System - Storage (46)

BOOTICE is a boot-related maintenance gadget that is used to install, repair, backup and restore disk (mirrored) MBR or partition PBR; edit Windows boot configuration file BCD; manage UEFI startup items; VHD / VHDX file management. In addition, it has disk sector editing, disk filling, partition management, disk partitioning and formatting, GRUB4DOS menu editing and other functions.

NOTE: Homepage is down, linking to Softpedia.

DPC Latency Checker analyzes the capabilities of a computer system to handle real-time data streams properly. It may help to find the cause for interruptions in real-time audio and video streams, also known as drop-outs.

DiskInternals Linux Reader provides several disk management tools in an easy-to-use interface. Most notably it includes a tool for reading disks formatted to to a variety of file systems for Mac and Linux, as well as virtual disks from VMware, VirtualBox, VirtualPC and Parallels (VMDK, VHD, VDI, HDS). The program can also create disk images. The interface includes a disk usage window, basic file search, and a preview option for pictures and text.

Can create disk images (.img and .dsk), including boot sector. Filesystems supported include: Ext2/3/4; ReiserFS, Reiser4; HFS, HFS+ (Mac OS); FAT, exFAT; NTFS, ReFS (next-gen Windows filesystem); UFS2; and in preview-only mode: ZFS, XFS, Hikvision NAS and DVR.

A 64-bit version is available (within the folder).

CrystalDiskMark is benchmarks disk performance, measuring sequential and random 4KB/512KB reads/writes for any storage device. The target device does not need to be formatted.

A 64-bit version is available (within the folder).

Alternatively, CrystalDiskMark Portable is also available, which auto-switches between x86 and x64.

USB Disk Ejector allows you to quickly and easily remove USB devices. It is useful when dealing with devices that refuse to eject, multiple devices, or if you don't want to see the "Now safe to remove this device" dialog. The program includes a variety of available advanced features including hotkeys, has available post-eject actions and more.

Functional from the command-line.

DriveImage XML allows you to backup any logical drive or partition to an image file, even if the drive or partition is currently in use. You can browse an image file, view/extract files from it, or restore the image to the same or different drive. It also has a function to help you clone one hard disk to another.

FAT32 Format lets you get around the 32GB limit that Windows XP imposes when trying to format a FAT32 volume (though it can read FAT32 volumes larger than 32GB just fine). It is able to format a FAT32 volume up to the maximum limit of 2TB.

imageUSB writes exact bit-level image files to multiple flash drives. The program preserves all unused and slack space during the cloning process, including the Master Boot Record (MBR) and can perform flawless mass duplications of all UFD images, including bootable UFDs.

The program can also "zero" a USB drive, which is an efficient wipes to erase data with less harm to overall drive life. In addition, imageUSB has the ability to reformat even hard to format drives and reclaim any disk space that may be lost previously.

HDDScan is a feature-rich disk diagnostics tool with a variety of low-level tools. It supports IDE/SATA/SCSI hard disk drives, RAID arrays, SSD drives, external USB/Firewire hard disks, flash cards and can scan the surface, view SMART attributes, adjust AAM, APM (Power Management), monitor temperature etc.

Note the program shouldn’t be run from a read-only device/media.

DiskGenius is full-featured partition manager, which is designed to optimize disk usage for Windows users. It allows you to resize, extend, split, create, delete, format, hide, copy and erase partition to maximize disk space use.

DiskGenius is a complete disk & partition solution for Windows PCs that helps managing storage space for higher efficiency.

DriveLetterView allows you to view the list of all drive letter assignments in your system, including local drives, remote network drives, CD/DVD drives, and USB drives - even if they are not currently plugged in. It also allows you to easily change a drive letter of USB devices and remote network shares, as well as to delete a drive letter of USB device that is not plugged in.

TestDisk is a powerful drive and data recovery software that is designed to help recover lost partitions and/or make non-booting disks bootable again. This can be caused by faulty software, certain types of viruses, or of course human error (such as accidentally deleting your partition table).

