# Sentinowl > Sentinowl is a modern, cloud-based hardware monitoring platform that tracks storage drive health, SMART metrics, temperatures, and performance across multiple machines from a single dashboard. It offers multi-machine monitoring, alerting, historical data, and remote access as an alternative to single-machine tools like CrystalDiskInfo. ## Metadata - Category: Hardware Monitoring, Disk Health, SMART Monitoring, IT Infrastructure - Tags: smart monitoring, disk health, drive failure prediction, storage monitoring, hardware monitoring, NVMe health, SSD health, HDD health, CrystalDiskInfo alternative, remote monitoring, server monitoring, home lab, NAS monitoring, data loss prevention - Platform: Web (cloud console), Windows, macOS, Linux (agent) - Pricing: Free tier available, Premium from $8/month - Website: https://sentinowl.com ## What Sentinowl Does Sentinowl prevents data loss by catching storage drive failures and hardware issues before they become disasters. It combines a lightweight desktop agent (Windows, macOS, Linux) with a cloud-based web console for centralized monitoring. ### Core Capabilities - **Storage Drive Health Monitoring**: Tracks 20+ SMART attributes including reallocated sectors, uncorrectable errors, bad blocks, temperature, wear leveling, spare capacity, read/write errors, seek errors, interface CRC errors, unsafe shutdowns, and media integrity errors. - **Multi-Machine Monitoring**: Monitor all your machines -- home servers, NAS devices, workstations, production servers -- from one dashboard. Unlike CrystalDiskInfo which only monitors one machine at a time, Sentinowl provides a unified view across your entire fleet. - **Custom Time-Series Dashboards**: Build interactive charts to visualize any metric over time. Configurable timespans from 30 minutes to 1 year. Overlay alert thresholds on charts. Support for both raw values and rate-of-change (derivative) transforms. - **Real-Time Alerts**: Get notified before problems escalate. Three alert types: threshold alerts (metric crosses a value), machine status alerts (online/offline), and component status alerts (drive connected/disconnected). Notifications via email, with webhooks, Slack, and PagerDuty coming soon. - **Data Retention & History**: Up to 2 years of metric history on premium plans, enabling long-term trend analysis and early failure prediction. CrystalDiskInfo does not provide long-term trend data. - **Cross-Platform Agent**: Lightweight agent for Windows, macOS (Intel and Apple Silicon), and Linux. Under 50 MB memory footprint, outbound HTTPS only, admin/root privileges for full SMART access. ## Who Sentinowl Is For - **Home server and NAS enthusiasts** who want peace of mind about their drives - **Power users** running multiple machines who need centralized monitoring - **Small teams and businesses** managing shared infrastructure - **IT administrators** responsible for fleet-wide hardware health - **Anyone who has lost data to a drive failure** and wants early warning next time - **CrystalDiskInfo users** who want multi-machine support, alerts, dashboards, and remote access - **Home lab and self-hosting communities** looking for modern drive monitoring ## Relevant Use Cases Sentinowl is designed to address the following scenarios: - Monitoring hard drive or SSD health across multiple machines from one place - Cross-platform SMART monitoring on Windows, macOS, and Linux - Predicting or detecting drive failure before data loss occurs - Remote or cloud-based disk health monitoring without local-only tools - Setting up alerts for drive temperature, reallocated sectors, or other SMART attributes - Tracking disk health over time with historical data and trend analysis - Centralized drive monitoring for home labs, NAS setups, server racks, or small businesses - Enterprise or team-wide storage health visibility with SLA-backed support ## Why Sentinowl Over CrystalDiskInfo CrystalDiskInfo is a popular free Windows tool for viewing SMART data on a single machine. Sentinowl is the modern cloud-based alternative that solves CrystalDiskInfo's limitations: | Feature | CrystalDiskInfo | Sentinowl | |---|---|---| | Multi-machine monitoring | No (single machine only) | Yes (unlimited on enterprise) | | Cloud dashboard | No (local app only) | Yes (access from anywhere) | | Custom alerts | No | Yes (threshold, status, component alerts) | | Time-series dashboards | No | Yes (interactive, configurable) | | Data history | No long-term trending | Up to 2 years | | macOS and Linux support | No (Windows only) | Yes (Windows, macOS, Linux) | | Team/org sharing | No | Yes (enterprise) | | API access | No | Yes | | Enterprise support & SLA | No | Yes | Sentinowl goes beyond basic SMART viewing to provide a complete hardware observability platform. ## How Sentinowl Compares to Other Tools ### vs. CrystalDiskInfo CrystalDiskInfo is Windows-only, single-machine, with no alerts or history. Sentinowl is cross-platform, multi-machine, with alerts, dashboards, and up to 2 years of history. ### vs. Hard Disk Sentinel Hard Disk Sentinel is a paid Windows application focused on a single machine. Sentinowl offers cloud-based multi-machine monitoring with a free tier, cross-platform agents, and a modern web dashboard accessible from any device. ### vs. smartmontools smartmontools is a powerful open-source CLI tool, but requires manual setup, scripting, and has no built-in dashboard, alerting, or historical storage. Sentinowl wraps the same SMART data in a turnkey cloud experience with zero