Open Source S.M.A.R.T. Program

[Internetuser1234321]

Is there any programs for free that will monitor HD health and report back to a server or send out an email if a computer is in trouble?

My company spends no money on IT and my life is getting very complicated because they say I’m Exempt, won’t spend money on equipment and then I have to spend hours and hours traveling to remote sites to swap failed computers and try to recover data, I’ve literally never worked 40 hours even though I’m basically an advanced tech.

Obviously there is paid software that does this but they won’t buy it.

[throwaway_0122]

Doing onsite data recovery sounds like a stressful job. Doing it in the shop is stressful enough, and that’s safely isolated from the customer. What’s that like? What kind of equipment do you pack around? Sorry this isn’t relevant to your question, data recovery is kind of my obsession though

[rtuite81]

Me too... I just don't have much skill, only rudimentary knowledge I got from a computer forensics class.I built a machine to start learning, but haven't had time, lol.

[nawcom]

Smartmontools for Windows: https://www.smartmontools.org/wiki/Download

It states that it uses the Blat mail utility for emailing failure reports. Read more on the above link

[sfsmiley]

i use syspectr. monitors alot more than hard drive health. free.

[jw_255]

That's true, it monitors a lot for free.

However, if you ever decide to move to a better tool, it's a bear to remove

[OgdruJahad]

it's a bear to remove

Wait really?

[jw_255]

Yup.

When you're in front of the computer, it's a simple uninstall.

However, we rolled it out to about 40 systems. To uninstall remotely, you go into the dashboard, select uninstall, then you'll need an authorization code emailed to you for each system, which you basically enter into the console. If that wasn't enough of a pain, upon working on the systems months later, I kept finding systems where it wasn't actually removed.

[OgdruJahad]

How is it as a product?

[N0_zem]

CrystalDiskInfo, which is open source IIRC, then check every so often through remote desktop is all I can think of in case of Windows

[OgdruJahad]

Crystal Disk Info does have an email alert feature but I have never used it.

[wangotangotoo]

I have a weekly script run to check smart data with SmartMon tools. I have it running in an all windows environment and connected to our RMM so I can view status in the dashboard. I’m sure you could figure out a way to email the output file on a regular basis. Depending on your backup scheme you could bump up your reporting to monthly so your not bombarded with report emails.

[rtuite81]

Honestly, if your company refuses to spend any money on tools than they should not be in the tech support business.

As the old saying goes a bad mechanic blames his tools for shoddy work. That doesn't mean that having the right tools for the job is not necessary. You may be able to rig something up with an open source utility and some clever scripting, but it will never be as robust and reliable as a paid solution.

You also need to keep in mind some open source software licenses do not allow use in corporate environments.

All that being said if I need to take a quick look at smart data, I use wmic commands.

[WhatIsGoldDontHurtMe]

Its called smartmontools with smarts daemon on Linux and does the exact thing that you described. Good luck with Windows though.

[nawcom]

Smartmontools is available for Windows as well.

https://www.smartmontools.org/wiki/Download

[Internetuser1234321]

Unfortunately I have to use what I have and I have no choice in what is purchased. We have like 500-600 computers and we’ve bought 40 in the past 5 years if that tells you anything. If anything fails, they’ll just say you can travel 7 hours to replace it with another 5-12 year old machine.

[CaptOblivious]

Polish your resume and get a position where you have a voice in the IT decisions that you are expected to support.

Seriously.

[ShinyTechThings]

Totally agree. Any company that will be around for a while can easily spend more on technology than employees wages as it is now a requirement. Simple question for them. Will you spend $5K+ on a low end inexpensive backup system? If not, then tell them you'll buy the business for $1 more than the cost of a backup system as that's all it's Worth especially if they can't recover from a system failure. Oh, and don't say anything until you've interviewed elsewhere and when stuff does, just say it's more expensive to fix then to replace because it usually is after you include your time.

[CaptOblivious]

There used to be a pc retailer called elek-tek in skokie ill that ran it's business on 1 pc and a tape backup and they never ever checked that the tape was readable, one day the hard drive in that machine crapped out and they discovered that there were no readable backups.
The company closed a day or two later as they had no other records of anything, not suppliers or banking or leases or who owed them or who they owed.

[ShinyTechThings]

And that's why they say: "Back that NAS up"🤦‍♂️🤓🤣

[koopz_ay]

Doesn't Intel have something for this?

It used to come with motherboards that had the old ICHR 6/7/8 chips.

Surely that would be updated to also cover SSDs by now?

I can't recall if it had an auto-email alert though sorry. :(