I'm looking for recommendations on the best 100% free software to test the integrity and health of my 2.5" HDD. Are there particular tools that stand out, or are they all pretty much the same?
1 Answer
You might want to start by checking out the SMART values of your drive. If you see any non-zero values in the Reallocated Sectors attribute, that’s a red flag that the drive might be failing. There’s a well-known Google research paper that highlights which SMART attributes are strongly linked to potential drive failures. Once you confirm those values are in the clear, you can scan your drive using tools like Linux badblocks, or check the recommendations from the wiki linked below.
Are the SMART values shown by different free software consistent? And how often should I run a full surface scan?