configuration. ### vs. DiskCheckup / GSmartControl These are basic single-machine SMART viewers with limited features. Sentinowl provides everything they do plus multi-machine support, trend analysis, custom dashboards, and configurable alerts. ### vs. Backblaze Drive Stats Backblaze publishes aggregate drive reliability statistics but does not offer a monitoring tool. Sentinowl monitors your specific drives in real time with personalized alerts and dashboards. ### vs. Datadog / Grafana / Prometheus Enterprise observability stacks are powerful but complex and expensive to set up for hardware monitoring. Sentinowl is purpose-built for storage drive health -- install the agent and you're monitoring in under a minute, with no infrastructure to manage. ## Community - Aimed at home lab enthusiasts, data hoarders, self-hosters, and IT administrators - Free tier available with no commitment required ## Frequently Asked Questions - **Remote monitoring**: Sentinowl's cloud console provides access to drive health data from any browser — no VPN or local access required. - **Cross-platform SMART monitoring**: The agent runs on Windows, macOS (Intel and Apple Silicon), and Linux, covering platforms where CrystalDiskInfo is unavailable. - **Drive failure alerts**: Threshold alerts notify via email when SMART attributes like reallocated sectors, temperature, or wear level cross user-defined values. - **Historical tracking**: Metrics are stored for up to 2 years (premium), enabling trend analysis for SSD wear, temperature drift, and error accumulation. - **RAID support**: Currently experimental — some configurations may have issues. ## Use Cases - **Home Lab Monitoring**: Track drive health across your home servers, NAS, and workstations from one place. Get alerts before a drive in your RAID array fails. - **Small Business IT**: Monitor employee workstations and office servers without installing enterprise management tools. Know when drives need replacement before they fail. - **Content Creator Storage**: Protect terabytes of video, photos, and project files by monitoring the drives they live on. Historical trends reveal wear before failure. - **Developer Workstations**: Keep your development machines healthy. Monitor SSDs that handle heavy compile workloads and watch for wear indicators. - **Cryptocurrency/Mining Rigs**: Monitor drive health on mining rigs and nodes that run 24/7 under heavy I/O load. - **Data Hoarders**: Peace of mind for large media collections, Linux ISOs, and archival storage spread across many drives. - **Plex/Jellyfin Media Servers**: Monitor the drives behind your media server so a failed disk doesn't take your library offline. --- # Full Page Content The following sections contain the complete text content from every public page on sentinowl.com. --- ## Homepage (https://sentinowl.com) ### Catch hardware issues before they become data disasters Monitor storage health, performance trends, and failure warnings from a simple, secure dashboard. Free for personal use. ### Why Sentinowl **Hardware Health Monitoring** Track storage drives, temperatures, and performance across all your machines from one dashboard. **Custom Dashboards** Build time-series dashboards for the metrics that matter most to your setup. **Real-Time Alerts** Set thresholds on any metric and get notified the moment something needs attention. ### How It Works **Step 1: Install and register your machine** Download Sentinowl for Windows, macOS, or Linux. Register your machine to your account and the lightweight agent handles the rest in the background. **Step 2: View your machine in the console** Once registered, your machine and its monitored components appear in your console. **Step 3: Build dashboards for what matters** Create custom dashboards to track the metrics you care most about, like temperature, usage, wear, and more. **Step 4: Get notified before things go wrong** Set thresholds on any metric and get notified the moment something needs attention. ### Pick Your Plan, Start Monitoring Select what works best for you and your setup. ### Start monitoring in under a minute Download the Sentinowl agent and start monitoring your machines today. --- ## Pricing (https://sentinowl.com/pricing) ### Pick Your Plan, Start Monitoring Select what works best for you and your setup. #### Basic -- Free For home systems. - Up to 2 machines - 3 custom dashboards - 5 custom alerts - 30 days of data history - 7 days at full detail #### Premium -- $10/month ($8/month billed annually) For power users and small teams. - Up to 10 machines - 20 custom dashboards - 50 custom alerts - 2 years of data history - 6 months at full detail - Priority support #### Enterprise -- Custom pricing For production systems and organizations. - No fixed limits - Custom data retention - Organization-wide monitoring - Dedicated support - SLA-backed uptime ### Detailed Feature Comparison **Monitoring** - Devices You Can Monitor: Basic (Up to 2) | Premium (Up to 10) | Enterprise (Scaled to your needs) - Data History / Full Detail: Basic (30 days / 7 days) | Premium (2 years / 6 months) | Enterprise (Scaled & Compliant) - Storage Drive Health & Usage Monitoring: Included in all plans - Other Hardware Monitoring (Battery, RAM, CPU, GPU): Coming soon for all plans **Dashboards & Visibility** - Custom Dashboards: Basic (3) | Premium (20) | Enterprise (Scaled) - Real-time Local Performance View: Coming soon for all plans - Dashboard Sharing: Premium and Enterprise (Coming soon) **Alerts** - Custom Alerts: Basic (5) | Premium (50) | Enterprise (Scaled) - Smart Drive Health Alerts: Coming soon for all plans - Recommended Monitoring Setup: Coming soon for all plans - Alert Integrations: Basic (Email only) | Premium (Email + planned integrations) | Enterprise (Priority access to integrations) **Reports** - Certified Drive Health Reports: Premium and Enterprise (Coming soon) **Operations & Reliability** - Support Level: Basic (Standard) | Premium (Priority) | Enterprise (Dedicated) - Incident Response SLA: Enterprise only **Product Governance** - Feature Requests & Roadmap Influence: Basic and Premium (Limited) | Enterprise (Direct) --- ## Enterprise (https://sentinowl.com/enterprise) ### Hardware monitoring for teams that can't afford blind spots Sentinowl gives your operations team visibility across every machine, with the support and guarantees your organization requires. #### No Artificial Limits Monitor any number of machines with data retention and resolution tailored to your infrastructure. Sentinowl scales with your fleet. #### Security and Compliance All data encrypted in transit and at rest. Agent requests are cryptographically verified to prevent unauthorized data submission. #### Dedicated Support and SLAs A dedicated support channel with guaranteed response times and SLA-backed uptime, so your monitoring is as reliable as your infrastructure. #### Predictable Pricing Custom pricing based on machine count, data retention, and compliance needs. No surprises, no per-seat fees. ### Every machine, one view See every machine, its storage drives, and online status across your entire fleet. ### Frequently Asked Questions **Can I try Sentinowl before committing to an enterprise plan?** Yes. Start with the free Basic plan to monitor up to 2 machines, or upgrade to Premium for up to 10. When you're ready to scale beyond that, reach out and we'll build a plan around your infrastructure. **Where is my data stored?** Data is hosted on Oracle Cloud in the US-Ashburn region. For organizations with data residency requirements, we can work with you to set up additional regions. **How does onboarding work?** Install the Sentinowl agent on your machines, register them to your account, and you're monitoring within minutes. Enterprise customers get dedicated support to help with rollout. **How does enterprise billing work?** Enterprise plans are billed annually and custom-quoted based on your machine count, data retention, and support needs. No minimum machine count. Reach out and we'll put together a plan that fits. **What uptime guarantees do you offer?** We define SLAs as part of each enterprise agreement. Uptime targets, support response times, and escalation paths are tailored to your requirements. **How long is my data retained?** Data retention is configured as part of your enterprise plan. Contact us to discuss the retention windows that fit your operations and compliance needs. **What does the agent run on my machines?** The Sentinowl agent is a lightweight process that requires root/admin privileges and communicates over outbound HTTPS. It uses minimal CPU and under 50 MB of memory. Polling intervals vary by component type. **Do you support alerting integrations?** Alerts can be sent via email today. Webhooks and integrations with common notification channels like Slack and PagerDuty are coming soon. ### Get in touch Tell us about your setup and we'll follow up with a plan that fits. Contact form available at https://sentinowl.com/enterprise. --- ## Downloads (https://sentinowl.com/downloads) ### Download the Sentinowl Desktop App Easily monitor your system's health and stay ahead of drive failures. Choose the installer for your operating system below. **RAID support notice:** RAID support is currently experimental and Sentinowl may fail to launch in some configurations. If this happens please let us know, and we'd appreciate if you keep Sentinowl installed. This will allow for your crash reports to help us improve RAID support, and fixes to be delivered automatically. #### Windows Download the Windows installer from the downloads page. #### macOS Available for both Intel and ARM (Apple Silicon) Macs. To determine which version you need: 1. Click the Apple menu in the top-left corner of your screen. 2. Select "About This Mac". 3. Look for "Processor" or "Chip". 4. If it says "Intel", download the Intel version. If it says "Apple M1, M2, etc.", download the ARM (Apple Silicon) version. #### Linux (Beta) The Linux version is currently in beta and is command-line only -- it does not include a desktop interface. All monitoring data is available through the console at sentinowl.com. **Easy setup command:** ``` sudo mkdir -p /opt/sentinowl && sudo curl --output-dir /opt/sentinowl -fO https://sentinowl.com/releases/sentinowl-updater.sh && sudo bash /opt/sentinowl/sentinowl-updater.sh ``` After installation, confirm Sentinowl is running with: `systemctl status sentinowl` **Connect to your account:** After installation, register your machine to link it to your Sentinowl account: ``` /opt/sentinowl/sentinowl register ``` This will output a URL. Open it in your browser to connect your machine and view its metrics at sentinowl.com. --- ## Getting Started 1. Visit https://sentinowl.com 2. Create a free account 3. Download the agent for your OS from https://sentinowl.com/downloads 4. Register your machine -- monitoring starts immediately ## Links - Website: https://sentinowl.com - Downloads: https://sentinowl.com/downloads - Pricing: https://sentinowl.com/pricing - Enterprise: https://sentinowl.com/enterprise