Disk Utility alternative / supplement?

[wfriedwald]

My problem: I have tons of hard drives, with many different volumes on them.

Lately I have been finding that Disk Utility is only so helpful in keeping track of everything, which volumes are on which drive, that kind of thing, and how they're all connected. (I tend to have at least ten hard drives connected at any given time.)

Question: can anyone recommend any kind of utility or application to help me stay on top of everything?

I'm trying to reorganize all this for the new year !

Happy 2024 everybody! As my late father used to say, "Have a Merry Christmas and a Harry Connicka!"

w

 

[Mike Boreham]

Stupid question...presume you have show all devices checked?

 

[chabig]

Lately I have been finding that Disk Utility is only so helpful in keeping track of everything, which volumes are on which drive, that kind of thing, and how they're all connected. (I tend to have at least ten hard drives connected at any given time.)

I'd recommend getting a regular label maker or maybe just make handwritten labels with a marker on tape and apply one label to each drive, identifying the volumes on it.

Another way...instead of writing the volume names on labels, just label each drive 1, 2, 3, 4, etc. Then on the Mac, add the drive number to your volume names. For example, you might have a volume called "Music". Change that to "Music on drive 3" or just "Music on 3", and so on.

 

[wfriedwald]

Stupid question...presume you have show all devices checked?

View attachment 2330752

a true Homer Simpson moment : "D'oh!"

no, I did NOT know about that view option. very, very helpful indeed. may just do the trick!

W

 

[wfriedwald]

I'd recommend getting a regular label maker or maybe just make handwritten labels with a marker on tape and apply one label to each drive, identifying the volumes on it.

Another way...instead of writing the volume names on labels, just label each drive 1, 2, 3, 4, etc. Then on the Mac, add the drive number to your volume names. For example, you might have a volume called "Music". Change that to "Music on drive 3" or just "Music on 3", and so on.

also a very helpful suggestion, thank you so much!

PS: not that anybody wants to see it, but here's just a few of those drives....

 

[chabig]

here's just a few of those drives

Given that, maybe just looking at the Hierarchy in Disk Utility is the way to go.

 

[Bigwaff]

Looks like you need to invest in several of these... it's not just a duplicator

ORICO USB 3.0 5 Bay Hard Drive Docking Station with Offline Cloning 3.5 SATA Enclosure for HDD SSD, Expandable Storage up to 90TB Plug&Play(6558US3-C)

www.amazon.com

 

[wfriedwald]

Looks like you need to invest in several of these... it's not just a duplicator

ORICO USB 3.0 5 Bay Hard Drive Docking Station with Offline Cloning 3.5 SATA Enclosure for HDD SSD, Expandable Storage up to 90TB Plug&Play(6558US3-C)

www.amazon.com

hey thank you! that would be very useful indeed ... not least for the duplicator function.

$120 is a very good price for a five-bay docking station, in the old days they would be several times that. thanks!

w

 

[wfriedwald]

PS: thanks again for this - I see that it can support up to 90 TB - so that means each individual drive can be up to 18TB each? thanks very much!

 

[MacGizmo]

Looks like you need to invest in several of these... it's not just a duplicator

ORICO USB 3.0 5 Bay Hard Drive Docking Station with Offline Cloning 3.5 SATA Enclosure for HDD SSD, Expandable Storage up to 90TB Plug&Play(6558US3-C)

www.amazon.com

That particular one has some pretty bad reviews – all of which complain about the cooling fan dying after a very short time, and a few complaining about how the drives aren't secured when attached, causing them to rattle back & forth.

Overall it has positive reviews, but I discount almost all positive reviews (on almost all products on Amazon) because they're generally all bogus (with the exception of the in-depth reviews where it's clearly not a bot or somebody paid to write the review as quickly as possible).

In short, this is not the type of product I would look to save money on.

 

[wfriedwald]

Hey! thank you! I really appreciate all the feedback.

* Okay, so this particular ORICO unit is NOT recommended. Can anyone recommend some good multiple-bay drive enclosure units? I am open for suggestions.

(I currently have at least five or six 4-bay units, but they're all quite ancient by now... I even have some old eSATA units lying around.)

* thanks for pointing out to make DISK UTIL work better for me (that view option) but I still would be open for a third party utility app that maps everything out your overall system and shows where everything is.

Thanks very much to everybody and best for a 2024! (Maybe that will be the year I get an M3 MacBook Air or even Pro.)

W

 

[Bigwaff]

thanks for pointing out to make DISK UTIL work better for me (that view option) but I still would be open for a third party utility app that maps everything out your overall system and shows where everything is.

I’m still not sure what “shows where everything is” means in this context. Do you want to catalog what files are on each volume?

 

[wfriedwald]

ah no, nolt individual files, I have some very good overall cataloging / indexing programs for that. I just want to be able to see what volumes are on which drives, and are connected through which docks / hubs / bays etc. that kind of thing!

thanks again!