Hard Disk Monitoring

Hello,

What is the best way to install and customise Hard Disk Sentinel Standard Edition, for an isolated user of a Windows 7 PC working under a non-administrative Windows user account (and therefore having two user accounts to himself) ? My needs :

- HDS has to be "on" at all times, so it can track HDD health. My understanding is, HDS predictive abilities for failure only work if it's allowed to monitor disks for a long while (please correct me if I'm wrong, and if I should not seek that).

- I want to be able to monitor temperature, health, etc, from my regular, non-administrative account.

My problems :

- I can't make heads nor tails of the "service vs. application" toggling feature. There does not seem to be an easy and sure way to know whether HDS is running as a service or as an application, or whether it is running at all. When I go into Integration to check, it seems to always not be running as a service (so what's the point ?). Should I use "service" or "application" ?

- The option to launch HDS at startup does not seem to work. I have checked the "Load with Windows" box , but I always need to start it manually.

- Is there a choice between installing HDS for a specific Windows user account, or for all accounts ? I would like of course that it worked similarly under both accounts. I almost never use my admin account, but I need to have HDS handy if and when I use it.

- I have two internal disks, and two external backups, semi-permanently connected through a USB 3.1 cable (I alternate between two backup disks). When HDS is running, the external disk is awake. When it's not, the disk goes into sleep. Which is preferrable, as far as disk life and monitoring are concerned ? And how do I implement that ?

Thank you.

Hello Clairvaux,

Generally in Service mode Hard Disk Sentinel is running in the context of the SYSTEM account: under Vista and newer OSes, the user interface is not accessible, so then the service runs "invisible". You may use the Hard Disk Sentinel Tray shortcut to display tray icons and get quick report about a drive, but without the opportunity to perform tests, modify configuration.

The idea is that users with limited user rights should have only very limited functions - as the monitoring / management / alerts / status export etc... should be managed used by only the admin.
Please check http://www.hdsentinel.com/help/en/330_c ... ation.html page for additional details about the service mode.

It is best used if you previously configure possible alerts upon issues. If you use Hard Disk Sentinel Professional version, then you can configure also
- automatic backup projects ("panic backup")
- schedulde disk tests to be started at configured times
- automatically export complete reports in XML files (so they can be read / processed) at Configuration -> Advanced options page
- provide status information via WMI at Configuration -> Advanced options page
- provide status information via web interface by Configuration -> Integration -> Enable WebStatus
before switching to Service mode.


> HDS has to be "on" at all times, so it can track HDD health.

Yes, this is possible with service mode (or even in application mode). Generally this is the main purpose: to continuously monitor and detect, log, report issues, create alerts in real time.

> My understanding is, HDS predictive abilities for failure only work if it's allowed to monitor disks for
> a long while (please correct me if I'm wrong, and if I should not seek that).

Yes, you are correct.
HDS can detect degradations if you manually run only - but then problems (and events related to them) may be missed: there may be no alert on temporary issues (like over-temperature situations).
This is why it is better if the software can run in the background, monitor - and report problems as soon as possible, immediately when they happen.


> I want to be able to monitor temperature, health, etc, from my regular, non-administrative account.

If you switch to Service mode, then it is possible if you use the Hard Disk Sentinel Tray shortcut.
This will show the temperature tray icons and allow checking the complete status with your regular, non-admin account.


> - I can't make heads nor tails of the "service vs. application" toggling feature.

Sorry, I do not understand.


> There does not seem to be an easy and sure way to know whether HDS is running as a service or as an application, or whether it is running at all.

There are easy and sure ways:

Please press CTRL + ALT + DEL and in the Task Manager, you can check if HDSentinel.exe is running at all.
If it is active in the context of the SYSTEM account then you can be sure that it runs as Service - otherwise it runs in the context of the current user.

You can also use the Start Service / Stop Service shortcuts in Hard Disk Sentinel program group. If the service is not installed/not active, these report it, so then it is possible to start HDSentinel.exe to open in application mode.

You may also check in Windows Control Panel -> Services if the Hard Disk Sentinel service is installed or not.


> When I go into Integration to check, it seems to always not be running as a service (so what's the point ?).

Of course, yes, this is normal: then it is running in APPLICATION mode.
The buttons on the Integration page show that: you can only click on the "Use As Service" button to switch to service mode.

If you CAN go to Integration page, it means the software is running in application mode.
Please check the Help - which describes that in Service mode, the interface (including the configurable options) are not accessible.


> Should I use "service" or "application" ?

This depends only on the actual requirements.

