[Review & Giveaway for 20 licenses] of Hard Disk Sentinel Professional.

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1st I would like to thank Janos Mathe developer of Hard Disk Sentinel for sponsoring these '20' licenses each valued (USD $29.95) of Hard Disk Sentinel Professional Edition to Giveaway here at MDL.

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The giveaway will starts from 2nd April till 17th. April.

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Hard Disk Sentinel Professional overview Hard Disk Sentinel Professional (HDSentinel) is a hard disk monitoring software with highest possible support of HDD/SSD/SSHD (hybrid) drives. Its goal is to find, test, diagnose and repair hard disk drive problems, report and display SSD and HDD health, performance degradations and failures. Hard Disk Sentinel gives complete textual description, tips and displays/reports the most comprehensive information about the hard disks and solid state disks inside the computer or in external enclosures (USB / e-SATA). Many different alerts and report options are available to ensure maximum safety of your valuable data. The software monitors hard disk drive / HDD status, including health, temperature and all S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology, built in most hard disks, solid state disks and hybrid drives (SSHD) today) values for each disks. Also it measures the disk transfer speed in real time which can be used as a benchmark or to detect possible hard disk failures, performance degradations.

2ndly I would like to thank Arim for writing this professional review below.

******************************************Hard Disk Sentinel Review*********************************

Hard Disk Sentinel is very well-known HDD monitoring and analysis software offered by “H.D.S Hungary”. The company established in 2002 and currently operates under its CEO Janos Mathe.

Hard Disk Sentinel mainly offered in three variants Standard, Professional and Enterprise. It also has two free products for Linux and DOS.

Hard Disk Sentinel comes with reasonable price tag of €18/$19.50 for Standard, €28/$29.95 for Professional and from €159.95/$199.50 for Enterprise edition. User can also order Family license which comes with license for 5 computers lifetime license at €49.95 / $53.00.

While we may not think Hard Disk Sentinel as data protection software, still it is much more than a hard disk monitoring tool. Hard Disk Sentinel offers variety of functions related to data protection, for example the alerts, notifications and disk testing to reveal and fix possible problems.
In addition the Professional version has automatic (scheduled) and on-problem "panic" backup functions, these together (in addition to the disk monitoring functionality) qualifies it as data protection software.

Review

Test Subject: Hard Disk Sentinel Trial

Version: 4.71

File Size: 20 MB (.zip)

Download page: http://www.hdsentinel.com/download.php

Test Subject Specification: - HP ProBook 640 G1 with Windows 7 Enterprise (64 Bit) i5-4300M CPU @ 2.60GHz, 4GB RAM and 500GB HDD.

The installation process is fairly simple due to the installation wizard which enable user to easily understand and follow installation instructions.

After the installation user see the main UI window of Hard Disk Sentinel which shows HDD current status.



The main UI mainly divided in two parts left pane shows partitions and a free space available in HHD whereas right pane comes with seven tabs, each giving comprehensive information about the current state of HDD.

Hard Disk Sentinel also use S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology) which is designed by IBM as a complimentary method to monitor the disk status by using various methods called “attributes” and devices (sensors). The use of S.M.A.R.T with other benchmark method gives more accurate prediction about the state of HDD.

The "Status" column suggests if the attribute indicates (or can indicate) problem according the manufacturer's definition.

This can be OK, OK (always passing), Fail and Usage limit exceeded. For example if it shows "Always passing" it means that the corresponding attribute would never qualify warranty replacement (Would never trigger S.M.A.R.T. error), even if it would count real errors which may cause data corruption, data loss.

The most important is the "Data" column, exactly because of that it's marked with bold: as it shows the "raw" information provided by a sensor or a raw counter. For many attributes, the numbers can change and does not indicate problems directly (for example the total power on time count, the start/stop count and so), but for many attributes, the numbers reflect the actual error count. These are identified by Hard Disk Sentinel to detect and display the real problems, real health condition of the hard disk / SSD.

The Help ->; Appendix ->; Health calculation and www.hdsentinel.com/smart can give additional information about how the different S.M.A.R.T. attributes identified and reported.
Main Features

• Displaying disk and partition information
• Support IDE/SATA/SCSI/SAS/USB drives
• Display status on tray, disk icons, sidebar
• Run as Application or Service
• Hardware disk tests
• Hard disk seek time, stress tests
• XML export, API for developers
• Information by web browser
• Customizable interface and reports
• Backup and restore configuration, statistics
• Password protection
• Wide range of alerts (e-mail, sound, message, etc.)
• Daily status reports
• Clock synchronization with atomic clock
• Hot keys to reach features
• SMART parameter offset calibration
• Surface check

During the test it worked it worked like it should by providing valuable information related to HDD very well, information provided in both text and graphical ways. Overview tab primarily shows the state of performance and health of HDD as well as suggest if any action needed to improve current state.

