a script intended for use with Hard Disk Sentinel to collect temperature and health data from multiple computers
The idea for this short code came to me a few years ago. I was and still am using a few Windows based PCs with many hard drives and no backup. For that reason I had/have Hard Disk Sentinel on all of those machines. It was problematic to see all the data from headless machines. Sentinel has a neat feature to serve a page with all the relevant informations on a local network, but that page has too much details for my needs, so this code filters data from all machines and shows most relevant data in small table. The webserver is on a Raspberry PI, which is further connected to a small screen that serves all data in one place.
The code filters out and serves computer name, local IP address, uptime and aquistion date/time for every PC in local network which has Sentinel installed, it further shows partition labels, hard disk model, temperature and health for every hard disk in all the computers.
Seeing the health deterioration as soon as it happens helped me rescue data from two hard drives in last few years, so I hope that it may help some of you too.
This solution cannot help with hard disk sudden death, spindle problems and similar, but in a case of bad blocks and similar it may singal early enough to give you enough time to transfer all the data to another disk. Main use in my case is to follow the temperatures and see when the time comes to clean the air filters.
The whole project consists of only four files:
sentineldata.php
this is the main file; the uploaded version is inteded for two machines, but it can be easily extended by adding a new
$url3, $rezultat3 variables and a new <table class="table"> block with appropriate $rezultat number in all the
$rezultat instances; it may be extended for as many computers as you like.
sentineldata.css
contains visual elements to define sentineldata.php
sentinel_functions.php
contains functions to parse the Hard Disk Sentinel v4.40 served file; it arranges data in a php array
sentinel_visual_functions.php
contains helper functions for data visualization
There are plans to extend the application with visualisations for relevant temeratures and fan speeds for all the machines by the means of Remote Sensor Monitor for HWInfo, I just have to find a way to organize all the additinal infos whithout cluttering the small display.