Acronis^® Drive Monitor^™

Determine the health of your hard disks

There are three unavoidable certainties in life: Death, Taxes and Hard Disk Drive Failures.

Acronis does not have a solution for the first, we leave that to a higher authority; however, we can make sure that your financial records, photos, videos and other items of sentimental or monetary value are protected so that you can cherish the memories and pay your taxes on time!

Computers have become a necessary part of our daily lives and we have become dependent on instant access to the data stored on the hard drives inside our PCs. Just about everyone has either experienced a disk failure or knows someone that did. It's unavoidable as all disks eventually fail. This is why Acronis developed Acronis Drive Monitor as a free tool for the community at large.

Early warning to save your data

Acronis Drive Monitor can help predict when a hard drive is about to fail, giving you the chance to backup your data before disaster strikes. When Acronis Drive Monitor identifies a problem, it generates an email or onscreen alert describing the specific finding. It offers a simple and easy to understand explanation of the alert guiding you to the steps you need to take to remedy the issue. A color coded summary provides an overview of the disk's health at a glance and weekly reports summarize the findings.

Integrates with Acronis Home products for greater data safety

Users of the latest versions of Acronis True Image Home 2012 and Acronis Backup and Security 2011 PC backup and recovery software can take advantage of Acronis Drive Monitor's ability to trigger an immediate, automated backup if any disk shows signs of imminent failure.

* Click here to learn more about how Acronis Drive Monitor integrates with the latest Acronis Home and Business products.

Automatically checks for disk problems

Works on any Windows PC, workstation or server.

Monitors Event logs

Flags events that may indicate that data is in danger so you can back it up.

Receive alerts immediately

Sends an email and displays a message on the Windows taskbar when it uncovers a disk-related problem.

Weekly status reports

Shows the electromechanical health of all your drives in one report.

Can support RAID drives too

Scripting allows you to monitor RAID controllers not using S.M.A.R.T. monitoring technology. An Acronis forum acts as a clearinghouse for users to share scripts.

Three kinds of support

An Acronis forum, a knowledge base with dozens of articles and a built-in help function are available for this easy-to-use software application.

Screenshots

	Summary View status on all the monitoring parameters: Disk health, backup status, and critical events. Click on each for details.
	Disks View disk health and temperature, S.M.A.R.T parameters and Events to understand the state of your disks. Configure disk monitoring to provide custom scripts.
	Critical Events Receive alerts and view Windows Events which may indicate elevated risk of data loss or corruption.
	Backup Be informed on the present state of backups. Having a current backup is critical to prevent data loss in the event of a disaster.

Supported operating systems

• Windows^® XP SP2+ x32 and x64 Editions
• Windows^® Vista all SP x32 and x64 Editions
• Windows^® 7 (all editions)
• Windows^® 2003 SP 2+ x32 (including x64 editions)
• Windows^® Server 2008 all SP x32 (including x64 editions)

Minimum system requirements

• Mouse or other pointing device (recommended).
• 256 MB RAM
• Pentium Processor 1 GHz or faster

Hard Drive Support in Acronis^® Drive Monitor^™

What is S.M.A.R.T.?

S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology) is a disk monitoring technology which can predict many disk failures. This technology is implemented on the most modern hard drives.

Why S.M.A.R.T. may be unsupported on my drive?

Most likely, S.M.A.R.T. is internally supported on your drive. However, in some cases Acronis Drive Monitor may be not able to read S.M.A.R.T. parameters. The reason for such behavior is because many I/O controllers and software drivers either do not support transferring of S.M.A.R.T. information from the attached drives, or require driver-specific implementation of accessing the S.M.A.R.T. interface, which may be not yet implemented in Acronis Drive Monitor.

With the first version of Acronis Drive Monitor, the level of support may be described as following:

• Vast majority of internal drives attached to internal I/O controllers are supported.
• Most USB-connected drives are supported, too.
• Many software RAID controllers are supported.
• Most hardware RAID controllers are not yet supported.

How to report hardware not supported by Acronis Drive Monitor?

Whenever Acronis Drive Monitor is not able to read S.M.A.R.T. parameters on a drive, a link to report unsupported hardware appears in the program. Accessing this link will automatically report unsupported hardware to Acronis, anonymously sending hardware IDs of unsupported hardware to the Acronis website.

Acronis uses information submitted through these reports to increase hardware support in upcoming Acronis Drive Monitor updates, and support for the most popular hardware will be added first.

Troubleshooting of S.M.A.R.T. support

In certain cases, it may possible to enable monitoring in Acronis Drive Monitor, even if the S.M.A.R.T. interface is initially unavailable.

To enable support, try the following:

• Make sure S.M.A.R.T. support in BIOS is enabled
• Try to update the driver of your I/O controller. Sometimes a newer version of the driver may enable S.M.A.R.T. support
• If you plan to upgrade your operating system (OS) soon, be sure to check S.M.A.R.T. support in your new OS. Sometimes S.M.A.R.T. may be not available in Windows XP or Vista, and available in Windows 7
• Write a custom script to support your hardware, or find one on the Acronis Drive Monitor support forum.

Awards & Reviews

PC Advisor
Acronis Drive Monitor 1.0

Acronis Drive Monitor is a free tool that will keep a close eye on your hard drives, and alert you to problems that could indicate an imminent failure.

Softpedia
Hard Disk Health Status Check

For a long time, hard disks failures were like earthquakes: you would never know when disaster would strike. Save for some hints that were generally overlooked or not detected by most users, such as sluggish read/write operations, transfers completed with errors or strange sounds coming from the computer box, nothing would give away the fact that the hard disk was spinning its platters for the last time.

AddictiveTips
Acronis: Windows Disk Drive Health Monitor Utility

Drive Monitor utilities are abundant and also useful. They provide complete information by monitoring the drive and can be distinctive in attributes. Drive Monitors seemingly have to be efficient and interactive in terms of finding and reporting serious threats & risks along with suggesting possible ways to cope-up with them. Whilst many tools have been developed & praised before, Acronis Drive Monitor is full-featured monitoring tool which informs user on each and every potential threat. It also keeps tab on drive temperature, backup monitoring & utilities, and critical events.

BrotherSoft Editor's Blog
Acronis Drive Monitor - Determine Your Hard Disk's Health

Do you want to easy to determine your hard disk's health? I think the all-in-one Acronis Drive Monitor is one of the best choices.

Cnet News
Keep tab of hard disks with Acronis Drive Monitor

Most of the time, a hard drive goes bad without any warning. By the time you know that it's dead, it's already too late.

Product Documentation

• Data Sheet (0.6 MB, PDF)
• User Guide (0.7 MB, PDF)

Product Support

• Acronis Drive Monitor Forum

  Ask your questions, share your scripts or experience on various topics regarding Acronis Drive Monitor with other members of the community.

• Knowledge Base

  The knowledge base is filled with informative articles to support users of Acronis Drive Monitor.

Other resources

• Screenshots