I don't think Scannerz is ugly, it's just utilitarian. So what? All updates to their products are free of charge, whereas others charge almost half what the original price of the product was, and they always manage to have some sort of critical update every year or every six months.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Mac hard drive test software - creating the definitive list
- Thread starter ZVH
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
There was an interesting discussion on ArsTechnica somewhat along these lines.
SSDs need to completely overwrite their cells before they can be re-written again, and defragmentation doesn't exist. What does this mean?
It means to some extent tools like TechTool Pro and Drive Genius are heading toward obsolescence. SSD "clean up" routines kill the ability to recover data, so that function's gone. Defragging on an SSD is not needed (and debatable if it was ever needed).
Smaller specific tools like Disk Warrior, Scannerz, smartmon tools are still of use, but more expensive and well known tools may be on their way out.
SSDs need to completely overwrite their cells before they can be re-written again, and defragmentation doesn't exist. What does this mean?
It means to some extent tools like TechTool Pro and Drive Genius are heading toward obsolescence. SSD "clean up" routines kill the ability to recover data, so that function's gone. Defragging on an SSD is not needed (and debatable if it was ever needed).
Smaller specific tools like Disk Warrior, Scannerz, smartmon tools are still of use, but more expensive and well known tools may be on their way out.
OS X normally can not read S.M.A.R.T. data from all types of S.M.A.R.T.-enabled hardware.
The kernel extension allows S.M.A.R.T.-enabled software to work with S.M.A.R.T. data on a wider variety of hardware.
I updated the entry for Scannerz today because they added a product called Phoenix to the line up.
NOTE TO CURRENT SCANNERZ USERS:
This update is free, so if you own the current Scannerz w/FSE or FSE-Lite the update is free because it's now part of the package. Check your e-mail. That's how I found out. Scannerz-Lite users are out of luck.
Phoenix is a cool tool because it can extract the core operating system without the need for media and put it on another drive or you can create what they call a Phoenix Boot Volume, which acts almost like an original operating system install. The only complaint I'd have is that the progress bar is task based rather that copy based, so if you're cloning something and it hits a large folder, like the Users or Applications folder it looks like it's locked up. Aside from that it works great.
Also I noticed that Techtool Pro has a new release, but it looks to me like it's just a version number enhancement that you have to pay for. I don't use that tool so maybe someone familiar with it can provide details.
NOTE TO CURRENT SCANNERZ USERS:
This update is free, so if you own the current Scannerz w/FSE or FSE-Lite the update is free because it's now part of the package. Check your e-mail. That's how I found out. Scannerz-Lite users are out of luck.
Phoenix is a cool tool because it can extract the core operating system without the need for media and put it on another drive or you can create what they call a Phoenix Boot Volume, which acts almost like an original operating system install. The only complaint I'd have is that the progress bar is task based rather that copy based, so if you're cloning something and it hits a large folder, like the Users or Applications folder it looks like it's locked up. Aside from that it works great.
Also I noticed that Techtool Pro has a new release, but it looks to me like it's just a version number enhancement that you have to pay for. I don't use that tool so maybe someone familiar with it can provide details.
I've been trying this and it is working for some externals, but not all. It would still appear to be in pre-release, but it's worth noting that Smart Utilities now includes it as an optional install and TTP may be on the verge of doing something similar.
Many of the comments here concerning S.M.A.R.T. monitoring have been correct in that most utilities simply report out on one or a few of the parameters stored on the hard drive, but the advantage of a few, such as Smart Utility, are that they then apply their own proprietary analysis routine to predict over time if there is evidence of eminent failure.
The guys who make Scannerz just updated the product again so I modified the description to add Performance Probe, which is the new add-on tool. I use this tool which is why I'm aware of it.
It would be nice if someone who uses some of the other tools could add info about some of the other tools like Drive Genius or Tech Tool Pro. I haven't used Tech Tool Pro in over 5 years so I don't feel qualified to comment on it but I do know it's been updated several times since I last used it.
It would be nice if someone who uses some of the other tools could add info about some of the other tools like Drive Genius or Tech Tool Pro. I haven't used Tech Tool Pro in over 5 years so I don't feel qualified to comment on it but I do know it's been updated several times since I last used it.
