Forecast and Prevent Hard Drive Failures

Germany (SANEPR.com) June 25, 2008 -- Oliver Marr Software Development has released DriveSitter Pro v. 1.6, a powerful Windows utility that monitors and diagnoses hard disk drive problems, before they cause your system to crash. Accessing the Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology (S.M.A.R.T.) intelligence that is built into modern disk drives, DriveSitter Pro can detect and forecast up to 70 percent of all drive crashes, before they occur.

DriveSitter Pro alerts you when your disk drive is in danger of crashing or overheating. Overheating is a leading cause of drive failure and data loss. If your drive is overheating, the program will notify you immediately. DriveSitter Pro can even initiate a system shutdown when it detects an overheated drive or other serious condition.

The program monitors more than two dozen hard drive attributes that could indicate that your hardware is about to fail. For each critical factor that DriveSitter Pro monitors, you'll see the drive manufacturer's danger threshold, and an easy-to-understand explanation of the problem, as well as suggested next steps for dealing with the problem. The program can test your drives' overall health, temperatures, and attributes at regular intervals, and send you an email, deliver a message across the network, or run any program that you choose when your drive is in danger. In addition, there are two unique tray tool tips - one for temperature and one for general problems - that tell you immediately the most important issues that the program has detected.

Unlike other commercial drive monitoring utilities, DriveSitter Pro lets you be proactive about ensuring that your drive is safe. In addition to being alerted when there are problems, the program lets you run a S.M.A.R.T. self-test at any time.

The program tracks your drives' performance over time, displaying statistics and graphs about the growing list of problems that are burdening your hardware. You can view the zoomable time-series graphical information on-screen, or produce HTML or text reports. By monitoring the difficulties as they begin to affect the drives' performance, network administrators can replace faulty drives before they result in data loss or system outages.

DriveSitter Pro runs quietly in the background, using a minimal amount of your system's resources. The program performs a complex statistical analysis of your drives' health over time, alerting you when there is a dangerous Threshold Exceeded Condition (TEC) in your computer. The sophisticated programming can predict when your drive is at risk, without burdening you with insignificant information or false alarms.

DriveSitter Pro is the only S.M.A.R.T. diagnostic and monitoring application that does not require administrative privileges, even on Windows Vista.

In addition to monitoring drive problems, the program can also provide you with more than 130 pieces of information about your drives, including serial numbers, firmware revision numbers, ATA/ATAPI versions, and security settings.

Whether you're a network administrator who needs to replace faulty hard drives before they fail, a system consultant who needs to easily check your customers' drive hardware, a business person who wants to avoid drive-related computer outages, or a home computer user who wants a safe and secure PC, DriveSitter Pro has the tools that you need. Hard drive failures need not be sudden. DriveSitter Pro provides a layer of security and protection for your data.

DriveSitter Pro v. 1.6 runs under Windows 2000/XP/Vista. A single-user personal license costs $24.95(US). Business, family, multi-user, and site licenses are available. The company's legacy disk drive diagnostic product, DriveSitter, supports Windows 98/Me/NT4. Both products may be ordered securely online from http://www.otwesten.de/.

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About Oliver Marr Software Development:

Since 2003, Oliver Marr Software Development has been creating and marketing software for business people and professionals. In addition to DriveSitter Pro and DriveSitter, the company also offers ScaleTrans, a software tool that lets professional psychologists and diagnosticians work with psychological standard scales such as T-scale, Z-scale, and IQ-scale. For more information, visit http://www.otwesten.de/.

About S.M.A.R.T. Technology:

Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology (S.M.A.R.T.) is the name given to the self-diagnostic intelligence that is built into modern hard disk drives. These drives are able to measure and report the number of times the drive has been powered on and off, the number of bad sectors that have been reallocated, the drive temperature, and many other factors that can forecast serious problems. This data can be interpreted by software such as DriveSitter Pro, and can measure a drive's reliability, as well as its expected lifetime.