Free iPhone App Shows Why Hard Drives Fail – DriveSaver

The folks at DriveSavers, who deal with what the company's name implies, have come up with a truly helpful iPhone application. Not only does DriveSaver simulate real-life scenarios of hard drives failing as the user interacts with their inner-workings, but it also provides helpful advice on how to stay out of harm's way. Needless to point out, another huge plus is the price – completely free!

DriveSavers touts itself as the worldwide leader in data-recovery services. The company was recently pleased to introduce the first application developed by a professional data-recovery company for iPhone and iPod touch – DriveSaver. The app is described as a hard drive simulator that “educates” you about hard drives, the technologies surrounding them, the best ways to protect against crashing them, or to recover lost data.

“This virtual environment demonstrates the mechanics of a working hard drive and simulates hard drive crashes,” the developer explains. “DriveSaver is fun, educational and useful to anyone who ever wanted to see inside a hard drive or learn why drives fail. ... [It] gives you a realistic sense of the disastrous feelings, sights and sounds of a hard drive failure.”

With the Crash a Hard Drive feature, users can actually see, hear and feel a hard drive crash. One simulation test has the user touching a hard drive's logic board to see the chips go up in smoke. As soon as the special effects are over, DriveSaver displays information bubbles with what happened, and why.

“Initially, we developed this application as an internal reference tool for our partners. It is designed to educate IT professionals and their customers about hard drive storage technology and data recovery,” Scott Gaidano, president of DriveSavers, says. “It was so well received that we decided to release it to the public for free. Anyone with an iPhone can experience the disastrous feelings, sights and sounds of an actual hard drive crash.”

Recently approved by Apple, DriveSaver is currently available in the Utilities and Productivity categories within the App Store. The app is compatible with iPhone and iPod touch and requires iPhone OS 2.2.1 or later.

Download DriveSaver via iTunes (Free)