SMART Monitoring Software with Email Reporting?

[Vicenarian]

Ok, so I'm thinking about implementing this for my business clients. Installing some sort of hard disk SMART monitoring/reporting software that will send email alerts when a drive has issues.

Right now, the only one I know of is Acronis Drive Monitor which is free for personal or commercial use.


Related Question:
If I configure email reporting in Acronis Drive Monitor, I have to set a valid SMTP server. Now, what I'm wondering is, what's the best way to handle this? Should I create an email address on my company domain just for this purpose, and set it up on customer machines? In other words, create an address like smart_reports@companyname.com with valid SMTP settings, etc. and set that SMTP server on all my client's computers running Acronis Drive Monitor? Would this pose any security/legal implications/problems?

 

[DCGPX]

Ok, so I'm thinking about implementing this for my business clients. Installing some sort of hard disk SMART monitoring/reporting software that will send email alerts when a drive has issues.

Right now, the only one I know of is Acronis Drive Monitor which is free for personal or commercial use.


Related Question:
If I configure email reporting in Acronis Drive Monitor, I have to set a valid SMTP server. Now, what I'm wondering is, what's the best way to handle this? Should I create an email address on my company domain just for this purpose, and set it up on customer machines? In other words, create an address like smart_reports@companyname.com with valid SMTP settings, etc. and set that SMTP server on all my client's computers running Acronis Drive Monitor? Would this pose any security/legal implications/problems?

Personally I see no problem

Your recieving an email via an agreed source, its only SMART data from the drive so why not?

 

[uktech]

Sounds ok to me - as long as the customer has agreed to you collecting their SMART data.

However, I've just read this: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2010/07/06/software-to-steer-clear-of-acronis-drive-monitor/ which does tend to suggest, you'll need to watch how you configure the software - otherwise the customer will get inappropriate messages all the time.

There is also this: http://www.ntfs.com/disk-monitor.htm which will perform a similar function, though have no experience of it myself.

And of course: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_S.M.A.R.T._tools - which shows what will and won't email results.

Completely forgot CrystalDiskInfo - which I use all the time, because I didn't realize the latest version supports email. Not sure about the license but it is by far the most accurate SMART monitoring tool I have found.

Hope this helps.

 

[ZenTree]

Another aspect to consider is how you phrase the service to the customer. You do not want them to think you will 100% be able to detect a hard drive failure before it happens. It's no guarantee but offers SOME level of preventative protection.
I can see some customers I know coming in if their drive failed and trying to make out you were liable for not informing them before it did etc.

 

[Vicenarian]

Thanks for the helpful replies everyone.

As per your suggestions, I'll be doing some testing of various SMART monitoring software soon; I'll try and remember to post back with my findings.

 

[Vicenarian]

So I tried a few different programs out, but I like Acronis Drive Monitor the best. Easy to configure/use. Just needed to set the proper SMTP settings and voila. Even does weekly reports that detail disk health, which is very cool.

 

[4ycr]

I don't know how much acronis drive monitor is but have you thought about GFI? it does this with the daily safety checks and it is easy to setup the email alerts

 

[Vicenarian]

I don't know how much acronis drive monitor is but have you thought about GFI? it does this with the daily safety checks and it is easy to setup the email alerts

Acronis Drive Monitor is free; but I'll check out GFI too, thanks!

 

[uprighttech]

I don't know how much acronis drive monitor is but have you thought about GFI? it does this with the daily safety checks and it is easy to setup the email alerts

The week after I started trialling GFI, I got an alert that there was a predicted drive failure on one of our office PC's. Ignored it for a couple of days. Later that week, came in and the drive had failed and the PC would not boot. So, I know from experience that GFI drive health checks work.

 

[Xander]

Can't believe I'm the first to mention FoolishIT's Disk Health Monitor

Disk Health Monitor is a real-time NT Event log monitor which scans for disk/controller errors of many types, and alerts you when a relevant event is generated.


Alerts types are configurable, and there are two options:

1. A balloon pop-up from the system tray.
2. An email notification to a predefined address.

Supported Operating Systems: Windows 2000 - Windows 7, or Windows Server 2000* - Windows Server 2008 R2*


* Usage on Server operating systems constitutes commercial use, and requires registration.

 

[Rodrick]

My wife's PC had a SMART failing HDD, Intel controller software caught it, Foolish's didn't as there wasn't an event log event. That being said, I've had the opposite as well on customer PCs, and when I did a full surface scan I found many HDD errors. After the full scan then of course the SMART system was reporting errors

So really, they both take their input from two different places and are not really comparable.

 

[Xander]

Rodrick, was that while running the dEvent Monitor or the Disk Health Monitor?

 

[Rodrick]

Disk Health Monitor.

Now you have me second guessing myself … goes and checks … Yea, Disk Health Monitor