Hard Disk Monitoring

Hi,
it would be nice to see surface map (table with colored blocks depending on transfer time) when executing Extended self-test of drive, because part of this test is also about surface test and I would like to see a detailed overview of the drive. Surface map is already available when you do only "Surface test".

Thanks

Hi,

Thanks for your message!
Yes, I completely understand and agree: it would be nice to display this information - but it is not possible.
The "Extended Self Test" is a hardware self test, runs "inside" the hard disk itself. It is not possible to get information about the surface map, the transfer speed of the actual blocks or even the current sector number being tested during the test. We can only have a limited kind of progress information (only in 10% increments) and the actual results of the test: test OK or fail and the reason (which element of the drive fails).

This is exactly why the Disk -> Surface test -> Read test is available: as it is approximately the same (as you can see) but can provide the disk surface map and we have full control over the surface so we can measure actual transfer rates, display error(s) and so.

The Disk -> Surface test -> Read test constantly reads from the drive, so it uses data transfers which may be affected by the disk controller and communication channel. By using this test and then the "Extended self test" you can spot on data transfer errors which can cause data corruption while the hard disk is really error-free: if this happens, the Extended Self Test runs without errors, while the "Disk -> Surface test -> Read test" may show errors-

I hope you could come up with something to implement this feature. It might look really helpful for most users.

hdsentinel wrote:The "Extended Self Test" is a hardware self test, runs "inside" the hard disk itself. It is not possible to get information about the surface map, the transfer speed of the actual blocks or even the current sector number being tested during the test. We can only have a limited kind of progress information (only in 10% increments) and the actual results of the test: test OK or fail and the reason (which element of the drive fails).

The Disk -> Surface test -> Read test constantly reads from the drive, so it uses data transfers which may be affected by the disk controller and communication channel. By using this test and then the "Extended self test" you can spot on data transfer errors which can cause data corruption while the hard disk is really error-free: if this happens, the Extended Self Test runs without errors, while the "Disk -> Surface test -> Read test" may show errors-

Perfect, thanks for explanation. I will switch to "Read test" as primary regular test