Hard Disk Sentinel 5.0

Hard Disk Sentinel is mainly intended to prevent data loss due to hard disk problems. It uses S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology), which allows detecting and even anticipating critical HDD issues. The application has a nice user-friendly interface but it definitely requires its users to have at least basic knowledge of hard disk properties and functioning. Fortunately, there are various tabs that compartmentalize information about such parameters as temperature, S.M.A.R.T. data, disk performance, and alerts.

The tool can run various types of tests, including surface tests and hardware self-tests. As its name suggests, surface tests scan disk areas to detect defects, marks them as problematic and issues reports. Likewise, the application makes use of some of the self-tests that are built in various types of disks (IDE, Serial ATA, SCSI and SAS) to provide users with relevant information about their functioning.

The results of the exams you run can be saved in any of various formats. Similarly, you can program the tool to issue alerts on such critical events as low disk health and high temperature. It is good that these conditions not only can be brought to the users via sound alerts and email messages but they can also trigger panic backups (automatic copying of the disk contents to another device) or turn off the machine.

All in all, Hard Disk Sentinel seems to be very effective in detecting disk problems beforehand. In this regard, it surely can protect you from expensive data losses. Therefore, it deserves a try. Besides the trial version, there are also three other, namely, Standard, Professional and Enterprise, each of them with different features and prices.