Hard Drive Inspector Professional

Hard Drive Inspector Professional monitors your system's hard disks, SSDs, and USB drives, constantly and in real time. It also ties together a lot of useful capabilities like SMART options, performance settings, and alerts, in one easy-to-navigate user interface.

Pros

Centralized management: Hard Drive Inspector Professional does everything its free competitors do, but from one program and interface.

Reliability estimates: Ongoing reliability estimates, temperature monitoring, and immediate alerts help you anticipate and prevent disk failure and data loss.

Acoustic management: Hard Drive Inspector Professional can make noisy drives quieter, though drive performance might suffer slightly. A slider on the Options dialog shifts from slower/quieter to faster/louder operation.

Cons

Freeware alternatives: Hard Drive Inspector Professional isn't expensive, but similarly capable freeware is available, too.

Backups are better: Hard Drive Inspector Professional points out (correctly) that it helps protect your disks from failure and data loss. But by that logic you'd be better off putting the money toward the cost of a top-shelf backup solution.

Bottom Line

Hard Drive Inspector Professional has advantages over similar freeware, especially unbundled tools. If you're not sure whether you need it, you can try it for free. The information it gathers might just convince you that you're better off with it than without it.

Editors' note: This is a review of the trial version of Hard Drive Inspector Professional 4.30 build 225.