The tests in Hard Disk Sentinel are best ways to verify the hard disk functionality, verify the situation: confirm if the status is perfect or reveal and fix problems like bad sectors in HDD which is very useful as user become aware of situation and pro-actively take steps to backup data before something goes wrong.

Please check http://www.hdsentinel.com/faq.php#tests for information about which tests are the best used for this purpose.

For a beginner user it may be overwhelming at first because of technical nature of information shown in main window, but user can easily increase understanding through comprehensive help content, Knowledge Base, FAQ and discussion forums.Hard Disk Sentinel also offers three types of tests to determine hard disk health at in-depth level, these are-

Hardware Self Tests

The hardware self-tests is the most suitable solution to test the hard disk status easily and quickly with very comprehensive level of detailed information. These self-tests do not affect the data stored on the hard disk but hard disk may become unresponsive at the time of test.

The Short self-test checks and verifies the major components of the hard disk (read/write heads, servo, electronics, internal memory, etc.

The Extended self-test performs in-depth scan for complete surface which able to reveals the bad sectors (if any) and forces the bad sector reallocation.

The Conveyance self-test (if supported) checks and verifies the mechanical parts of the hard disk to ensure that no damage took place.

Random Seek Test

The test can be used to verify the stability and temperature increase of the disk after a long period of high usage. Through this test user can check temperature levels, noise level and track-to- track seek time of the hard disk especially under excessive disk usage. The test can be used even if the hardware self-test stops with an error or if it is not supported by the hard disk.

Surface Test

Hard Disk Sentinel pro version has five types of surface tests whereas standard version offers two types of tests only.

The following tests are possible:

READ Test (Safe) :- Reads the disk surface to verify if all sectors are accessible and readable.

WRITE Test (Destructive) :- Overwrites the disk surface with configurable pattern. Forces the analysis of any weak sectors and verifies any hidden problems and fixes them by reallocation of bad sectors (this is drive regeneration). Enables better use of the disk as after the test the spare area will be used instead of any problematic sectors.

The detailed description of the test is displayed upon selection, and the software displays how the test affects stored data. First it is required to select the hard disk and the test type to be started. It is strongly recommended to read these information carefully before starting the test.

Hard Disk Sentinel comes with lots of customization options which enable users to modify it as per personal need. One of the most important configuration is that User can set temperature threshold and set auto panic backup or shutdown if threshold crossed he/she can set sound alert or mail for the same. User can also set Hot Keys to execute various functions.

Conclusion:
Now day’s people use multiple devices to manage their life, more and more data getting stored in digitized form and in most cases stored in hard drives and thus possibility of losing these precious data due to HDD failure getting higher and higher but Hard Disk Sentinel can save anyone from
this situation by correctly representing status of the device hard drive.

It is one of the most sought after software among all users from basic home users to IT gurus due to its features and consistent performance over the year; it provides details in very comprehensive manner and can help in backup planning before it’s too late.

Developers of Hard Disk Sentinel are committed to offer best product in the market by updating it in regular succession which made it much matured software than other alternatives available in the market.

Review by: Arim

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You can download Hard Disk Sentinel from here-
You can get support here- http://www.hdsentinel.com/support.php
You can buy Hard Disk Sentinel from here-
You can view Homepage
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Final details;

Comment in your reply here; 'why do you need/like Hard Disk Sentinel Professional?'
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To participate in this contest for Hard Disk Sentinel Professional
1. You have to be a registered member on our forum.

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2. This contest starts from 2nd April and ends on 17th. April.
Winners will be randomly selected using RANDOM.ORG on 17th. April 2016 all time is GMT+5.30.
The winners will be notified through private message. Be sure your private messaging is on and active.



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  [*=center]The winner/s will respond to the winning PM within 5 days or the win will be void.

If you agree with the terms & conditions written above, you're welcome!


Thanks,
Sid.

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The Giveaway is live now!
Pay attention to read the rule/s carefully before posting here or any other GIVEAWAY thread.

Comment in your reply here; 'why do you need/like Hard Disc Sentinel Professional?'