I did a comparison test of Scannerz vs. TechTool Pro on a known good drive. Scannerz completed it in almost half the time. I did a test on a drive with a known bad sector. Scannerz picked up the bad sector as well as several weak sectors preceding it. TechTool Pro didn't even see it. Even the system's log files indicated there was an error.
I assume the strength of something like TechTool Pro is that it does other things besides drive tests, right?
I assume the strength of something like TechTool Pro is that it does other things besides drive tests, right?
Good to know. Can anyone report on Scannerz vs. Checkmate?
Or maybe you just did. It's not clear to me if Checkmate is just the disk part of TTP or a completely unrelated utility.
I have an external drive (Glyph) which I use for for back ups (SuperDuper on one partition, Time Machine on the other). Because I've been getting frequent errors with my backups, I sent the drive back to Glyph. After 3 weeks of testing, they found no problems. I'm guessing their procedures are of a higher level than what I could do myself with the utilities mentioned here?
I ...
... had mixed success with DiskWarrior and DriveGenius, but I definitely can recommend Disktools Pro:
http://www.macwareinc.com/products/mac-utilities/disktools-pro.html
I used it running 10.6, 10.8 and 10.9, and it helped me occasionally.
From the webpage:
I also would include Onyx, as it streamlines some OSX maintenance tasks:
http://www.titanium.free.fr
... had mixed success with DiskWarrior and DriveGenius, but I definitely can recommend Disktools Pro:
http://www.macwareinc.com/products/mac-utilities/disktools-pro.html
I used it running 10.6, 10.8 and 10.9, and it helped me occasionally.
From the webpage:
I also would include Onyx, as it streamlines some OSX maintenance tasks:
http://www.titanium.free.fr
I updated this post to include the following changes:
I'm not at all familiar with Disk Tools Pro so I put a note in the description to refer to the write up by giffut. Scannerz has a new diagnostics mode, so I put some details in about that too. Their prices also went up a few bucks.
I didn't put Checkmate or Onyx in because I see them more as system monitoring tools and not really being drive related tools.
- Addition of Disk Tools Pro as described by giffut (Feb. 7, 2014)
- Changes in prices to Scannerz line of products
I'm not at all familiar with Disk Tools Pro so I put a note in the description to refer to the write up by giffut. Scannerz has a new diagnostics mode, so I put some details in about that too. Their prices also went up a few bucks.
I didn't put Checkmate or Onyx in because I see them more as system monitoring tools and not really being drive related tools.
directory repair
I should point out that both DriveGenius and TechTool Pro have a directory rebuild feature, similar to what is achieved by DiskWarrior. In my own experience DW uses a superior technique(s) to the other two, but in the initial posting here, that feature was left off both of them, and I thought I should correct that.
Further, Alsoft has had 5 years to make DW into a 64-bit app, and has failed to do so. For those of us with large hard drives and many files (in my case, over 4M) the 32-bit limitation to memory causes DW to fail, and it is unable to work on such drives at all.
Both DriveGenius and TechTool Pro are 64-bit applications, and will successfully work on larger, more full drives. I'd prefer DW of course, but these two are better than nothing when a big drive goes south.
I should point out that both DriveGenius and TechTool Pro have a directory rebuild feature, similar to what is achieved by DiskWarrior. In my own experience DW uses a superior technique(s) to the other two, but in the initial posting here, that feature was left off both of them, and I thought I should correct that.
Further, Alsoft has had 5 years to make DW into a 64-bit app, and has failed to do so. For those of us with large hard drives and many files (in my case, over 4M) the 32-bit limitation to memory causes DW to fail, and it is unable to work on such drives at all.
Both DriveGenius and TechTool Pro are 64-bit applications, and will successfully work on larger, more full drives. I'd prefer DW of course, but these two are better than nothing when a big drive goes south.
I'll update the post with that information. The last copy of TTP that I had was for PowerPC systems and I don't think it had any type of file recovery on it at that time. Maybe it did and I just didn't need it or I've forgotten. That's a long time ago.
Thanks for the input.
Thanks for the input.
I'll update the post with that information. The last copy of TTP that I had was for PowerPC systems and I don't think it had any type of file recovery on it at that time. Maybe it did and I just didn't need it or I've forgotten. That's a long time ago.
