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Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Drive Health Diagnostic But Were Afraid to Ask

What is DriveDx

DriveDx is a combined drive health diagnostic and forecasting tool, and the first utility of its kind to have a real user-friendly Mac-style interface. It performs overall drive health diagnostics using drive health indicators that most closely correlate with drive failures according to the statistics reported in the latest researches focused on identifying drive failure trends.

DriveDx – drive health diagnostics that is done right!

When evaluating the state of various drives, DriveDx can use different (specialized) heuristic algorithms depending on the drive model and even its firmware version. One of the key advantages of the software is that the state of HDD and SSD drives is assessed using different algorithms (DriveDx has separate sets of rules and algorithms for HDD and SSD drives), since many state indicators of HDD drives are not applicable or make no sense in case of an SSD drive.

DriveDx runs in the background and periodically performing checks to determine the health of your SSD or HDD. When any issue or problem is found, it alerts the user immediately. DriveDx acts as an “early warning system” for pending drive problems. Thanks to that you have more chances to save your critical data before any data loss actually occurs.

System Requirements & Hardware Support

  • DriveDx requires macOS 10.9 or newer, 64-bit Intel-based or Apple Silicon Mac.
  • DriveDx supports diagnostic of internal SSD and HDD drives, Apple SoftRAIDs and Apple Fusion Drives. All actual SSD and HDD models are supported.
  • DriveDx supports diagnostics of external drives connected via eSATA and Thunderbolt.
  • To perform diagnostic of external USB / FireWire drives you need to install 3rd party kernel driver, because Mac OS X doesn’t support this feature “out of the box”. Learn more

User Interface

DriveDx is one of the first drive diagnostic tools created in the true Mac style. The interface is very convenient and easy to use.

Most importantly, whether viewing data on all drives, a single drive, or a single drive in-depth, the information is presented using the latest principles of human factors technology – it is clean, clear, colorful, and easy to use.

Interactive Tour

This tour gives you a feel of DriveDx Dashboard.
– mouse over the red points for detailed explanation, сlick on them to go to the appropriate help section.
Sidebar

The sidebar on the left (Diagnostics) lists all the drives of the computer that support the S.M.A.R.T. technology .

Right Panel

The grey panel on the right contains information about the state of the selected drive depending on the currently selected view.

The following views are available for each drive:

The date and time of the latest drive check are displayed on the status bar below.

Drive Health Dashboard

The Dashboard view allows the user to get an instant snapshot of a drive’s state and quickly switch to the necessary parameters.

This view contains key drive information:

Advanced S.M.A.R.T. Status

Regular diagnostic tools simply check the built-in S.M.A.R.T. status of the drive, which provides the user with nearly no information about the actual state of the physical drive. As opposed to such tools, DriveDx analyzes the current state of the drive using individual states all drive health indicators that are most likely to point to a potential drive issue. For instance for HDDs this are pending bad sectors, reallocated bad sectors, uncorrectable bad sectors, etc. For SSDs this are different wear out / write endurance related indicators, etc).

Status evaluation based on next criteria:
  • built-in S.M.A.R.T. status
  • SMART attributes statistically closely related to HDD or SSD failures
  • health indicators (SMART attributes) proximity to threshold
  • measurements history
DriveDx detects 4 drive health states:
  • OK
  • Warning – some health related issue(s) have been found and this issue(s) could be the first sign or cause of impending problems with drive or its peripherals (data or power cables). This is “the first line of defense”. Note: warning state has following representation in DriveDx’s UI – “Advanced S.M.A.R.T. Status: OK  N issue(s) found”, where N – is a non-zero number of warnings (issues)
  • Failing – drive is about to fail (in pre-fail state), means that some critical health related issues have been found and there is a high probability that drive will fail in the near future. In some cases this could be “the last line of defense”, because in some situations drive could fail before any threshold condition will be exceeded. Overall Health Rating could also help you to avoid such situations.
  • Failed – test not passed, one or more threshold conditions are exceeded. Drive could fail in the nearest future (sometimes in less than 24 hours). This is “the last line of defense”.

