HDD Observer 5.2

Overview

HDD Observer is a valuable program that will let you know of every detail regarding the status of all connected hard disks. Apart from its monitoring capabilities, which allow you to view temperature, health, performance and activity, it can also be used as a repair tool that defragments the file system and registry, as well as removes unwanted registry entries and junk files.

Installation

There is nothing in this installation that might seem difficult to any user, regardless of experience. Just follow the instructions and the installation will finish in just a few moments. It doesn’t install any additional software in your computer, and doesn’t contain any type of malicious items either.

The operating systems that support this program are Windows XP, 2003, Vista and 7.

Interface

HDD Observer has a rich and colorful interface. It has a pane on the left hand side with two categories, each one with different entries: Menu (General Status, <Your Drives>, Options, About) and Tools (Disk Cleaner, Disk Defragmenter, Registry Cleaner, Registry Defragmenter, Windows Disk Tools). As you can see, the Menu category controls the monitoring and informative part of the program’s functionality, while the Tools category includes all the tools. Depending on which entry is selected, the main screen changes to show the appropriate contents and features. For example, the General Status item gives you an overview of your drive’s health, temperature and performance. The menu entry with the name of your disk displays more detailed information about its status, including free space and fragmentation.

Pros

Your hard disks are monitored in real-time, minimizing the risk of an unexpected disk failure to zero. The temperature, performance and health levels can all be embedded in the system tray as icons showing the corresponding value. Other information about the drive that can be seen in the program is total size, work time, serial number and drive activity (displayed as a percentage). You can also view the free space and fragmentation for each of the drive’s partitions.

There are 4 built-in disk maintenance tools: Disk Cleaner (cleans the system from junk files and the like), Disk Defragmenter, Registry Cleaner (fixes and deleted invalid registry entries) and Registry Defragmenter. In addition, there is a screen where you can find all of the disk tools available in Windows.

Cons

We didn’t experience any issues while testing the product.

Alternatives

Ashampoo HDD Control 2 (paid) is one of the best applications used to measure the status of your drive(s) and avoid any possible problems with them. Not only it gives detailed reports on every aspect of the drive(s), it also comes with many additional built-in repair tools that can prove to be very helpful. If you’re looking for a free utility, then you can take a look at CrystalDiskInfo, a nice and easy to use program with many features. If you’re still not convinced, then try out HD Tune (paid), one more great program with similar functionality.

Conclusion

HDD observer comes with many handy tools and gives nice reports on the status of your disks; however it doesn’t have anything special that would make you choose this over another software (either free or paid).