If you prefer to change/adjust settings, start tests manually - then it is best to use application mode.
It can also start and run in the backround (if you un-select Configuration -> Preferences -> Display main window when started)

If you want to configure alerts and then ONLY check temperatures/report (and receive alerts or use the above mentioned automatic functions) and generally want to use without admin account, then the service mode is better - then the actual user is separated from the software.


> The option to launch HDS at startup does not seem to work. I have checked the "Load with Windows" box , but I always need to start it manually.

Excuse me for the troubles. Of course that option should (and in most cases) work - I'm afraid this is not really related to Hard Disk Sentinel.
Please check this forum topic:
https://www.hdsentinel.com/forum/viewto ... 94&p=14862
which describes the situation and gives details about how to fix the problem with Windows Scheduler.


> Is there a choice between installing HDS for a specific Windows user account, or for all accounts ?

No. The software installs for the current user - and starts automatically when the current user logs in (if used in application mode).
In service mode, it starts with the system so active even if no user logged in.

> I would like of course that it worked similarly under both accounts.
> I almost never use my admin account, but I need to have HDS handy if and when I use it.

This is possible with Service mode: then it will be active even if you use the system with non-admin account.


> I have two internal disks, and two external backups, semi-permanently connected through a USB 3.1 cable
> (I alternate between two backup disks). When HDS is running, the external disk is awake.
> When it's not, the disk goes into sleep. Which is preferrable, as far as disk life and monitoring are concerned ? And how do I implement that ?

Generally Hard Disk Sentinel automatically checks the power mode of the hard disks and never wake them up just
to detect their status. The problem is that many external enclosures/drives provide the disk power state incorrectly:
they report "drive is awake" when it is actually sleeping.
Then Hard Disk Sentinel (of course) detects the status.

If possible, please use Report menu -> Send test report to developer option (in application mode) as then it is possible
to check the USB chipset, drives and how they report power state. This may help to check possibilities about the actual
situation, verify if it is somehow possible to detect the correct power state to prevent wake up.

Generally I can recommend the following (from a different topic):

1) on Configuration -> Advanced options page, you can adjust the detection frequency. By dragging the slider to right, you can configure Hard Disk Sentinelt o detect less frequently (to less frequently wake up drives)

2) on this Configuration -> Advanced options page, below the slider, there is an option Automatic detection based on disk utilization designed exactly for this situation.
If you enable this option, when Hard Disk Sentinel should perform the automatic detection, it verifies if there was any real disk activity (reads/writes) since the last detection - and only performs the detection if there was any traffic. Otherwise (regardless of the driver and its functions, incorrect response) the hard disk is not touched.
The source of this is the real-time performance information (which you can examine on the Disk Performance page) - if it's working and Windows provide this information and performance counters correctly.

To extend drive life, personally I prefer always active.
Standby/sleep of external drives do not save too much power - and frequent spin up / spin down is not the best if we want to extend drive life.

First of all, I would like to thank you right away for such a long and detailed response. I will study carefully your recommendations and come back when I have done so.

Hello,

I'm picking up the issue again. You wrote :

hdsentinel wrote:If you switch to Service mode, then it is possible if you use the Hard Disk Sentinel Tray shortcut. This will show the temperature tray icons and allow checking the complete status with your regular, non-admin account.

The help file included in the program also says :

A Hard Disk Sentinel Tray shortcut is available from the program group. This shows the tray icon(s) and allows accessing hard disk status information on Windows Vista/7/2008 and newer OSes, even if Hard Disk Sentinel is running in Service mode. This way users with limited rights may get hard disk status information and temperature/health indicators on the tray.

However, the online help says :

In the Professional version Hard Disk Sentinel Tray shortcut is available from the program group. This shows the tray icon(s) and allows accessing hard disk status information on Windows Vista/7/2008 and newer OSes even if Hard Disk Sentinel is running in "Service" mode. This way users with limited rights may get hard disk status information and temperature/health indicators on the tray.

So, is this Hard Disk Sentinel Tray shortcut present in the Standard Edition, which I use ? I did not find it, although I'm in the habit of wiping shortcuts installed by programs and creating my own.

Is there a way, in the Standard Edition, to view disk status and temperature in the Windows Tray, while running HDS as a service from a non-admin Windows user account ?

> The help file included in the program also says :

I'm afraid the help file is not yet updated (will need to update it too), just the online help.

> However, the online help says :
> In the Professional version Hard Disk Sentinel Tray shortcut is available from the program group.

Yes, this is correct.
The standard version did not have the Hard Disk Sentinel Tray shortcut.