Overall Health Rating

Overall Health Rating shows the percentage of the remaining health of your drive. A perfect drive would show 100%. As the drive operates and becomes “worn out”, the health level decreases. When evaluating current overall drive health rating DriveDx checks individual health ratings of critical SMART attributes that are closely related to drive failures.

Concrete list of SMART attributes that will be used in health rating evaluation depends on:
  • drive type (hard disk drive or solid state drive)
  • drive model (and/or SSD-controller model in case of SSDs)
  • and even drive firmware version (in some rare cases)

Our software contains internal knowledge base that contains diagnostic rules and list of critical SMART attributes for most of actual SSDs and HDDs.

Overall Health Rating helps to avoid typical problem of most of drive utilities when two or more drive health indicators almost reach their thresholds – but failure is not predicted because no value reached the threshold level.

Moreover drive overall health value evaluation may help for user to understand general dynamic and trends of drive health degradation.

Numerical health rating is good for measuring changes in health state, for understanding of the dynamics and trends of health changes. But how to decide what value is good / normal? And what rating value is insufficient and is a sign of (potential) problems? That is why DriveDx in addition to numerical rating provides health levels.

There are 4 possible drive health levels:
  • GOOD – current health state of drive is perfect or almost perfect
  • AVERAGE – current health state is not perfect but sufficient and normal
  • LOW – drive current health state is below norm, means warning state and is a sign of potential problems with drive, signal to the investigation
  • BAD – current health state of your drive is insufficient, sign of potential fatal problems with drive, immediate user reaction required (reasons investigation, data backup, drive replacement, etc)

As in other visual elements, the green color means that everything is good, yellow means warning state, and red means that the current state is critical and immediate user reaction required (reasons investigation, data backup, drive replacement, etc).

Note: rating changing is not unidirectional process; it is not just constantly decreasing over time. Temporary deviations / fluctuations and corrections in both sides are possible. Here are some factors that could temporary affect on current drive health state rating:

  • Drive internal self-recovery routines
  • [SSDs only] (Background) Garbage collection, amount of free blocks (free user space) and other write amplification related stuff
  • Issues with power supply
  • Issues with data-cables, electrical noise
  • Drive overheating
  • Rapid / sharp change of the ambient temperature
It is important to note that some of these temporary factors at some level could become permanent and fatal for drive.

Overall Performance Rating

Drive degradation, as a rule, is a process stretched in time. Drive characteristics constantly change: the number of read/write errors constantly increases, while the read/write speed keeps going down, and so forth. As the result, the user works with a low-performance system held back by the storage subsystem. DriveDx will warn you about performance drops in such cases.

Overall Performance Rating indicates the performance level of the drive. Note: some drive models don’t provide this information and DriveDx doesn’t show “Overall Performance Rating” for such drives.

As the drive operates and becomes worn out, the performance level decreases. This rating reflects drive relative performance of its maximum possible performance, and should NOT be compared with other drives.

Numerical performance rating is good for measuring changes in performance state, for understanding of the dynamic and trends of performance changes. But how to decide what value is good / normal? And what rating value is insufficient and is a sign of (potential) problems? That is why DriveDx in addition to numerical rating provides performance levels.

There are 4 possible drive performance levels:
  • GOOD – your drive is in perfect shape,
  • AVERAGE – current performance is not perfect but sufficient and normal
  • LOW – drive current performance is below norm, means warning state and is a sign of potential problems with drive, signal to the investigation
  • BAD – current performance of your drive is very bad and insufficient, immediate user reaction required (reasons investigation, data backup, drive replacement, etc)

Note: rating changing is not unidirectional process; it is not just constantly decreasing over time. Temporary deviations / fluctuations and corrections in both sides are possible. Here are some factors that could temporary affect on current drive performance rating:

  • Drive internal self-recovery routines
  • [SSDs only] (Background) Garbage collection, amount of free blocks (free user space) and other write amplification related stuff
  • Issues with power supply
  • Issues with data-cables, electrical noise
  • Drive overheating
  • Rapid / sharp change of the ambient temperature
It is important to note that some of these temporary factors at some level could become permanent and fatal for drive.

