Giveaway of the Day Forums

1. 

   Whiterabbit-uk
   Games Guru

   Hard disk Sentinel Standard is free for 24 hours. you can find the deal HERE

   Hard Disk Sentinel Standard Edition

   Monitor the Health of Your Hard Drive

   Have you ever suffered through the pain and agony of a hard drive failure? To you, it's pretty straightforward -- one day your computer is humming along smoothly, and the next day it won't boot at all. But what you may not know is that, beyond the capabilities of your human senses, a whole host of little warning signs and other signals can actually tell you when hard drive failure is imminent! That's why Hard Disk Sentinel is so important.

   Hard Disk Sentinel monitors and analyzes your hard disk and solid state drives, giving you valuable feedback on the health of the drive, any performance degradations, and warning of impending failure. With Hard Disk Sentinel, you'll be able to find, test, diagnose, and even repair disk drive issues before they escalate to catastrophic status.

   And you won't have to worry about getting overwhelmed with a bunch of technical babble -- Hard Disk Sentinel gives you an easily understandable description of what's going on, and offers tips on how to proceed! A laundry list of alerts and reports gives you the ultimate flexibility to determine how close you wish to monitor your drives, letting you safeguard your data at all times.

   Unlike some other titles on the market, Hard Disk Sentinel is a complete monitoring solution. There's no need to purchase other tools in order to verify internal hard disks, external hard disks, SSDs, or disks in RAID arrays!

   What kinds of info do you get with Hard Disk Sentinel? How about temperature, and the ability to view S.M.A.R.T. (Self Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology) data, a feature built into the latest disk drives. There's also real-time monitoring of disk transfer speeds, an important indicator of a failing hard drive!

   Please note: online license activation is required. License grants usage on one computer at a time.

   Posted 12 years ago #
2. 

   mikiem2
   Moderator

   Thanks WR

   FWIW, please note that SMART reporting varies by make/model of hdd -- nothing wrong with using it but look up what the drive you're monitoring reports & what those reported items mean for that drive.

   RE: transfer speeds, if they're slower check your AV software in Task Mgr. or similar 1st before assuming something's wrong with hardware. If you're concerned about/with a SSD, research 1st -- there may be issues with that brand/model, it may need to have trim run manually, it may be the kinds & sizes of files... my small ocz ssd for example has good benchmarks as long as I use the same benchmarking apps as the ocz marketing dept -- using Crystal at default settings sequential write sux.

   The free HWMonitor displays system temps & voltages, fan speeds for those with tach leads attached to the m/board, graphics card temps, voltage etc., AND, hard drive temps for drives connected via SATA, eSATA, & USB 3.0. IMO monitoring external drive temp is important since many will just shut themselves down/off if it gets critical -- I'd much rather know that it's getting hot before I start a large transfer that may die in the middle.

   Posted 12 years ago #
3. 

   Whiterabbit-uk
   Games Guru

   Hi Mikiem, yeah, already realized that. I get very spurious results from three different HDD monitors (all commercial versions) that all give a very high temperature reading for my SSD (apart from Disk Sentinal which doesn't record the temp), despite the frive being virtually cold after operating the computer all day. (I have very good cooling on the computer).

   I don't need the drives monitored for temperature via those software programs as I have one of those monitors with probes that allows me to measure temperatures of my drives and other areas of my computer.

   Posted 12 years ago #
4. 

   mikiem2
   Moderator

   I tend to be paranoid about hardware temperatures, regardless the kind of hardware -- unfortunately, as much as I dislike being paranoid, it's only been reinforced by real life events. :(

   Maybe the most useful tool I've bought is one of those infrared, non-contact thermometers, to both see how accurate temp sensors are when I add something new or put something together, & to measure temps in places that don't have sensors. With a PC that way I can add heatsinks &/or fans & stuff as necessary. I didn't always worry about that stuff, figuring the manufacturer would add sensors or heatsinks as required, but then I had several chips on a motherboard suffer a meltdown, with smoke, glowing red/orange, the whole bit. And that PC was stock, with no overclocking or anything.

   I have very good cooling on the computer

   Maybe this will give you cause to chuckle, Whiterabbit? In the old days I used to pull the case cover or door & use a small room fan aimed at the CPU during the summer. :) One project or effort I was never particularly proud of involved one of those infamously hot Pentium 4 CPUs, in a PC that my wife liked tucked into one of those cubbyhole affairs designed into her desk... I made a fresh air intake duct out of old shampoo bottles! It served its purpose, worked OK, but washing out, cutting up those bottles & using a glue gun to assemble everything does nothing to make one feel like a pro.

   Posted 12 years ago #
5. 

   Whiterabbit-uk
   Games Guru

   haha I did chuckle but only because I used to do the same and actually still direct a portable fans jet stream to the back of the computers up in the study so as to promote air circulation. I also have a column fan in the corner to help with circulation and it also cools one side of one of the computers. We have no need to use the central heating, even on the coldest of days in the study because of all the exhaust heat.(the radiators are turned off permanently)

   As for my latest build I purchased an Antec Dark Force case which has three filtered 120mm intake fans on the front of the case, two larger 140mm exhaust fans on the ceiling of the case, three 120mm exhaust fans at the back, plus a 120mm fan on the side above the cpu cooler which also has two 120 mm fans cooling the heat sink. I did buy HDD and RAM coolers, but didn't need to use them as everything is kept amazingly cool. The average temperature of all my HDD's in the new case is 33 degrees C, with the highest ever recording of 39 degrees, which was recorded on a very hot day last week; that is apart from the SSD which isn't recorded via Hard Disk Sentinel and using Ashampoo's Hard Disk monitor reads something like 78 degrees Centigrade). I haven't got around to attaching my spare heat sensors to the SSD yet. (the SSD is the best thing to hit home computing in a long time).

   The cases external surfaces never get hot and the only part that I've ever felt warm has been the side that's directly above the cpu. The rest always feel cold to the touch, which is a massive contrast to all of my other computers. Each one can get quite hot despite having intake and exhaust fans, plus other coolers (I used the RAM and HDD coolers for the hottest running computer). I think the main difference between my main computer and the rest is that its got a full sized case (which is a beast) compared to the rest which have midi cases, so the internals are all quite cramped. Each computer is stuffed to capacity with HDD's, video cards, audio cards as well as other hardware.

   I did get a water cooler for the cpu for my latest build, but the fittings were not compatible with the Antec case (the fans were 120mm not 140mm, so I couldn't mount the radiator directly across the ceiling of the case. I did consider fabricating some brackets, but was so keen to get my new computer up and running I just went to the local hardware store and purchased a decent air cooler ( a Khuler). The large cases allow much better air circulation, plus I was able to route most of my cables through the base of the motherboard mount to the back of the computer, so you can hardly see any cables via the window on the side of the computer.

   I've previously lost at least a couple of HDD's to overheating and at least four graphics cards (usually because I'd neglected to clean the fans adequately). I'm trying to do a full clear out from inside the case every three months now, though I do use canned air on the two video card exhaust ports every week as I do not want to lost the present cards to a meltdown. The graphic nature of most of the games I play probably heats the gcpu's significantly.

   Posted 12 years ago #

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