Singapore, New health check helps identify disk problems ahead of time to protect your PCs and servers from failure

Acronis, a provider of easy-to-use backup, disaster recovery and security solutions for physical, virtual and cloud environments, today announced the release of a new free disk monitoring tool for businesses and consumers alike, Acronis® Drive Monitor™.

Acronis Drive Monitor is a free, downloadable software application that monitors the health of server, PC and laptop hard disk drives. It helps to alert users to problems that may indicate an imminent failure and in doing so gives users time to react by saving the data contained on their hard drive and allowing them to arrange for replacements.

Data is important whether its at your home or office, said Jason Donahue, CEO of Acronis. Unfortunately hard drives fail every day which is why Acronis has developed Acronis Drive Monitor as a free tool for the community at large. It can help predict when a hard drive is about to fail, giving you the chance to back up your data before disaster strikes. No one should be without it which is why we are offering it as a free tool.

When Acronis Drive Monitor identifies a problem, it generates an email or onscreen alert describing the specific finding. It offers a simple and easy to understand explanation of the alert guiding the user to the steps they need to take to remedy the issue. A color coded summary provides an overview of the disks health at a glance and weekly reports summarize the findings.

It works! It told me my 320GB hard drive was about to fail. I started backups immediately, said Allan E. Levy, a beta tester from North Potomac, Maryland. The next day, my drive began to fail and the partition with the OS was destroyed. But thanks to Acronis Drive Monitor, I had a fresh backup before my hard drive crashed.

Acronis Drive Monitor observes operating system health, checks the last backup date, and evaluates disk performance data generated by most disk drives via a disk-resident monitoring function called S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology). Acronis also supports other storage devices such as non-S.M.A.R.T. compatible RAID systems via scripts. Further, Acronis Drive Monitor also monitors messages in the Windows event log that indicate that data may be in danger.

Acronis Drive Monitor is integrated with the current versions of Acronis home and business backup and recovery products. Users of Acronis® Backup & Recovery™ 10 business software, Acronis® True Image Home 2010 and Acronis® Backup and Security 2010 home PC software can take advantage of Acronis Drive Monitors ability to trigger an immediate, automated backup of any disk that shows signs of imminent failure. It also notifies users if a backup has not been performed.

Acronis Drive Monitor works on most Windows PCs, workstations or servers to check for disk-related OS events, file system errors, and negative changes in S.M.A.R.T.-monitored disk functions like throughput, spin-up time and seek error rates.

We built this free tool with the help of the IT community and well support it exclusively through our online Support Forums and Knowledge Base. Plus, we will use feedback from users to develop new features and capabilities as this tool becomes an integral part of their system maintenance, said Donahue.

Notes to Editor

About Acronis

Acronis is a provider of easy-to-use backup, disaster recovery and security solutions for physical, virtual and cloud environments. Its patented disk imaging and management technology enables corporations and individuals to protect digital assets in physical and virtual environments. Acronis backup, recovery, server consolidation and virtualization migration software helps users protect their digital information, maintain business continuity and reduce downtime. Acronis software is sold in more than 180 countries and available in 13 languages. . Follow Acronis on Acronis Backup and Recovery™, and the Acronis logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of Acronis Inc. in the United States and/or other countries.

Acronis has recently released a new FREE disk monitoring tool for businesses and consumers alike, Acronis® Drive Monitor™. It red-flags problems that may indicate an imminent failure and gives support personnel time to react BEFORE disaster strikes. Armed with this information, IT personnel can ensure proper backups are done, arrange for replacement drive, and rapidly address the situation.

 business users the inside intelligence about the health of the hard disks for which they are responsible. When Acronis Drive Monitor identifies a problem, it generates an email or onscreen alert describing the specific finding. It offers a simple and easy to understand explanation of the alert guiding the user to the steps they need to take to remedy the issue.