HDDExpert 1.20.1.55

Overview

Your hard disk is a hardware component, and it’s normal to start losing integrity and efficiency over time. But sometimes its problems are quite serious and usually people ignore warnings until the disk gets fried one day and all data is lost. If you want to protect yourself from a situation like this, then start checking the health of your disk(s) with HDDExpert. It will inform you of its status in detail and warn you whenever there are problems with it, allowing you to save your data or (if possible) fix the problem before it’s too late.

Installation

Upon launching the installer you’ll be asked to choose its interface language. Afterwards you will start the installation procedure, which is quick and doesn't have difficult steps. In one of them however you’ll be asked whether you want to install an additional software called RelevantKnowledge; decline if you don’t wish to include it in the installation. Apart from that, and after installation finishes, you’ll also be prompted to install PowerPack core files, extra components, toolbar, start page and search (that’s quite a lot of changes so just decline anything that it asks you to install).

Supported operating systems are Windows XP, Vista, 7 and 8.

Interface

The interface could get improved and become more modern, but it’s not very bad currently therefore it’s unlikely that you’ll have a problem with it. At the top left part of the window you can see general information regarding your disks (you can change disks by clicking on the icons above the info) and next to it is a message box with recommendations and warnings about the disk. In the rest of the window you can see S.M.A.R.T. attributes about the disk with details.

Pros

HDDExpert displays useful general information about your hard disk, like manufacturer, model, capacity, firmware, serial number, cache size, temperature, number of complete start/stop cycles and total working hours. It has also 2 buttons that redirect you to amazon for buying hard drives and fans and 1 button that redirects you to Paragon Software website for buying Paragon Backup & Recovery 12.

The program’s main purpose is to read the S.M.A.R.T. attributes of your disk and show them to the user in an organized and understandable way. Some of those attributes are Reallocated Sector Count, Seek Error Rate, Spin-Up Retry Count, G-Sense Error Rate and others. But by reading those details it can also warn you and make recommendations about the measures you should take (as you can see in the included screenshots next to this review my hard drive needs to be backed up and replaced soon).

Cons

Two additional software were included in the setup package; that’s not a very attractive feature in a program.

Alternatives

HDDLife (paid) is a great alternative that tells you the status of your disks in order to avoid unexpected failures and data loss. It has more options and is more attractive than HDDExpert, making it a better choice for users. Other alternatives are HD Tune (freemium, also has benchmarking tests), Hard Disk Sentinel (paid), GSmartControl (free) and Acronis Drive Monitor (free).

Conclusion

Very good application that can be of invaluable help. If you’re worried about disk failures and problems, you should definitely install this tool (or an alternative at least).