HDD Guardian 0.7.0 adds new hard drive failure warnings

Open source hard drive monitor and smartctl front-end HDD Guardian has been updated to version 0.7.0 with some welcome new features.

The program detects even more drives, but if they’re still not found it’s now possible to add them manually. If a drive is failing, or its temperature is too high, you can have the program play a sound or power off the PC (other options include displaying a popup message and sending an email).

The drives event log -- temperatures, SMART issues and more -- may be exported as a CSV file in a click or two. A smarter "custom temperature" option sees the program get any temperature threshold directly from your drive. HDD Guardian’s settings are saved inside its folder for improved portability.

Feature elsewhere are largely unchanged -- you can view system information on your drives, their SMART health status, run self-tests, tweak APM/ AAM/ standby times, write caching and more -- although some of the panels have been rearranged to improve their layout. If you need a drive monitor, give it a try.

HDD Guardian is a free open source application for Windows Vista and later.