Is there a way to name physical hard drives?

[Muad'Dib]

As I add more drives to my system (especially when they end up being several of the same model drive), I'm finding it hard to remember which drive is Disk #0 and which is Disk #1, etc. So I'm wondering (hoping) that there's a way to give each physical drive a more memorable name within HDS. If so, how do I do it?

(This thread may end up going into the "Feature Request" forum, but I'm hoping the feature is already available and I just can't find out how to use it! )

[hdsentinel]

Thanks!
Yes, this is already possible in version 4.00: on the main window just below the "power on time" statistics, you may see a line "Click to add comment" where you can specify comment for the hard disk. There you can enter any text you prefer (for example which location it is used, how much warranty it has, etc...) and when you select this hard disk, the comment is also displayed there.
You can add such comment for all hard disks of course.

Hope this helps

[Muad'Dib]

That helps a bit. But I'm wondering if that comment (or the name in another place) could be displayed in the system tray when I hover the cursor on a temperature reading.

Here's a real world example (and why I just thought of it today). I just bought a new external enclosure for one of my drives, and I'm watching it a little more closely than normal just to make sure that the enclosure is keeping it cool enough. When I see a drive's temperature going up, it would be nice to know the drive's name without having to open the HDS main window. I currently have 4 drives of the same brand and now two of the exact same size & model (and plan to get more of this model), so which drive is which isn't always very easy to quickly notice.

(BTW, thanks for the VERY quick response - I've been on hold longer with some companies' tech support phone lines than it took for you to answer my post!)

[hdsentinel]

I see - so you prefer to have the comment displayed in the tray icon hint.
Nice idea and I agree that it may help to identify the drive, so it may be available in a later version

Thanks, I know that support is also very important - so I try my best to help.

[Muad'Dib]

See? I thought it might be a "Feature Request"!

Since it doesn't exist yet, I'd suggest that the name be separate from the comment. I like the comment field and plan to use it. But I really like the comment's ability to store a lot of information in the line. However, I'd rather the disk's name not be everything I put in the comment line, since that becomes too much information. And ideally, that name could also be displayed in the drive's information box on the top left side of the HDS main screen (above each disk's Health & Temp). Again, it would be more useful (for me at least) to see a custom name in that box instead of the drive model and serial # (or have both).

I can see this feature helping the forum user alan-0000, (also recently posting in the Questions forum) who is having problems with drive #s changing on him (fortunately, I haven't experienced THAT problem yet!).

Thanks for looking into this as a possible future feature!

[Muad'Dib]

I see with v4.10 you've added the ability to display the comment line when you hover the cursor over a system tray icon - thanks! May I make two (related) suggestions?

With the new option, even if the only thing enabled for the icon is the comment line, I still get other redundant information displayed (for example, the temperature is already on the icon, yet you see "Hard Disk Temperature: 35C"). If I use the comment line as an identifier, I don't need to know the disk # (and depending on the order in which peripherals are turned on, the disk # can change), yet this information is shown even if the Disk # checkbox is unchecked. If I check the health box, the health is shown to me twice (after the disk #, and also in the last line of text).

I realize that part of the problem is that these boxes control what is being displayed for both the desktop display as well as the system tray, so maybe you could separate the controls for the two displays. If you do that, then:

1) Either have the checkboxes totally control what is displayed (nothing checked, nothing displayed (other than the icon itself)), or maybe you could add a checkbox that says something like "Display only the checked information", so that I can control everything that is displayed. In my case, the only things I'd want to see are health and comment (the temperature is already in the icon). Having too much information displayed makes it hard to quickly figure out which disk is which.

2) And I still think it would be helpful (maybe sometime farther in the future), to have a separate a field called "Label" to be used instead of Comment, for the reasons I mentioned in my previous post. Now that I can display the comment in the tray icon, I've shortened the information in that field to just the name of the drive (and I've stored my various comments in a separate text file). I'd like to go back to using Comment for the more in-depth information, and have a new field "Label" just to name the drive.

Anyway, those are two suggestions, hopefully you find them useful!

[hdsentinel]

Thanks!
Yes, for your request the comment may be displayed in the tray icon hint.

Yes, exactly as you noticed, the software uses the same way to "construct" what items to be displayed for both the tray icon, status window and desktop (if these are enabled / visible), the items you may configure in Configuration -> Status Window.

Thanks for your thoughts, I'll check and agree that the "Hard Disk Temperature" may not be useful if you see the value visible on the tray icon, so it may be changed to show only the comment if you prefer that, also showing the Health twice may not be required.
Thanks for your attention!

So do you prefer to have a second "Comment" line, to be used as "Label" for identification?
I thought one such line may be enough but it may be available in a future version, thanks for your tip!!

[alan-0000]

I would ask/suggest the ability to show the first visible partition letter of each Disk.

Upon a cold start power-up that goes through the BIOS, Windows always allocates #2 for my SSD and #0 and #1 for my two HDD.
Upon a Restart which does NOT reset the hardware Windows normally makes my SSD either #1 or even #0 and the HDD's take what is left.

Some partition image backup programs used to go wrong when Windows fumbled the disk numbers.
Perhaps other things can still go wrong.
What I can depend upon is that if Windows is running then my SSD will always have C:\.

[feldrosen]

This is really helpful! thank you sooooo much!

[klauzser]

I agree. I have used the tips and it worked on me. Thanks a lot.