SSD Lifetime Left Indicator

All SSDs have a limited number of writes before they wear out. SSD Lifetime Left Indicator shows the percentage of the remaining life of your solid state drive (SSD). A brand new SSD drive would show 100%. As the SSD operates and becomes worn out, the level decreases.

A value of 0% indicates that the estimated endurance of the solid state drive (SSD) has been consumed, but may not indicate a SSD failure (e.g., minimum power-off data retention capability reached for SSD using NAND flash technology).

The exact algorithm of SSD Lifetime Left evaluation used by DriveDx is fully depending from particular SSD model. There are many factors and metrics that DriveDx could take in account. Usually this is some combination of the following parameters: total data written, wear leveling, life curve, used reserved blocks and more. Exact list of indicators and metrics that participate in DriveDx’s evaluations could significantly vary from model to model of SSD.

We are constantly improving and tweaking our algorithms and heuristics for different SSD models. Real life user feedback is very important.

SSD Lifetime Left indicator levels:
  • GOOD – your SSD is new, wear out level is low
  • AVERAGE – SSD has average wear out level
  • LOW – SSD has high wear out level, signal to the investigation
  • BAD – SSD is close to its lifetime threshold, immediate user reaction required (reasons investigation, data backup, drive replacement, etc)

Problems Summary

This is key section of drive health dashboard, it displays quick summary of all founded issues that could affect drive health.

  • Warnings – number of health indicators with warning status
  • Failing Indicators – number of health indicators with Failing (pre-fail) status
  • Failed Indicators – number of failed health indicators
  • I/O Errors Count – number of I/O errors detected during current power cycle

Items that require user attention are highlighted in yellow. Click an arrow next to a warning to view the corresponding attribute.

Important Health Indicators

This section contains subset of health indicators that most important for particular (HDD or SSD) drive model. This list can vary from model to model. Moreover this is one of key advantages of our software – DriveDx have different / specialized heuristics and health evaluation algorithms for different drive models and even drive firmware version.

Note: important health indicator not always mean that it is critical to drive health. Some attributes could indicate other important and useful information: state of drive peripherals like power and data cables. Usually this is “UDMA CRC Error Count” indicator. In case of any issues with such kind of attributes user should check / replace power or data cables.

Important Health Indicators section displays health indicators table with next columns:

Reports

Reports are a very useful feature of DriveDx. Reports contain comprehensive information about the status of all the drives in the system.

To save a report, switch to the Dashboard view of any drive and click the “Save Report…” button in the top right corner. You can also click “Options > Save Drive Health Report…”

Reports are saved as regular text files that you can email to a technical support service or your friend.

In DriveDx, reports can be generated and emailed automatically – to do that, go to Preferences > Advanced and configure the necessary settings.

General Information

This section contains general information about device that allows quickly identify drive and its key characteristics like serial number, list of volumes / partitions, model family, model, capacity, sector size, etc.

Temperature Information

This is optional section. Will be displayed only if your drive supports temperature related metrics and statistics.

Usually ‘Temperature Information’ section contains:
  • Current Temperature
  • Power Cycle Temperature Min/Max – minimum / maximum temperature seen this power cycle
  • Life Time Temperature Min/Max – minimum / maximum temperature seen for the life of the drive
  • Recommended Temperature Min/Max – minimum / maximum recommended continuous operating temperature
  • Temperature Limit Min/Max – minimum / maximum temperature limit. Operating the drive below / under this temperature may cause physical damage to the drive

Health Indicators

This view contains detailed information about each drive health indicator aka S.M.A.R.T. attribute.

