GSmartControl for Hard Disk S.M.A.R.T. Information and Tests

It’s surprising how few good tools there are for Windows for hard drive Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology System (S.M.A.R.T.) functionality.

In addition to providing basic attributes like ‘Power-on Hours’ or ‘Temperature’, SMART can also include self-test ability and logs about recent errors.

Windows itself offers zero SMART information. Even hard drive manufacturer’s utilities, such at ‘SeaTools’ or Western Digital’s ‘Data Lifeguard Diagnostic’ barely support self-test functionality and only show each SMART attributes’ basic values (no raw values).

GSmartControl is a quality, free, open source GUI interface for the smartctl utility (also open source, part of the smartmontools package) exposing the very-thorough information and functionality provided by smartctl and expected by sysadmins. If you want anything more than a green checkmark, don’t bother with any other tools (including SeaTools, Data Lifeguard, or SpeedFan)

Here are some of the highlights (note: not all drives will support all features and each will have its own limits on how much data it keeps):

  • Raw Attribute values – for example, see the temperature in Celsius instead of as a normalized or worst value
  • Multi-tasking – view information and perform tests on different drives simultaneously
  • Error Log – information about the most recent errors that the drive has reported
  • Self-test Log – a log of the most recent self-tests performed and their results
  • More self-test types – Short, Extended, and Conveyance
  • Informative – Explanations of information and functionality are built into the UI; minimizing the need to consult Help or the website to find out what something does or means

Where to go from here

This entry was posted in Windows Tech Support. Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.