Here are the 6 best tools for testing your storage drives

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It's never fun when a problem occurs with your hard drive or SSD, especially when there is important data on the hard drive. However, before you get down to cloning and replacing the drive, you'll be happy to know that there are some tools you can use to scan and test your storage drive to identify errors and find out how much life your drive has left can left.



6 Crystal Disc Information

For a general SMART scan

Running a CrystalDiskMark test on the TerraMaster F8 SSD Plus NAS

CrystalDiskInfo is another free tool that performs a basic SMART check and reports on the health of your storage device. CrystalDiskInfo has an easy-to-use interface with lots of useful information to help you diagnose problems with your drive.

While not as robust as other options in this collection, CrystalDiskInfo gives you an overall assessment of your drive's health, as well as other information like the drive's current temperature, how many hours the drive has been on, how many reads and writes, what's more The drive has performed over its lifespan and how much life the drive has left.


5 HDD Scan

Any brand, any interface

The main menu of the HDDScan tool

HDDScan is a storage drive testing tool that works on both hard drives and SSDs, regardless of the brand you own. The software has a much better looking interface than most tools on this list and offers both a SMART test and a surface test.

HDDScan is a portable tool, so you don't need to install it on your PC. However, the tool only works on Windows devices, so you cannot use it if you use Linux or Mac. The tool supports all drive interfaces, so you don't have to worry about using different tools for different drives.

4 GSmartControl

For detailed reports

The GSmartControl tool with pages of error logs


GSmartControl is a tool that can scan your drive and provide an overall assessment of its health. This tool is particularly good for error logging and provides users with massive amounts of information about their drives. Just make sure you note the correct error logs yourself instead of exporting the report, as the report contains a lot of information that you most likely don't need.

The tool has three different types of tests it can run on your drive: a short self-test that can quickly determine if your drive is physically damaged, and an extended test that runs for an hour and determines if There are other errors in the drive and a transport self-test that lasts 5 minutes and checks that the drive was not damaged during transport.

3 Western Digital Dashboard

For WD storage drives

The main screen of the Western Digital Dashboard storage utility


Western Digital also has its own proprietary storage drive testing tool. It allows you to check the status of your drive and monitor its performance in real time. It can perform both basic and advanced tests and even allows you to update your drive's firmware from the tool itself.

The Western Digital Dashboard can be used on any WD brand HDD or SSD, but unfortunately does not work for other brands of drives. The software is available for Windows and Linux, but is not compatible with macOS.

2 Samsung magician

For Samsung storage drives

The main screen of the Samsung Magician Storage utility

Samsung Magician is a diagnostic tool specifically designed for Samsung storage drives. The utility provides the normal SMART tests for the storage drive and gives you general statistics and performance metrics in an easy-to-read chart.


However, Samsung Magician has some additional features such as: B. the ability to defragment or even delete all data from your drive. Additionally, the Samsung Magician tool runs a benchmark on your drive when it starts up, which you can use over time to compare speed and drive health.

Not just for Seagate drives

The main menu of the Seagate SeaTools utility

Seagate SeaTools is an excellent storage drive tool used by both professionals and regular users. The software has a variety of tools to test your drives and makes it easy to use for almost anyone.


Seagate offers three types of tools for users who have storage drive problems. First we have SeaTools bootable, which is installed on a USB stick and can run independently of your drive. There are also SeaTools for DOSa similar version, but you install it on a CD instead. Then we have SeaTools for Windows, which is installed on your Windows operating system and can perform both basic and advanced tests.

SeaTools may look a little outdated, but it gives you everything you need and more, completely free. Seagate tools work particularly well for Seagate drives, but can work with any brand, which, as we've seen, isn't always the case with such branded tools.

To each his own

There are so many different tools for testing storage drives, and they all have their own pros and cons. All the tools mentioned above have different use cases and using them on top of each other will not give you better or worse results. If your drive is ultimately damaged or in poor condition, it doesn't matter how many tools you use. It still needs to be replaced at some point.


So if you're having trouble deciding which tool is best for you, consider what kind of tests you want to run on your drive, whether or not the interface is important to you, whether you have it installed on your operating system or not on a USB stick or if you are looking for something specific to your drive brand. The important thing is that you actually monitor the health of your drive so that you don't lose all your important data without warning, because there's no easy way to fix this after the fact.

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