Over the course of doing IT work for almost two decades it’s remarkable how many computers I have found that were slow and on the brink of complete failure, with the customer patiently waiting for the computer and commenting that they sometimes go get coffee while it completes booting. My last incident was a business client who never had any complaints or issues on their home computer. When it came time to replace some other equipment at the home, I was asked to look at a minor problem on the computer. Unexpected errors abounded when trying to make configuration changes. Upon my testing the hard drive, I found it upon almost complete failure. This hard drive contained gigabytes of family photos and important content. They were willing to put up with the slowness because they weren’t in any rush. They didn’t realize how close the computer was to never booting again. And there’s no software built into the computer that reliably reports this to the user.
It’s after this incident that I decided to write SmokeAlarm-HD. It’s not a program for “nerds” that want lots of color, controls and data to play with. It’s a program meant to function as a warning light on a car, or a smokealarm in the home. SmokeAlarm-HD provides a warning when it’s time to address a problem with your storage drives.