Active@ Hard Disk Monitor vs Scrutiny

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.

Scrutiny is a free, self-hosted dashboard for monitoring hard drive health through S.M.A.R.T. metrics. It records metric history and temperature, and allows customized thresholds based on real-world failure rates. Its collector uses smartctl to discover connected drives, and the project integrates with smartd. Failure notifications can be sent through email, webhooks, Discord, Gotify, Mattermost, ntfy, Slack, Teams, Telegram, and other listed services. Deployment choices include an all-in-one Docker image, separate hub-and-spoke Docker components, and manual installation; the hub-and-spoke setup stores S.M.A.R.T. data in InfluxDB 2.8. The repository lists Linux, macOS, and Windows binaries, while Windows Docker support remains in progress. For Docker, users must pass drive devices through and grant SYS_RAWIO; NVMe drives may also require SYS_ADMIN. Some RAID controllers do not pass underlying SMART data to smartctl. Manual installation instructions describe running the collector as an unprivileged user with restricted systemd permissions and network access. The project describes itself as a work in progress with rough edges and lists the MIT license.