Hard disk drive (HDD) and solid state drive (SSD) software: testing, partitioning, formatting, cleaning

Good day!

For some reason, many users believe that the heart of a computer is a processor (for some game lovers, a video card 👌). But purely in my opinion - the most important piece of hardware in a computer / laptop is a disk (HDD / SSD).

Whatever hardware breakdown is (if it is not connected to the disk) - by replacing and repairing it, you will restore your work and continue it, as if nothing had happened. But if the hard disk "flies", then it is not always possible to restore data simply...

Okay lyrics, on this page I want to collect the most necessary and useful programs for working with a hard drive. I cite only the most popular and relevant programs that I have used myself more than once or twice.

I recommend that you pay special attention to the programs for testing and diagnosing the state of the disk - forewarned is forearmed! Moreover, if your HDD / SSD began to behave unstable: slow down, freeze, etc.

So...

Testing and diagnostics

HDDlife / SSDLife

Official website: //hddlife.ru/index.html

I really like this utility for its clarity and focus on novice users. All you need to do is install the program, after a while you will find out:

the state of the "health" of your disk in percentage terms;
status about its performance;
temperature;
how much actual time he worked (not to be confused with age and date of manufacture).

Samsung hard drive health: 100% health

The utility works in constant mode (minimized in the tray, next to the clock), and when alarms appear, it will notify you in time. What else do inexperienced users need to diagnose ?!

Approx. : not only work on a PC is supported, but also on laptops, netbooks, etc. SSD drives are also supported.

Victoria

Official site: //hdd.by/victoria/

👉 Instructions: how to check your drives in 10-15 minutes!

One of the most renowned utilities for testing and diagnosing disks. The program allows testing: HDD, FDD, CD / DVD, USB / Flash / SCSI.

Main functions:

viewing full information about the drive;
support for IDE / SATA controllers;
tests to check the "mechanics" of the disc;
SMART monitor;
low-level formatting and more.

Testing quick (Quick) - Victoria 5

In general, I must admit that the program is not very friendly and easy for novice users. You need to use it with caution - here, as never before, it is correct: "if you don't know - don't press!"

MHDD

Developer site: //mhddsoftware.com/

Link to the software portal: //www.softportal.com/

A very popular free program for diagnosing hard drives. Allows you to make a fairly accurate diagnosis of the fur. parts of drives, view SMART attributes, retrieve defective sectors (note: bad blocks), it contains various tests, and other useful functions.

MHDD - main window

HDAT2

Official website: //www.hdat2.com/

An excellent program for testing disks. Its main advantage over MHDD and Victoria (discussed above) is support for all drives with a wide variety of interfaces: ATA / ATAPI / SATA, SSD, SCSI and USB.

By the way, the program does not work under Windows, to run it you need to write a bootable media (USB flash drive or CD / DVD disk), and after booting from it, run the utility.

Screenshot of hdat2 window

HDDScan

Official website: //rlab.ru/tools/hddscan.html

A very high-quality utility for checking HDD and SSD for bad sectors, viewing S.M.A.R.T., for setting up special. parameters (power management, acoustic mode adjustment, etc.).

The temperature of the hard disk can be displayed on the taskbar (to keep track of how things are going 👌).

HDDScan - window screenshot

Supported drives:

HDD with ATA / SATA, SCSI, USB, FireWire or IEEE 1394 interface;
SSD with ATA / SATA interface;
RAID arrays with ATA / SATA / SCSI interface;
Flash drives with USB interface.

CrystalDiskInfo

Website: //crystalmark.info/

Decent program for monitoring the health of hard drives that support S.M.A.R.T.

The program displays detailed information about your disks: interface, total operating time, firmware, serial number, standard, allows you to manage AAM / APM settings, (useful when your drive is noisy), displays S.M.A.R.T. parameters. (read errors, track search time, number of on-off cycles, performance, spindle starts / stops, sector errors, etc.).

Disk readings from CrystalDiskInfo

Cleaning the disk from debris

Advanced SystemCare

Official website: //ru.iobit.com/advancedsystemcarefree.php

One of the best programs for cleaning your computer from junk, fixing errors, editing the registry, removing invalid shortcuts, etc. Allows you to tidy up your Windows in a few minutes and make it work much faster.

Using the program is very simple: just install and run. In my example below, I did just that - it turned out that there are enough problems (although I regularly use wizards to clean up Windows ...).

Issues found after scanning in System Care (10.6 GB of Trash!)

Also note that after installing Advanced SystemCare - a special manager appears in the upper right corner of the screen: it shows the current CPU and RAM load (in percent).

Thanks to this manager, you can take screenshots, watch the load of the disk, memory, processor, perform a quick cleaning, diagnostics. In general, it replaces the task manager ...

Loading bar

Performance Monitor

Wise care

Website: //www.wisecleaner.com

Wise Care - check!

This program allows you to deeply clean your Windows system and hard drive from a variety of junk. As much garbage as Wise Care finds - no other utility will find it!

In addition to its main purpose, the program has a built-in optimizer and defragmenter. These features are very good for the responsiveness and performance of Windows (if you use them after cleaning the disk).