The Store page confirms that too:

https://www.hdsentinel.com/store.php

"Tray icon / report in service mode with non-admin user" is available in Hard Disk Sentinel Professional only.

> Is there a way, in the Standard Edition, to view disk status and temperature in the Windows Tray,
> while running HDS as a service from a non-admin Windows user account ?

No, I'm afraid it is available in Hard Disk Sentinel Professional only.

Thank you. Now that this is out of the way, other questions following soon...

Hi,

To my great surprise, it seems one can have HDS running as an application and as a service at the same time, provided one launches the application first and the service next. Attempting the opposite will have the application fail silently.

Is there any advantage in doing that ?
Is there any reason why it should not be done ?

Sorry to say, but this is not designed to work at all - and there can be only problems if used this way. Good luck for that - but unexpected behaviour may happen.

This should never work: the status, statistics, logs and other data files are used by both the service and the application.
The result is that they can be damaged if both the service and application instances attempt to update/change them at the same time. This is exactly why it is not possible to start the service AND application mode at the same time - and generally only once instance of the software should be running at any given time: if you have Hard Disk Sentinel running and start again, it will not show up a 2nd window.

Generally if can be be used in application mode (so you have the proper rights to use with full functionality) - then it is preferred. In this case it is not really required to use the service mode as the service mode designed exactly for users where the appropriate user rights are not available, to run in the background and issue alerts/status for the administrator.


> Attempting the opposite will have the application fail silently.

Not fail silently. The software detects the other instance and does not run - exactly to prevent confusion and keep the files secure.

> Is there any advantage in doing that ?

I do not see any - only disadvantages. This is why it is not supported.

> Is there any reason why it should not be done ?

Please see above.

Very informative, thank you. Not that I imagined myself any good reason to do that.

The question is, though : shouldn't the software prevent you to do this, since it's potentially harmful ?

By failing silently, I meant : does not do what it is asked to do, but does not display an error message, so the user a) knows the action has not being executed, b) knows it shouldn't be attempted anyway.

Here is Task Manager when I have HDS running both as an application and a service, just in case I made a mistake and it's not.

> The question is, though : shouldn't the software prevent you to do this, since it's potentially harmful ?

Yes, the software prevents this.
Sometimes if the user wants - he can find workaround for every protection and use in non-standard way....

> By failing silently, I meant : does not do what it is asked to do, but does not display an error message,

Because there is no real error in this case.
The software does not start (exactly as you wrote: it prevents the double instance) but there is no error.
If the service would run as interactive service with user interface (only under older OSes: XP/2000/2003) then the service would popup
(just like when you'd use in application mode and start the software 2nd time: then it does not display an "error" just shows up the running instance).

> so the user a) knows the action has not being executed, b) knows it shouldn't be attempted anyway.

The software did not start 2nd time. But this is not an error, the current running insance (the service in this way) is active.


> Here is Task Manager when I have HDS running both as an application and a service, just in case I made a mistake and it's not.

I'm afraid yes, it may be a mistake.
This should never happen when the software used correctly but if you want to try - yes, you can do it.

Here is how things should generally work:

1) the user starts the software, set up configuration/options, set up alerts, remote monitoring options and so (if preferred). Then he switches to service mode
2) then Hard Disk Sentinel runs in service mode in the background. Any attempt to start it (again) of course does not make anything.
3) when it is required to adjust setting, perform configuration, the service can be stopped, uninstalled (as offered by the "Stop service" shortcut). Or (without uninstalling) yes, the software can run in application mode, to make adjustments/settings. Then it should be closed of course before the service started again.
If the service is not uninstalled (just manually stopped and started) then it is the responsibility of the user to close the application manually (before starting the service again).

What you wrote, yes, technically possible - and absolutely not a problem.
Designed to work this way - as in some rare situations may be useful, for example to investigate if there is an issue with service mode (very-very rarely but may happen) but it does not mean it should be used in all cases, as generally only the service OR the application mode should be used.

I understand the service and application should not be run alongside.

What I don't understand is : do those Task Manager screenshots show that they are running alongside ? That's what I thought, based on my different tests. Could you confirm this ?

Yes, this should never happen if the service stopped and uninstalled (then started in application mode).

I'd recommend to completely close the software by File -> Exit and also use the "Stop service" shortcut from the program group which will stop the service and then on the question, you can also select to uninstall the service too.
This way both instances are stopped - and then you can launch the application again - and if preferred, then switch to service mode on the Configuration -> Integration page, to make sure that only one instance (service or application) will be active.

Ps. I sent private message to you.