Determine the health of your hard disks
Acronis Drive Monitor is a free, downloadable software application developed by Acronis to monitor server, workstation and PC hard disk drives.
Why should you use Acronis Drive Monitor?
We all depend on instant access to data stored on our hard drives – buried inside PC laptops, workstations and servers – but those disks are vulnerable to severe failures that can cause you to lose business and personal data. Acronis Drive Monitor alerts you to problems that may indicate an imminent failure so you can be prepared to handle it without data loss.
“According to a significant major study of disk drive failures conducted by Google, Inc. of 100,000 of its own drives, between 6% and 8% of drives fail each year, with the highest percentage of failures occurring in years two and three.”
Acronis Drive Monitor checks disk health in the following three categories and reports deviations from normal operation to users, giving them an opportunity to replace affected drives prior to a potential total failure:
State and health of physical drive (including temperature, seek error rate, spin-up time and more than 20 other indicators) via a disk-resident monitoring function called S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology) is presented in a understandable form. Acronis Drive Monitor also supports other storage, such as non-S.M.A.R.T.-compatible RAID systems, via scripts.
Critical events that may indicate an increased risk for data safety, even when S.M.A.R.T. output data shows no abnormalities. These include: logical file system corruptions on NTFS and FAT file systems, corruption of dynamic disk logical structure, failed read or write operations that might indicate faulty hardware or drivers, and Volume Shadow Copy service failures.
State of disk backups. Acronis Drive Monitor users who also already use the latest Acronis home or business products, such as Acronis True Image Home, Acronis Backup and Security 2011 and Acronis Backup & Recovery® 11, will be alerted if the latest backup has failed or if a backup has not been created for a while. Otherwise, users will be automatically reminded of the need for a backup whenever a potential hard drive problem is detected.
Early warning to save your data
Acronis Drive Monitor gives users extra time to react in order to save data contained on disk devices and to arrange for their replacements. When Acronis Drive Monitor sees a problem, it immediately generates an email or onscreen alert describing the specific finding. Context-sensitive help explains what the alerts mean. Weekly reports summarize the electromechanical health of all the disks under Acronis Drive Monitor management.
Integrates with Acronis Home and Business products for greater data safety
Users of the latest versions of Acronis True Image Home and Acronis Backup and Security 2011 PC backup and recovery software and Acronis Backup & Recovery 11* business software can take advantage of Acronis Drive Monitor’s ability to trigger an immediate, automated backup if any disk shows signs of imminent failure.
- 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
 | SummaryView status on all the monitoring parameters: Disk health, backup status, and critical events. Click on each for details. |
 | DisksView 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 EventsReceive alerts and view Windows Events which may indicate elevated risk of data loss or corruption. |
 | BackupBe 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
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Product Documentation
- Data Sheet (0.5 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.
- On-demand webcast
Acronis Inc. Backup software.