GSmartControl vs ValiDrive
GSmartControl
gsmartcontrol.shaduri.devValiDrive
grc.comSide by side
| Figure | GSmartControl | ValiDrive |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | — |
| Linux | Yes | — |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · Disk Diagnostic Software | 8.4 (#3) | 7.0 (#21) |
| Purpose | GSmartControl is a graphical interface for smartctl that lets users inspect SMART data and run drive tests. | ValiDrive quickly spot-checks USB mass storage drives for deliberately missing storage. |
| Support | Users are directed to report bugs through the GitHub issue tracker after consulting the troubleshooting page. | GRC directs users to its active web forums and says it provides sales and technical support by email rather than telephone. |
| Testing limit | Immediate Offline Tests are unsupported because they are described as mostly obsolete. | The maker describes ValiDrive as a quick, cursory spot-check rather than a comprehensive deep test of storage media. |
Plans
In their own words
GSmartControl
GSmartControl is a graphical interface for smartctl, used to inspect drive SMART data and run tests. It displays drive identity, capabilities, attributes and device statistics, and automatically highlights anomalies. Users can enable or disable SMART and adjust global or per-drive smartctl options. Saved smartctl output can be opened as a read-only virtual device. The software supports ATA drives, including SATA and PATA, and NVMe drives, plus some devices behind USB bridges and selected RAID controllers. SCSI and SAS drives are not supported, though some information about them may appear. GSmartControl is free software under the GNU General Public License version 3. Downloads include Linux packages, Windows installers and portable archives, FreeBSD ports, macOS packages and source code. smartmontools is a runtime requirement, but official Windows packages include the required software. Useful operations require root or Administrator privileges because operating systems restrict direct hardware access. Supported systems listed include Linux, Windows, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, DragonFlyBSD, macOS and Solaris; QNX support is described as untested.
ValiDrive
ValiDrive is a free Windows utility for quickly spot-checking USB mass storage drives for deliberately missing storage. It tests 576 evenly spaced locations with random data, checking whether each location can store and retrieve information. Before testing a region, it reads the original contents and rewrites them afterward, restoring what was there. The utility detects internal RAM caching and adjusts transfer size when needed to bypass it. A drive map labels each tested location as validated, read error, write error, or no storage. The final report summarizes read and write access times with minimum, maximum, average, median, and variance values. The maker describes this as a quick, cursory check rather than a comprehensive deep test of storage media. While running, it briefly checks for updates through an anonymous DNS query but does not update itself automatically. Listed releases are v1.0.0 from October 6, 2023 and v1.0.1 from October 8, 2023.