SMART Utility vs smartmontools
SMART Utility
volitans-software.comsmartmontools
smartmontools.orgSide by side
| Figure | SMART Utility | smartmontools |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | — | Free |
| Free plan | — | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 5 | 1 |
| Spec score · Disk Health Monitoring Software | 7.4 (#23) | 8.0 (#10) |
| Notifications | It supports Growl notifications when installed and email notifications when configured. | smartd supports email warning addresses and executable warning commands. |
| Purpose | SMART Utility reads and displays hard drive SMART attributes and can run a drive’s built-in self-test. | Smartmontools provides utilities to control and monitor storage systems using S.M.A.R.T. |
Plans
SMART Utility
- Personal license$25, paid once
- Family license$40, paid once
- Educational site license$65, paid once
- Business license$100, paid once
- Consultant license$350, paid once
In their own words
SMART Utility
SMART Utility has no write-up on Specifiction yet; its figures are above.
smartmontools
smartmontools is a free package containing smartctl and smartd for controlling and monitoring storage devices through SMART. It supports ATA/SATA, SCSI/SAS, and NVMe disks, as well as SCSI/SAS tape devices. smartctl can report SMART health status, show capabilities such as error logging and offline surface scanning, display vendor-specific attributes, start device self-tests, and read their logs. A failing health status can mean a device has failed or predicts failure within 24 hours. smartd periodically monitors SMART status, error and self-test logs, and attribute changes; it can schedule tests and report errors and attribute changes to syslog. It also supports warning emails and executable commands. The project says it should run on modern Linux, BSD variants, macOS, Solaris, Windows, Cygwin, OS/2, eComStation, and QNX systems, and can run from various Live CDs and DVDs. The package uses the GNU GPL Version 2 license and was originally derived from the Linux smartsuite package. Its capabilities focus on SMART health reporting, testing, and ongoing monitoring.