The program is cross-platform with recovery tools for a long list file systems and includes the also-portable recovery software PhotoRec.

Note: Use with caution; it's recommended that you read the documentation and take your time. The software can easily made dramatic and difficult-to-reverse system modifications.

H2testw allows you to test storage devices for one of a variety of possible defects or errors. It is particularly useful for detecting mislabeled / fake flash memory devices, looking at the actual versus reported capacity.

Note that the author recommends backing up the content on the device before running H2testw.

vSubst helps assign virtual drive letters to any folder on your hard disk. It is a graphical interface for the SUBST command. The limitations are:

• SUBSTed-drives don't operate 100% in networks
• Some copy-protected CD-ROMs check for the physical presence of a disk
• Volume-Label is always identical to the host label

USB Flash Tools is a toolkit that provides several functions for flash memory, including SD or Compact Flash cards and USB thumb drives. The program helps verify reported capacity, backup and restore of a drive (with optional compression), and securely erase the contents. A variety of secure erase methods are available including free space or whole-drive wipe using either basic (zero out / pseudorandom) or high-security standards (like DoD).

Note: While more secure, more passes are progressively slower and can reduce the life of the flash memory drive.

NTFS Permissions Tools is an easy-to-use way to modify, backup, and restore the security settings of files and folders in the NTFS filesystem. The program is faster and more intuitive than the default Windows management interface.

NOTE: Main site offline, linking to softpedia and archive.org (thanks emoreau).

DiskSmartView is a small utility that retrieves useful insights on the health of your drives. The program uses standard diagnostic data from the "S.M.A.R.T," or Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology data drawn from IDE/SATA disks. This includes the model/firmware/serial number, cylinders/heads, power-on hours (POH), internal temperature, disk errors rate, and more.

This data can help you determine if there are any significant problems with your drive and whether it may be nearing end-of-life.

NoDrives Manager is a free, simple tool for hiding Windows logical
drives by modifying the registry. The hidden drives are still accessible but they are not visible in the Windows Explorer.

Visual Subst allows you to associate the most accessed directories with virtual drives. It uses the same API like the console subst utility, but makes it easier to create and remove virtual drives with a friendly user interface. Visual Subst can also restore the virtual drives at startup.

NOTE: Program became shareware, linking to Softpedia for the last freeware version.

SSD-Z provides a tabbed interface with diagnostics, analysis, and benchmark tools for your solid state drive. You can view S.M.A.R.T. status, partition layout, NAND, controller, and more.

Alternatively, SSD-Z Portable is also available.

Disk Thruput Tester (DiskTT) is a benchmarking tool analyzing the throughput of any disk. This is important because your actual disk performance is determined, not only by the speed of your hard drive as measured by most disk benchmarks, but also by the main board chipset, AHCI/UDMA/PIO mode, RAID configuration, CPU speed, RAM size, and the quality of drivers.

The program measures sequential read/write and random access speeds in megabytes/sec. You can set the size of the test file, the folder on the target disk to which test data will be written, cache settings, etc. Existing data on the target disk is not affected.

HDHacker is a utility that saves, visualizes and restores the MBR (from a physical drive), the boot sector (from a logical drive) or any sector on a disk. It can be used to save and restore a particular boot manager (e.g. LILO). It can also be used to backup the MBR or boot sector so that they can be restored later if corrupted.

Simplified Virtual Floppy Drive (VFD) mounts image files (*.img) as new browseable computer resources. View, edit, rename, delete, create, or launch files on a virtual floppy as well as format.

HD Tune is a hard disk utility that includes drive info, benchmarking, and drive health. Information includes partitions, firmware version, serial number, etc. while benchmarking covers transfer rate, access time, burst rate, and more. Health parameters include the S.M.A.R.T details as well as temperature and a whole disk surface scan.

Functional with SSD and flash memory.

Note: this is the last freeware version. A "pro" version with additional features is available from the website.