Today all modern HDD and SSD drives have S.M.A.R.T. feature. S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology) is a technology that monitors the state of a drive using an integrated diagnostics system and predicts the time of its complete failure. The technology uses a number of health indicators that must be properly interpreted. In terms of S.M.A.R.T. technology this health indicators named “S.M.A.R.T. attributes”.

A device may report up to 30 S.M.A.R.T attributes (health indicators). To determine such attributes, drive design engineers examine returned drives, consider the design points and create attributes to signal various types of failures. Some of them directly or indirectly affect drive health status and others give statistical information. S.M.A.R.T. attributes list is fixed, it is not possible to add or remove attributes after the HDD/SSD leaves the factory. The list may vary on different drives of the same manufacturer but same type drives usually have same attribute lists.

The number of S.M.A.R.T. attributes for a specific drive is provided to the right of the selected Health Indicators view.

Interactive Tour

This tour gives you a feel of DriveDx Health Indicators view.
– mouse over the red points for detailed explanation, сlick on them to go to the appropriate help section.

The top part of the screen is occupied by a convenient filter of attributes and a search bar. The program offers 3 filters by attribute type (Any Type, Pre-Fail, Life-Span) and 5 filters by attribute status (Any Status, OK, WARNING, FAILING, FAILED). To see all attributes, select Any Type and Any Status.

The search bar allows you to look for attributes by partial name and ID – to do that, you need to enter #ID (for example, #5).

A search & filter feature permits the user to quickly highlight pre-failure, failing, or failed health indicators.

DriveDx displays following information for each health indicator (S.M.A.R.T. attribute):

DriveDx does not just show the values (raw, normalized) of all attributes, but also displays detailed information about each attribute in a clear and well-readable format.

ID

ID is a number from 1 to 254 that identifies SMART attribute. Most of attribute IDs are unique. But sometimes, different manufacturers use the same ID number for different attributes.

Name

Name usually represents the meaning of the attribute. If name is “Unknown attribute” or “Vendor Internal” (for example “SandForce Internal”) – this means that we do not have any information about the name and meaning of this proprietary attribute.

Type

This field indicates the main purpose of the attribute and its update mode. There are 2 types of S.M.A.R.T. attributes:

  • pre-fail indicator – could indicate impending drive failure (imminent loss of data). Usually means that it is “life critical” and “pre-failure warranty” attribute.
  • life-span indicator – could indicate that device has exceeded its intended design life period. This is (in most of cases) an “advisory” attribute.

DriveDx also displays update mode for each health indicator (S.M.A.R.T. attribute). When the device updates attribute values depends on the specific attribute. Some are updated as the drive operates; some are only updated during drive self-tests, or at special events like power-on or unloading the heads of a hard disk drive, etc.

There are 2 possible update modes:
  • online – drive firmware constantly monitoring that attribute and updates it immediately
  • offline – value of this attribute is only updated during offline activities

Raw value

Each health indicator (S.M.A.R.T. attribute) has a raw value aka raw data. Raw measured values (provided by a sensor or a counter) are stored in this field. Sometimes different parts (high word, low word, etc) of raw value contain different kind of information.

The drive manufacturer defines the meaning of this value (but often corresponds to counts or a physical unit). The exact meaning of raw value often considered as trade secret. These values may significantly vary between different manufacturers and drive models and should NOT be compared with other devices or other vendors.

Interpretation and usage

You (without any special knowledge) can’t depend on “raw value” especially in allowed (optimal) range and limits for these values.

DriveDx displays all raw values in 3 possible ways:
  • N/A – value is not available – not initialized or is invalid (incorrect)
  • Grayed hexadecimal number – if exact format and meaning of raw value is unknown or if it is completely useless for the end-user (contains some internal vendor-specific data), users should not interpret and compare such raw value
  • Decimal number (or decimal / decimal) – if raw value format and meaning is known to DriveDx (internal expert system knowledge base contains information about it) and raw value have sense for the user.

