Microsoft operating systems including 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows Server 2003 / 2008.

Update: Active Hard Disk Monitor is no longer freeware. Users who visit the developer page will note that only a commercial version of the program is available. I suggest you use Speedfan as an alternative, which remains free to use. Users interested in the Hard Disk Monitor application can download a free trial version at the developer website.

SpeedFan is well known program in the category of system monitoring. It is a very good tool for controlling CPU and case fans (kinda obvious from its name) and was mentioned here on ghacks numerous times. However it has an interesting secondary function of analyzing hard drive health by reading and processing SMART data.

SMART (short for Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology) is set of values that roughly expresses the amount of working time, load and errors hard drives have experienced since leaving the factory. Unfortunately for humans SMART is bunch of hexadecimal numbers that are hard to read and even harder to understand. In addition drive manufacturers are using different attributes and values that are not helping either.

Without leaving interface SpeedFan can show (on SMART tab) the values themselves and is trying to mark meaningful ones and calculate two indexes – performance and fitness:

• failing performance index means drive no longer performs its best;
• failing fitness index means drive is preparing to die with all your data.

Since one of the attributes is drive temperature SpeeFan can tie (as it can other temperatures) it to case fans speed and control airflow depending on its value.

Deeper and better analysis is hidden behind the "Perform an in-depth online analysis of this hard disk" button. It unchains you from local interface and submits data of your drive to hddstatus online service. In seconds your browser is forwarded to an automated report on your drive.

Why the need for an online service at all? Big advantage is that the online tool has access to SMART data of all hard drives of all models ever submitted to it. Instead of vaguely guessing it compares your drive with numerous similar drives and gives evaluation that fits exactly the hard drive model.

The report itself is formatted using understandable words like "good" and "not good" plus nice graphical bars showing how far your drive's values are from optimal ones. Interesting extra is the number of drives of that model tested and min/max/average temperatures for them. Sample report.