Active@ Hard Disk Monitor vs DiskMaster
Active@ Hard Disk Monitor
disk-monitor.comDiskMaster
github.comSide by side
| Figure | Active@ Hard Disk Monitor | DiskMaster |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | — | Yes |
| Linux | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 4 | 1 |
| Spec score · Disk Health Monitoring Software | 9.1 (#1) | 8.0 (#8) |
| Spec score · Disk Diagnostic Software | 9.1 (#1) | 8.0 (#8) |
| Integrations | The documented external connections are SMTP email notifications and network-host monitoring; no third-party integration catalog is listed. | Alerts can be sent through Slack, Discord, ntfy, email, desktop notifications, or a user-specified command; webhooks can also target JSON endpoints. |
| Purpose | Monitors hard disk health using S.M.A.R.T. and scans disk surfaces for bad sectors. | DiskMaster monitors drive health on Windows, Linux and macOS. |
| SMART monitoring | It reads S.M.A.R.T. attributes such as temperature, head-flying height and spin-up time. | It reads SMART attributes, self-tests and drive self-test logs, using native ATA pass-through for SATA and USB drives. |
Plans
Active@ Hard Disk Monitor
- FreewareFree
- Professional - General license$49.95, paid once
- Professional - Enterprise license$899, paid once
- ProfessionalPrice not published
In their own words
Active@ Hard Disk Monitor
Active@ Hard Disk Monitor checks disk health on Windows with S.M.A.R.T. monitoring and surface scans for bad sectors. It can monitor disk performance and state in the background, including when launched at Windows startup. Temperature tools record history, draw graphs, and show the current disk temperature in the system tray. When critical conditions appear, the software can send email or popup notifications. It also creates event logs and S.M.A.R.T. reports containing disk activity information over time. The Pro version adds remote monitoring: it can display disk information and receive notifications from remote computers on a local or global network. Pro also provides temperature graphs across a day, week, month, or specified period. The Freeware plan costs nothing and is for personal use only. Professional is intended for business purposes and can monitor up to 3 PCs remotely; its general license covers personal and commercial use, while its enterprise license is for company offices and branches worldwide. The site lists version 26.0.1, dated February 1, 2026, as a maintenance release.
DiskMaster
DiskMaster is a free desktop application for monitoring drive health on Windows, Linux, and macOS. It reads SMART attributes, self-tests, and test logs, then calculates a health score out of 100 and shows which attributes account for deductions; performance has a separate score. It stores readings in SQLite and charts changes, with alerts for shifts such as increasing drive counters. A read-only surface scan times blocks, rereads unreadable sectors for confirmation, and maps them to sectors. DiskMaster can identify files associated with those sectors and try to rescue copies while skipping unreadable bytes. Optional repair tools include sector and filesystem repair, zero-fill, and sanitizing bad sectors the filesystem marks as free. Alerts can go to Slack, Discord, ntfy, email, desktop notifications, commands, or JSON webhooks. Its CLI exports text, HTML, JSON, and CSV reports. SATA and USB monitoring needs no third-party tools; NVMe health logs and macOS use optional smartmontools. Raw SMART access requires administrator or sudo privileges.