Moreover DriveDx constantly tracks changes of attribute raw value. The arrow on the left of raw value indicates change dynamics (green color of arrow means good change dynamic / direction, white color means bad changed dynamic / direction). In square brackets you will see difference from the previous raw value.

If raw value requires user attention it is highlighted in yellow.

If meaning of raw value corresponds to physical unit, DriveDx could additionally show raw value recalculated in specific units.

Value (Current, Worst, Threshold)

The format of the raw value is vendor-specific and not specified by any standard. To track HDD or SSD drive reliability, the drive’s firmware converts the raw value to a normalized value ranging from 1 to 253. There is a pair of “normalized values” for each attribute: current (from 1 to 253) and threshold. The exact algorithm of conversion from raw value to normalized one is manufacturer and attribute dependent. The most typical conversion algorithms are linear, exponential or logarithmical.

The optimal / ideal current value typically lies in the range of 100 to 200, (yet again) depending on the manufacturer. If current value is less than or equal to the threshold, the attribute is said to have failed. This event indicates that either the drive is expected to fail very soon (sometimes in less than 24 hours) or it has exceeded its design or usage lifetime.

Worst is the smallest (closest to failure) value that the drive has recorded at any time during its lifetime when SMART was enabled. Note: however some vendor firmware may actually increase the Worst value for some “rate-type” attributes.

When the device updates values depends on the specific attribute. Some are updated as the drive operates; some are only updated during SMART self-tests, or at special events like power-on or unloading the heads of a disk drive, etc. See “Type” section for more info.

Interpretation and usage

Attribute (normalized) value plays role of current “relative health” of the attribute. On a new drives, value is high and it is decreasing during the lifetime of the drive. DriveDx helps users to properly evaluate attribute “relative health” (relative proximity to threshold) via attribute health rating in Status column.

DriveDx is automatically tracking current value changes, and additionally could show in round brackets difference from previous value.

If attribute value requires user attention it is highlighted in yellow (when value is close to threshold or less than or equal to the threshold).

Status

This is the most valuable column (field) for each health indicator in DriveDx.

In the Status column following information are displayed:
  • current health rating with status bar
  • current status value.
Relative Health Rating

SMART attribute health rating shows the percentage of the its remaining “health” – relative proximity to threshold.

DriveDx is automatically tracking all of drive SMART attribute values approximation to thresholds (i.e. their current health rating) and alerts immediately if value is close to threshold. This helps to avoid typical problem of most of drive utilities when two or more drive attribute values almost reach their thresholds – but failure is not predicted because no value reached the threshold level.

Moreover health rating could help to user understand dynamic and tendency of attribute degradation.

Status
There are next possible statuses of SMART attribute in DriveDx: Important to mention that all other utilities support only 2 statuses for attribute: OK or Failed.

DriveDx features a special multi-tier warning system that will inform the user about deviations from the normal state of drive attributes. It constantly monitors each S.M.A.R.T. attribute (and its change dynamics) and starts continuously warning the user as the drive degrades. On the initial stages of drive degradation, the user will receive notifications of the Warning type, then Failing (means that this drive parameter is in a pre-failure state) and only then Failed.

OK

There is no any problem with attribute – all is OK.

Warning

Could be a sign of potential problems with drive or its peripherals (power or data cables). Signal that this attribute needs attention from user; keep an eye on it and its change dynamics.

Failing

Attribute is about to fail (in pre-fail state). Signal for immediate investigation.

Failed

Current health rating of attribute is 0 %, i.e. current value of attribute exceeded the threshold (value is smaller than threshold). For pre-fail indicator this is a sign of potential fatal problems with drive, immediate user reaction required. For life-span indicator this means that usage/life-span limit designed by drive manufacturer is exceeded.

If health indicator status is not “OK”, DriveDx highlights in yellow attribute values that were cause of bad status.

Important to note that some subset of SMART attributes is not related to drive health or life-span, they are responsible to indicate state of drive peripherals like power and data cables. Most typical example of such kind of SMART attributes are “UDMA CRC Error count” (id#199) and “Command Timeout” (id#188).

