Do you check your Hard Disks Health ? if so - what with

Pinkeyes · 9 Nov 2007 at 09:01

Hi Guys

Lost two "data" disks now over the last couple of years.

First time, I luckily noticed the yellow warning symbol in computer management and managed to move the data.

This last time, parts of the drive disintegrated, and although I managed to move most of it, I lost 70GB of music, which will take a long time to get back.

While I appreciate backups are the best way forward, does anyone know of any good Hard disk health checkers I could run say weekly to hopefully let me know ASAP if there is a problem.

Your help is appreciated.

hp7909 · 9 Nov 2007 at 09:15

Speedfan can read S.M.A.R.T. & perform an in depth analysis...

Jumping · 9 Nov 2007 at 10:00

I like to use the manufacturers tools, as this is much more in depth just reading the SMART status.

Seagate has a web version of their tool, and afaik you can check other maker of drives to with it. It does take a fair bit of time so I recommend doing it at night or before you go to work.

The quicker you find your problem the easier it is to get data copied of the drive to a new one.

Pinkeyes · 9 Nov 2007 at 10:10

Jumping said:
The quicker you find your problem the easier it is to get data copied of the drive to a new one.

Well thats exactly my thinking. Although I plan to use this along side a backup plan.

The drive is a Maxtor, (which now comes under Seagate)

What the web version of their tool like ? and where can I find it ?

Also looking at buying Diskeeper too.

deadite66 · 10 Nov 2007 at 09:52

googles harddisk survey showed S.M.A.R.T to be useless to determine if the drive is healthy.

Pinkeyes · 12 Nov 2007 at 08:59

hp7909 said:
Speedfan can read S.M.A.R.T. & perform an in depth analysis...

Thank you - proved to be very useful.

I found the data drive was running at 55 C idle, and 65 C under load.
I have been cooking my disks ! :eek:

Time to find myself a big airy server case I think.

hp7909 · 12 Nov 2007 at 09:15

Pinkeyes said:
Time to find myself a big airy server case I think.

Mine average 35~38°C & thats with a lowly spinning 80mm fan in front of them.

bledd · 12 Nov 2007 at 13:43

deadite66 said:
googles harddisk survey showed S.M.A.R.T to be useless to determine if the drive is healthy.

yup

i've read that, it was a MASSIVE test that they did, no-one else in the world could do a bigger one

you're only real hope is to just keep a backup

something like synctoy backing up daily on a contribute copy, won't take long to run each day, scheduled backup

Greenlizard0 · 12 Nov 2007 at 16:47

bledd. said:
yup

i've read that, it was a MASSIVE test that they did, no-one else in the world could do a bigger one

you're only real hope is to just keep a backup

something like synctoy backing up daily on a contribute copy, won't take long to run each day, scheduled backup

Yeap I run syncToy weekly. One of my favorite bits of software