Work inside VirtualBox VM?

[Abscissa]

I find the Windows version of HD Sentinel to be an essential tool, but I want to switch my desktop machine to Linux and unfortunately the Linux version of HD Sentinel isn't even remotely comparable to the Windows version and fails to meet my needs. Although this would be a rather poor solution, does anyone know if the Windows version of HD Sentinel will work correctly in a VirtualBox VM, or does the virtualization prevent HD Sentinel from accessing the *true* S.M.A.R.T information?

[hdsentinel]

Thanks for your message.

I'm afraid the "virtualization" (as it name suggests) create the virtual environment, completely separating the real hardware (the hard disks) from the running software. So if you'd run Hard Disk Sentinel Windows version in the VirtualBOX, then you'd only get status of the virtual hardware, not the actual hard disks.

To monitor the system, you'd need to have
- Hard Disk Sentinel Enterprise version running on any computer (which can be a virtual computer as well, as it does not access the hardware, just collects hard disk status, display this information, makes alerts, etc...)
- Hard Disk Sentinel Linux daemon (not publicly available, available only upon request together with the above) running on the actual hardware and providing the status information to Hard Disk Sentinel Enterprise.

This may be better and especially useful if you have many systems to monitor remotely (Linux and Windows systems) in a central management solution.
For more information, please check:
http://www.hdsentinel.com/hard_disk_sen ... creenshots

[Abscissa]

Hmm, I suppose that's better than nothing, but for me that does leave it both less convenient and more resource intensive (due to the need to boot a Windows instance and keep it running to get the notifications) and also significantly more expensive.

What about WINE? Is there any chance the Windows version of HD Sentinel world work under that? Has anyone tried?

[hdsentinel]

It may worth a try, but personally I feel WINE will not work: virtual environments do not allow accessing physical hardware as software running inside the virtual environment completely separated from the actual hardware devices.

If you do not prefer to run Windows, you may use Linux daemon (running on a Linux system on the actual hardware) which provides disk status to Hard Disk Sentinel Enterprise (running in any, even virtual Windows system). This way you can monitor the status of the actual hardware - even from remotely.