Diskovery (beta): a data storage inspection tool

[ironbeagle]

hey everyone, I'm Alex from Pipemetrics, a little startup making quality Windows apps in Switzerland.

 

I wanted to show off our new project called Diskovery, its a data storage inspection tool, meaning it scans your computer for an attached storage devices (HDD, SSD, USB drives, etc), analyzes them and then gives you a clean and easy to understand report. Its still in beta at the moment so we'd like for people to test it out and give us feedback about their experience it so we can continue to polish it, both from the UI standpoint and the code in the background. 

 

Here's the link to read up on all the technical details and download the app: https://pipemetrics.com/diskovery/beta

 

It started when our developer was building a module for our flagship app, Bvckup 2, that can read the S.M.A.R.T. stats on all modern drives. As he continued to tinker with it, it began to grow into something much more useful than his first idea, so we decided to dedicate more time to it and turn it into its own separate program. Its not 100% finished (that's why we are looking for testers) but we aren't looking to turn it into a paid product, even when we take it out of beta. Its free now and it will remain that way. Its really small (225kb), doesn't need to be installed to use and as of right now,  it is the only app of its kind that actually bothers to show which physical drives are attached to which RAID volumes.

 

So I think that's it, check it out and let us know what you think, either through here or through the log reporting feature in the app itself. Thanks!

 

Also here's a preview of the UI, in case you wanted to see what a typical report might look like when using the app:

[Djole123]

Hi, 

I'm interested in this app. I'm just curious, what does it analyse? Available space, SMART status, health or anything else?

[ironbeagle]

33 minutes ago, Djole123 said:

Hi, 

I'm interested in this app. I'm just curious, what does it analyse? Available space, SMART status, health or anything else?

hey Djole123,

 

It does all of that and lots more! here's the full list of all the information collected, which can also be found at our site:

 

Physical drives

• Capacity
• Vendor, model and real serial number
• World-wide number (WWN)
• Supported features - NCQ, AAM, FFP, etc.
• Rotational speed (RPM)
• Command set version (ATA/ACS)
• Signaling speed - 12.0 Gbps, 6.0Gbps, etc.
• Power-on count and hours
• Current temperature - in °C, °F, °R, etc.
• Overall health status
• S.M.A.R.T. and OEM health data
• USB type of the drive enclosure (2.0, 3.0, etc.)
• Effective USB type of the drive-host connection

In the works*

• Support for NVMe drives

Disk partitions

• Partitioning type - MBR, GPT, etc.
• Partition table - including gaps and an empty space
• Partition chunking - as used by dynamic volumes

Logical volumes

• Volume type - simple, dynamic
• Capacity and usage
• Physical extents - partitions used
• Volume label (serial)
• Access mode - read-only, read-write
• Mount points - drive letters and folders
• File system type - NTFS, FAT, etc.
• Exact NTFS revision used
• Volume-wide compression status
• Supported features - encryption, hard links, etc.

Hardware RAID

• Type - RAID 0/1/etc.
• Internal serial number
• Status - healthy, failing, rebuilding, etc.
• Composition, including details of individual drives
• Controllers supported
• CSMI-enabled controllers, including...
• Intel ICH series (the on-board SATA RAIDs)
• HP SmartArray series

In the works*

• MegaRAIDs
• Dell PERCs
• Fujitsu/Siemens

Dynamic volumes (Software RAID)

• Exact type - spanned, striped, mirrored, etc.
• Volume status - online, offline, failed
• Volume health - failing, rebuilding, etc.
• Transition state - extending, restriping, etc.
• Exact composition - in physical partitions chunks

[Djole123]

2 hours ago, ironbeagle said:

-snip-

Oh wow. Will check it out as soon as I can. Looks promising to me!

 

Edit: Checked the app. It's really good. It printed everything I need to know about my drive. Although I have some problems with partitions (I have 6 of them, not 10), other than that, it's pretty good. Nice job!