HDD Health Check Software: 3 Best We Tested

Checking the health of your HDD is suggested to preserve its lifespan

by Radu Tyrsina
Radu Tyrsina
Radu Tyrsina
CEO & Founder
Radu Tyrsina has been a Windows fan ever since he got his first PC, a Pentium III (a monster at that time). For most of the kids of... read more
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  • If your HHD is crashing and not responding, you must perform an HDD health check.
  • The easiest way to monitor your HDD health is using one of the software from the article below.
  • Perform thorough scans of your system to check for any hardware malfunctioning.
hdd-check hdd health check software
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Your PC’s hard disk stores all of your relevant data, and any potential damage to the device has the potential of endangering your data, as well, unfortunately.

On the other hand, a hard disk has a limited lifespan, and it will eventually experience corruption sooner or later. Therefore, letting your data depend on it is not the best option we recommend.

If you are not aware of the condition of your hard drives, you may not be able to save your essential data before it’s too late.

You have to become conscious of the fact that not all hard drive crashes are random, and this is why you have to know when it’s time to back up your data before it fails beyond return.

You really have to make sure that all your essential information is backed up before anything nasty might happen to your hard disk.

A recommended solution is keeping tabs on your hard drive’s health so, in case something goes wrong, you will quickly be able to back things up.

Can you check the health of HDD?

Over time, your computer will become slower depending on how often you use it and what kinds of applications you install. After a clean installation of Windows, it may be challenging to get it back up and running in the same efficient manner in which it previously functioned.

In spite of this, you have the option of utilizing specialized hard drive software that will check the health of your HDD. Such as those listed below.

Additionally, not only HDD health check is essential for a well-functioning PC, but you should also use performance monitoring software to be conscious of the system components.

We gathered a list of the top 3 tools for checking your HDD’s health, as well, as they can best predict and protect from the unavoidable circumstances of a hard drive failure.

What is the best program to check HDD Health?

Iolo System Mechanic Pro – An efficient and intuitive software

System Mechanic interface

This tool is extremely efficient in maintaining your system healthy. You can run a bunch of scans to see how your hardware is doing, but also fix a lot of errors.

Talking about HDD, System Mechanic keeps it safe via its different tools and provides you with a maximum of information about it.

You don’t have to bother about taking any actions – the paid version not only scans and provides you information about the errors but also fixes them.

Iolo System Mechanic is one of the 7 software products included in the comprehensive security, privacy, and optimization package Phoenix 360, that offers hard disk health check and repair possibilities.

Let’s quickly look at its key features:

  • Detect startup apps and disable the ones you don’t really need (can improve the Windows boot time)
  • Perform quick or in-depth scans of your computer
  • Kill resource-draining background services and processes
  • Boost the performance and stability of your processor, memory, and hard disk
  • Clean up junk files and remove cache files that clutter your hard drive
  • Wipe chat and Internet history to protect your privacy
  • Defragment, optimize, and back up your system registry

Iolo System Mechanic Pro

Iolo System Mechanic helps you optimize your PC, improve computer speed, and fix crashes. Don’t hesitate to try it out!
Check price View website

Paessler PRTG – Highly versatile and complex

Industry-leading PRTG is a powerful and easy-to-use solution trusted by 200,000 users worldwide, especially if you are looking for a hard disk health check.

Highly versatile and complex, this tool has your back for every system you can think of, starting with devices, traffic, and apps. Plus, you can extend its benefits through the customizable HTTP API. Thus, it is another best HDD health check software.

PRTG monitors bandwidth, database, apps, cloud storage, all the way to servers, and the entire local network, including your workstations, routers, switches, servers, and printers.

Let’s quickly look at its key features:

  • Monitor bandwidth, database, apps, cloud computing services, servers, and LAN
  • Free download of the HDD health check software
  • SSH, SNMP, WMI, and Windows Performance Counters technologies
  • Real-time maps with live status (300 map objects: device and status icons, traffic charts, top lists, etc.)
  • Comprehensive dashboards and in-depth reporting
  • Flexible alerting that you can schedule
  • Native mechanisms for notifications (email, push, or HTTP requests)
  • Multiple user interfaces
  • Cluster failover solution

Paessler PRTG

Stay ahead of your IT infrastructure by monitoring and visualizing all the data you need.
Free Download Visit Website

Hard Disk Sentinel – Has some comprehensive alerts and reports

Hard Disk Sentinel

Hard Disk Sentinel is one of the best SSD and HDD monitoring and analysis software that can monitor and diagnose hard disk drive problems and test and repair them.

The tool reports and displays SSD and HDD health and performance degradation so that you can take the appropriate action to avoid disk failure and data loss.

Compared to the traditional method of SMART checking, the Sentinel proves its value by being more sensitive to disk failures and displaying more relevant and detailed information about the problems found (if any).

Speaking about data loss, if you got to this post a moment too late and are already battling with HDD failure, don’t panic. We have the best recovery software for your HDD right here.

Let’s quickly look at its key features:

  • Comprehensive alerts and reports, ensuring maximum safety of your valuable data
  • Sophisticated detection algorithms
  • Inspect internal hard disks, external hard disks, SSDs, SSHDs, NAS drives, micro SD cards, and eMMC devices with one single software
  • Monitor status including health, temperature, disk transfer speed in real-time, and all S.M.A.R.T. values for all HDDs
  • Scheduled and automatic disk backup options to prevent data loss

Get Hard Disk Sentinel now

How do I know if my hard drive is failing?

It is a significant sign that the hard drive is failing if the name of a file or folder on that particular hard disk begins to get garbled or if you cannot open it.

In addition, any damaged data or data that has been removed are also indicators of the problem.

If you have any of these issues, it is a warning indication that your hard drive may not have much longer to live.

Solutions & alternatives for monitoring your hard drives

Here are your solutions and options for keeping an eye on your HDD’s health:

All last-gen drives come with a monitoring technology called S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology). This tool is targeted at continuously monitoring a certain number of parameters on a hard drive.

Various parameters can be efficiently monitored using S.M.A.R.T., including reading and write error rates, spin-up time, seek error rates, temperature, and more essential elements.

To warn you when some of these crucial parameters are degrading or reaching their threshold, you need a program that can track down all these changes and show them to you.

You must get the opportunity to test and see whether your hard drive can safely store your data, have enough time to back up essential files and start looking for a replacement if it becomes necessary for various reasons.

A monitoring program alone may not be fully capable of showing you whether the integrity of your files can be preserved on a particular hard drive.

It’s an excellent idea to scan for an unreadable or lousy block of data with available tools at least once a month to ensure that your drive is not degrading and your data is not being lost.

S.M.A.R.T. for checking your HDD’s health

S.M.A.R.T. is the embedded monitoring system implemented in most modern HDDs or SSD. Still, unfortunately, it will only let itself be known to users when imminent hardware failure is on its way.

All the leading HDD manufacturers recommend an occasional check of your disk status and running some surface tests and benchmarks.

Finally, you should know that your Windows PC also has a built-in tool that can be up for this job; however, if you want more advanced results, a third-party hard disk health checking tool will be your best bet.

You can choose any of the tools mentioned above or share other suggestions with us via the comments section below.

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