Status vs Current Health Rating

Both Status and Health Rating are used to display the state of health indicator, but there is one key difference in their behavior in DriveDx.

Health Rating always reflects current state of health indicator (SMART attribute), but Status could also include forecasting to the future.

Some events could (with very high probability) indicate impending problems with drive, but it is impossible to convert them into the current “health rating”. One of the typical examples are “bad sectors” related health indicators (SMART attributes). For example, according to the statistics – after bad sectors first reallocation, drives are over 14 times more likely to fail within 60 days than drives without bad sector reallocation counts. In such cases DriveDx will set status as “FAILNG”, but (at the same time) current health rating could be even 100%.

Errors Log

[Optional feature, some drive models don’t support error logging]

Logging of reported errors is an optional SMART feature. Errors Log view is available only for drives that support this feature.

The S.M.A.R.T. Error Logging technology saves a record of the most recent errors reported by the drive with some additional data used to analyze the error condition. It could help to identify whether a drive could have been the root cause behind recent system failure. Error Log provides information about the last 5 errors.

Each error has the following fields in the table: #, time occurred, errors, prior command.

Error log records UNC errors, IDNF errors for which the address requested was valid, servo errors, write fault errors, etc.

UNC (UNCorrectable) – data is uncorrectable. This refers to data which has been read from the disk, but for which the Error Checking and Correction (ECC) codes are inconsistent. In effect, this means that the data cannot be read.

IDNF (ID Not Found) – user-accessible address could not be found. For READ LOG type commands, IDNF can also indicate that a device data log structure checksum was incorrect.

Self-tests

[Optional feature, some drive models don’t have self-test capabilities]

This view lets you start various drive-specific diagnostic tests and view their results.

Interactive Tour

This tour gives you a feel of DriveDx Self-tests view.
– mouse over the red points for detailed explanation, сlick on them to go to the appropriate help section.
DriveDx offers a number of drive self-tests:
Short Self-test

The primary goal is to quickly identify if the drive is faulty. Usually it consists of a collection of test routines like: electrical and mechanical (HDDs only) performance tests as well as the read performance test of the drive. Does read scan of a small area of the media (area is vendor-specific, test time is limited). Electrical tests might include a read/write circuitry test, a test of buffer RAM, and/or a test of the read / write head elements. Mechanical test usually includes seeking and servo on data tracks. Checks the list of Pending blocks that may have read errors. (Usually under 2 minutes).

Full (Long / Extended) Self-test

Longer, much more comprehensive and thorough version of the Short self-test, does read scan of the entire media, with no time limit. Can be used to validate the results of the Short self-test because Short self-test time constraint may not provide sufficient test time to identify a fault condition.

Self-tests are safe and can’t damage drive or any user data. All tests can be performed during normal system operation, but running self-test can, however, degrade current performance of the device.

Self-test will take longer to complete if drive is busy.

In the top part of the screen, click the Start Short Self-test button (for quick diagnostics involving drive key parameters only, ~2 minutes) or the Start Full Self-test button (deep drive diagnostics – the duration depends on the size and speed of the drive). You will see a progress bar with an estimated time to completion (ETA) underneath.

Test results are shown in the table below, which has the following fields: #, lifetime (hrs), test type, progress, status, LBA of 1st error.

Device Statistics

The optional Device Statistics log contains selected statistics about the device. Device Statistics view is available only for drives that support this feature.

It could contain one or more of the following sections (pages):

  • General Statistics
  • Free Fall Statistics
  • Rotating Media Statistics
  • General Errors Statistics
  • Temperature Statistics
  • Transport Statistics
  • Solid State Device Statistics

General Statistics

This section contains drive (HDD / SSD) general usage statistics like:

Lifetime Power-on Resets

Counter that records the number of times that the device has processed a power-on reset.

Power-on Hours

Value that records the amount of time that the device has been operational since the device was manufactured.

