14 DAY TRIAL // Computer components, though fragile items, are subject to lots of tough and endless need to become smaller yet more and more potent. To a novice all this race might sound a bit strange. How can a smaller object/creature be stronger and more capable than a big one? In nature it is almost impossible but when science takes charge, the reality twists and there you have cars with little fuel hunger that are more powerful than their ancestors, smaller digital cameras replacing old flash bulbed ones and so we get to our constant improving theme, that of computer branch.
Ever since IBM launched in 1975 its first portable computer, the IBM 5100, there was a constant rush to making smaller, more stable, more capable and why not cheaper PCs so that everyone to be able to attend to this world wide becoming market. They succeeded in making them smaller (note books), more stable(lifetime warranty), more capable (up to 1TB of storage) but they should work some more on the prices. And speaking of 1TB of storage capacity, that means that a lot of information can be saved on such a HDD but also a lot can be lost if this component crashes. Eventually, everything fails to work for our world is not capable of eternal form or movement of a given object or living creature. So, instead of the stressful waiting, why not monitor all these items in order to identify those who have a strong possibility of crashing.
D-Health Ultimate is such a monitoring tool used to constantly watch over our HDD's and, taking into account some distinctive behaviors, it is able to inform us of a possible instant fail. In case of an HDD this seems to be a very important tool because some may lose even money during this data loss. Based on the S.M.A.R.T. technology (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology) the application actually reads what the disk is recording about its actions and status (temperature, pending sectors, multi-zone errors). It starts with a main fixed size window, showing your hard drive(s) and informing you about the Serial number, Firmware revision number, Model number, Power cycle, current Temperature, Hours running period, Size and Manufacturer of each of them.
The Monitor window is where you can actually see what S.M.A.R.T. is all about and what is the health state of your watched-over component. The window is split in six columns where the first column, Name, shows each monitoring process' designation, the second one represents the upper or lower threshold for each process, third and fourth columns indicate Current and Worst value, the fifth one, raw, informs of the "real" value for each monitoring section and the last one, State, has three different values OK, Always passes and Warning to let you know about the overall status of each S.M.A.R.T. attribute.
In the Monitor setting window, one can choose how the program should notice you with each worrying event. Here you can choose from Show Message, Shutdown Computer, Reboot Computer, Send Mail or Never Show Message. About Send Mail option, at the Preference tab, you can set the mail account from and to where the notice should be transmitted. The software uses SMPT technology (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol), and you can also set user, password and subject of mail.
The developer is asked to add some default SMTP mail addresses, ports and hints regarding this option for not all free mail accounts support SMTP option. Some options need to be paid for. One can also select if the application to display a message when Windows starts, change the tray temperature display color and an enable/disable logging warning option to the log file situated in the software's installation folder. Auto Shutdown or Reboot Computer setting enables/disables the "to do" options in Monitor settings tab.
During a 15-day trial period, you can be sure if this application is worthy to buy or not. I think these monitoring programs are somehow useful taking mostly into account the data loss they somehow prevent.
The Good
Like every precise monitoring application, it is "fighting" for a good cause, that is preventing data loss due to not knowing the health status of your HDD.
The Bad
The application's looks could be improved as well as the precious information about what and how to work with this application.
The Truth
It is a simple application, with a creditable goal that is HDD monitoring, that can be improved and could use a little "mascara".
Here are some snapshots of the application in action:
