Advice Request What SSD or HDD monitor/analysis software do you use?

Please provide comments and solutions that are helpful to the author of this topic.

What SSD/HDD monitor or analysis software do you use?

  • Hard Disk Sentinel

    Votes: 10 25.0%
  • CrystalDiskInfo

    Votes: 13 32.5%
  • HDDScan

    Votes: 1 2.5%
  • CPU-Z

    Votes: 4 10.0%
  • Western Digital Data Lifeguard Diagnostics

    Votes: 1 2.5%
  • Seagate SeaTools

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Windows

    Votes: 4 10.0%
  • Other. Please reply with what.

    Votes: 5 12.5%
  • None

    Votes: 10 25.0%
  • Samsung Magician

    Votes: 6 15.0%

  • Total voters
    40

upnorth

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Jul 27, 2015
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Normally when a disk ( ssd/hdd ) breaks down or is about to, software like this gets interesting. That also includes myself and is an obvious reason for creating this thread/poll, but I always tends to jump between a few different vendors and never have any saved/installed over a long period of time. I'm curious on what other people/members maybe use or have experience of and can also recommend. I'll include a few basic and well known ones.

For example, Windows built-in S.M.A.R.T. check is of course very easy and quick, but a bit poor and I personal found it not 100% accurate when I compared with two other softwares.
 

upnorth

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O&O is an interesting vendor IMO, as I use a few other of their products and also saw they have a specific monitor tool called DiskStat 2. They also got another product that I have used and tested before. Just don't recall it's disk monitor feature.
 

upnorth

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I also have Hw-Info on o_O
That seems like a possible good one. It's even freeware. Btw, do you use any of the add-ons?
 

Cortex

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No, I use it on any PC I have to fix etc as well as mine, it's good also for fan speeds & temperature, voltages, very handy program, for it to be free is something else. According to the site blurb it's used by NASA, not sure in what capacity though :D:D
 

Pat MacKnife

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And Windows doesn't do that unlike third party tools.

Windows only optimise SSDs which is called TRIM.
Do you mean build in defrag tool in windows ?
I disabled build in, because it was On by default to defrag 1 a week.
As i understand it doesn't hurt with the build in tool ?
Just tested : click on optimize and i see trimmed.
 
Last edited:

plat

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Sep 13, 2018
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Well, I definitely use CPU-Z but....I very recently purchased a new SSD so after some prelim. benchmarks, I was satisfied it really was at the beginning of its long and fascinating journey aboard my machine..cof.

HWiNFO64 almost exclusively--a jack of all trades on here. Crystal Disk Info, in conjunction with Crystal Disk Mark benchmark. Windows Disk Optimization on demand, usually as part of the weekly maintenance routine.

Could you consider to add Samsung Magician, upnorth?

Re: addons for HWiNFO: yes, I use the RivaTuner Statistics Server tab so that my cpu/gpu temperatures are able to be viewed in-game. (y)

Edit: thanks, upnorth, changed vote as the Magician is used more in line with a maintenance and firmware update mindset. Took off the Crystal Disk Info as it's rarely utilized.
 
Last edited:

TairikuOkami

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Manufacturer's tool for a quick review, otherwise HWiNFO. CrystalDiskInfo displays info in binary numbers, I guess it is for nerds. :geek:
 

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roger_m

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And Windows doesn't do that unlike third party tools.

Windows only optimise SSDs which is called TRIM.
Windows does defrag SSDs.
The short answer is, yes, Windows does sometimes defragment SSDs, yes, it's important to intelligently and appropriately defrag SSDs, and yes, Windows is smart about how it treats your SSD.
Many people do not know, but for SSD defrag is not needed ... it will shorten life for an SSD :)
I also use Hwinfo64
While fragmentation for SSDs won't affect performance anywhere near as much it does for hard drives, sometimes they do need to be defragged. This is why Windows defrags SSDs. I use O&O Defrag and it results in better performance, shown by CrystalDiskMark. Defragging SSDs won't have a significant impact on their life.
 

monkeylove

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Mar 9, 2014
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I read somewhere that features for drive monitoring will be made available in Win 10 in the future. Meanwhile, I decided to just use Open Hardware Monitor to add temperature numbers for the CPU and GPU in the system tray, and CrystalDiskInfo to check drives and just make a sound if temperature or health conditions exceed a given threshold.

For defrag, I tried all sorts, and results are mixed: they would speed up systems, and then cause them to slow down weeks later. The same happened to Windows defrag. Given that, I decided to just do things conservatively: use the built-in defrag with default settings scheduled (weekly trim of SSD and defrag of all other drives), and then just run the free or giveaway version of a fast third-party defrag (that follows any prefetch layout and copies the built-in defrag algorithm) manually if things don't improve.
 

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