Logical Sectors Written

Value that records the number of logical sectors received from the host, incremented by one for each logical sector that was successfully received from the host.

Number of Write Commands

Number of drive write commands that completed successfully, incremented by one for each write command that successfully completes.

Logical Sectors Read

Value that records the number of logical sectors sent to the host, incremented by one for each logical sector that was successfully sent to the host.

Number of Read Commands

Number of drive read commands that completed successfully, incremented by one for each read command that successfully completes.

Free Fall Statistics

Number of Free-Fall Events Detected

Counter that records the number of free-fall events detected by the device (HDD or SSD), incremented by one for each free-fall event detected.

Overlimit Shock Events

Counter that records the number of shock events detected by the device with the magnitude higher than the maximum rating of the device, incremented by one for each event detected.

General Errors Statistics

Number of Reported Uncorrectable Errors

Counter that records the number of errors that are reported as an Uncorrectable Error, incremented by one for each event. Uncorrectable errors that occur during background activity is not counted, Uncorrectable errors reported by reads to flagged uncorrectable logical blocks should is not counted.

Number of Resets Between Command Acceptance and Command Completion

Counter that records the number of Software Reset or Hardware Reset events that occur when one or more commands have been accepted by the device but have not reached command completion. Incremented by one for each event.

Rotating Media Statistics

Spindle Motor Power-on Hours

Value that records the amount of time that the spindle motor has been powered on since the hard disk was manufactured, incremented with a resolution of one minute or less.

Head Flying Hours

Value that records number of hours that the hard drive heads have been flying over the surface of the media since the HDD was manufactured, incremented with a resolution of one minute or less.

Head Loaded Events

Value that records the number of hard disk head load events: when the heads are loaded from the ramp to the media for a ramp load device or when the heads take off from the landing zone for a contact start stop device.

Number of Reallocated Logical Sectors

Counter that records the number of logical sectors that have been reallocated after hard disk drive (HDD) manufacture, incremented by one for each logical sector.

Read Recovery Attempts

Counter that records the number of logical sectors that require three or more attempts to correctly read the data from the hard disk drive media for each read command.

Number of Mechanical Start Failures

Counter that records the number of mechanical start failures after hard disk manufacture. A mechanical start failure is a failure that prevents the hard disk drive from achieving a normal operating condition.

Solid State Device Statistics

Percentage Used Endurance Indicator

Vendor specific estimate of the percentage of solid state drive (SSD) life used based on the actual SSD drive usage and the manufacturer’s prediction of SSD life. A value of 100 indicates that the estimated endurance of the solid state drive (SSD) has been consumed, but may not indicate a SSD failure (e.g., minimum power-off data retention capability reached for SSD using NAND flash technology). The value is allowed to exceed 100.

Automatic Email Reports

The user can get problem notifications and drive status reports to email. Reporting can be configured on the basis of various criteria. Thanks to this feature, the user does not need to have physical access to a specific computer all the time, which is especially useful for all kinds of server rooms, data centers, etc.

Email Reports help is coming soon, please stay tuned.

Drive Free Space Monitoring

Mac OS X and applications might fail due to an inability to allocate storage space. In addition, low disk space might cause disk fragmentation. To avoid data loss and to ensure the continuous functioning of your computer it is important to monitor the amount of available storage space on your drive.

Free space monitoring is especially important for servers, as server disk space is a critical resource that must be closely watched to prevent potential server down time and failures. Administrators need to know if a disk is likely to run out of space soon, so that they can take appropriate action.

DriveDx can automatically monitor free disk space and will alert user immediately if user defined free space threshold exceeded.

There are next options to get into the “Drive Free Space Monintoring” preferences:

  • Right click on disk item in the left sidebar and choose “Free Space Monitoring Settings…”
  • Click on volumes list in the drive dashboard and choose “Free Space Monitoring Settings…”

DriveDx is the most advanced drive health diagnostic and monitoring utility!
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Or download free trial version. Requires macOS 10.9+.