Wise Care has a convenient and pleasant interface: all the main tabs are located on top, clicking on one of them - you can quickly complete the current task. In general, some positive emotions from such software 👌!

Registry Optimization (Compression + Defragmentation) - Wise Care

CCleaner

Official website: //www.piriform.com/

Free utility for comprehensive cleaning of your Windows. Cleans various garbage: temporary unnecessary files, "leftovers" from remote programs, browsing history in browsers (all popular ones are supported: Firefox, Opera, Chrome, etc.).

There is a portable version: which does not need to be installed. The program works in all popular versions of Windows: XP, 7, 8, 10.

CCleaner - cleaning disk, registry

Formatting, Breaking: Working with Sections

AOMEI Partition Assistant

Official website: //www.disk-partition.com/

A very convenient and multifunctional program for working with hard drives.

Its capabilities are more than enough for an ordinary user, here you are: resizing a partition (without formatting), moving a disk partition, connecting (merging) partitions (without losing information), deleting a partition, formatting, a backup wizard, a migration wizard from HDD to SSD , and much more.

What is especially noteworthy: all operations with disks are performed using a step-by-step wizard, which at each stage will tell you what is used and for what.

Also, most disk operations occur without data loss (unless the program has warned otherwise).

Aomei Partition Assistant - what can be done with a HDD partition

Acronis Disk Director

Website: //www.acronis.com/

A very powerful and reliable tool for managing disks and volumes on your computer.

Main functions: split and merge disk volumes, formatting disks (all popular file systems are supported: FAT16, FAT32, NTFS, Exts, Ext3, Reiser3, Linux or SWAP), recovering accidentally deleted volumes, the ability to download the program offline (without using Windows - for this you need to prepare a bootable USB flash drive in advance), etc.

Acronis Disk Director - window screenshot

MiniTool Partition Wizard

Website: //www.partitionwizard.com/

A very convenient harvester for working with a hard disk: it allows you to perform the entire list of operations that an ordinary PC user may need.

Main functions:

Windows migration wizard to another disk / partition (convenient, for example, when transferring Windows from HDD to SSD);
partition copy wizard;
recovery wizard;
merging, formatting, splitting, deleting sections;
Russian language support;
works in all popular Windows: 7, 8, 10.

MiniTool Partition Wizard - window screenshot (program features)

EASEUS Partition Master Free

Website: //www.easeus.com/

The best free solution for Windows 10 / 8.1 / 8/7 / Vista / XP, which will help you create, delete, resize, transfer, expand, split, format, clone partitions of any disks: HDD, SSD, USB-media (flash drives, disks etc.), memory cards, and other media.

The program allows you to change the file system (from FAT32 to NTFS) without losing data, change the partitioning of the MBR disk to GPT, or the reverse operation - GPT disk partitioning to MBR (also without data loss).

In general, a convenient and irreplaceable manager for working with disks (certainly more convenient than the wizard built into Windows ...).

EASEUS Partition Master // window screenshot

Defragmentation (for HDD)

If, when opening any files from a disk, your PC began to think, it does it slowly and not immediately, then in the most innocuous case, the reason is fragmentation .

To fix this disgrace, you need to carry out the reverse operation - defragmentation (such is the tautology ✌).

Defragmentation - the process of optimizing the storage of information on disk to ensure a continuous sequence of clusters.

What defragmentation gives - a visual representation

In general, if you deviate from the incomprehensible terms, then after defragmentation your disk starts to work faster: reading and writing files is accelerated. Thanks to this, your programs become more responsive, it becomes more pleasant to work on such a PC!

By the way, Windows also has its own defragmentation wizard, but in my opinion, it does not work perfectly ... Therefore, I will give a couple of necessary utilities.

Auslogics Disk Defrag

Website: //www.auslogics.com/

Despite its compact size, this utility will give odds to many competitors! The program works very quickly, optimizes the file system, thereby accelerating your work. Needless to say, the program is used by over 11 million users around the world!

Main functions:

defragments files and unused space on the HDD;
special attention during defragmentation is paid to system files (which affects performance);
you can defragment specific files (there are not many programs with this chip);
the ability to work in the background (i.e., unnoticed by you);
free for home use!

Disk analysis in Auslogics Disk Defrag

MyDefrag

Website: //www.mydefrag.net/

A free and small utility for defragmenting HDD, USB disks, memory cards, floppy disks. By the way, the launch time setting is very convenient in the program - you can set up the work schedule so that the disk is analyzed and defragmented when you are not working at the PC.

Main functions of MyDefrag:

there is a version that works from the command line (does not need to be installed);
2 algorithms for defragmentation;
there is a scheduler (schedule) of tasks;
the standard version of the program is automated and will not take a minute of your time to set it up.

MyDefrag - main window

Defraggler

Website: //www.piriform.com/defraggler

Free defragmenter from the manufacturer of the CCleaner utility (Piriform Ltd). The program allows you to work both with an entire section of the disk and with individual files and folders.

After analyzing the desired hard disk partition: the program will display a list of fragmented files. You can select the ones you want and Defraggler will quickly optimize their placement.

As a result, you do not waste time defragmenting the entire disk (in general, in some cases it is very convenient!).