Free disk drive activity icons for Windows PCs and Macs

It is often useful to know when your computer’s hard drive(s) are accessed. Typical reasons are:

• when your computer is not responding and you wonder if it crashed
• you want to know if that file you are saving is actually being written to the drive

Hard drive activity is usually a sign that your computer is working even when the screen seems frozen. It is common to see a Microsoft Windows dialog title bar with the caption not responding displayed. Many people think this means the application has crashed. Most often it means that the computer doesn’t have resources free to update that window. Seeing that the hard drive is active can tell you if the computer is still working.

Macs are worse. They inform you of nothing. Maybe your application has crashed, maybe it hasn’t. On a Mac you need to open the Force Quit… dialog to find out. Having the hard drive icon on the menu bar may help to answer the question without opening Force Quit…

I use two free utilities—one for Windows and one for Macs—to place icons on my computers that show disk activity. Since MacBooks and iMacs don’t have any lights that display hard drive activity I find this a necessity when using Apple computers.

Windows
The Windows utility is FloadLED from Stone Oakvalley Studios.

Once you download and install it you can configure it from a simple configuration window.

You can drag the icons to place them where you want them on your screen(s).

Macs
The Mac utility I use is MenuMeters from Raging Menace.

Once you download, install and configure it you will have an icon in the menu bar (highlighted in the picture above).

You access the MenuMeters configuration control from the Mac’s System Preferences Other Panel.  

The MenuMeters dialog opens. Since MenuMeters displays other information besides disk drive activity you need to click on the tab (labeled 1 in the picture below) to configure the disk drive activity icon. Then make certain that the Display Disk Activity Menu Meter checkbox is checked (item 2) and that you choose the icon type you want from the drop down control (item 3). I like the Aqua Lights icon. You might like one of the other choices.