Thanks for the input.
Note that it's not "file recovery" I mentioned... it's directory reconstruction. They are two different things.
TestDisk, Disk Drill, iBored
Here is a useful command-line utility -
TestDisk & PhotoRec documentation can be found online:
- http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk
- http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec
----------
Disk Drill can scan and recover data from virtually any storage device
http://www.cleverfiles.com/
----------
iBored
It is basically a hex editor for disk sectors, but can also be used to edit files, including disk images.
http://apps.tempel.org/iBored/
Here is a useful command-line utility -
TestDisk & PhotoRec documentation can be found online:
- http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk
- http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec
----------
Disk Drill can scan and recover data from virtually any storage device
http://www.cleverfiles.com/
----------
iBored
It is basically a hex editor for disk sectors, but can also be used to edit files, including disk images.
http://apps.tempel.org/iBored/
Last edited:
A lot of the "recovery software" will be 100% useless on SSDs because of the way the drives store data. On an HD the contents of a block are still intact even after being deleted, at least for a while, because all the controller does is mark them as being available for re-write. Recovery can take place because these blocks can be read.
On an SSD if it's marked for deletion, it's usually completely removed from available blocks and then the block(s) are purged to binary zeros before being put back in service. This could happen at any time, particularly if TRIM/GC are enabled to occur as a background process.
Likewise, defragmenting an SSD is utterly useless since fragmentation is an artifact of the mechanical drive heads moving around the surface of the drive. It's even questionable how much its needed on OS X even with mechanical drives.
On an SSD if it's marked for deletion, it's usually completely removed from available blocks and then the block(s) are purged to binary zeros before being put back in service. This could happen at any time, particularly if TRIM/GC are enabled to occur as a background process.
Likewise, defragmenting an SSD is utterly useless since fragmentation is an artifact of the mechanical drive heads moving around the surface of the drive. It's even questionable how much its needed on OS X even with mechanical drives.
I've got and used TTP7. Not having other programs to compare it with limits my opinion. However, I do find it interesting that it does pale in comparison with si,iliar programs.
I'd be interested in more info, particularly on TTP7.
An aside, not to start a flame war. SSD's (for me) are aways off. I am interested in things I now need. (Keeping it light!)
I'd be interested in more info, particularly on TTP7.
An aside, not to start a flame war. SSD's (for me) are aways off. I am interested in things I now need.
(Keeping it light!)An aside, not to start a flame war. SSD's (for me) are aways off. I am interested in things I now need.
You can get a 128GB SSD for less than $100.
What about Techtool Protogo, which installs on a portable drive along with any other utilities you may have? Claims to feature TTP's most powerful functions. Booting off it gives you a portable swiss army knife. Good for a ram stick, but I have always used a bootable partition on an externaldrive for this purpose..
BTW, I just got an email announcing a TTP anniversary sale. TTP7, TTProtogo and Checkmate (I tried it and I think it messed up a drive on me), all available for $25 each.
I would consider ProToGo to be a TechTool pro variant. The only difference is that you can use it to create an external bootable version of the TTP and anything else you want to put on that bootable drive, so technically I just consider it TTP. I know Scannerz has this feature with Phoenix, and I think Drive Genius may as well.
Regarding sales, it seems EVERYONE is having everything on sale this week. The entire line of Scannerz products just went on sale for 30% off, Drive Genius just came off a sale where it was selling for about 40 or 50 bucks, and now TTP is on sale too.
I was sort of laughing to myself when i realized that with these sales going on, I could by the full version of Scannerz, TTP ProToGo, and Drive Genius (if it was still on sale) all for the combined price of TTP or Drive Genius when they're not on sale.
It makes me wonder how good the economy is.
Regarding sales, it seems EVERYONE is having everything on sale this week. The entire line of Scannerz products just went on sale for 30% off, Drive Genius just came off a sale where it was selling for about 40 or 50 bucks, and now TTP is on sale too.
I was sort of laughing to myself when i realized that with these sales going on, I could by the full version of Scannerz, TTP ProToGo, and Drive Genius (if it was still on sale) all for the combined price of TTP or Drive Genius when they're not on sale.
It makes me wonder how good the economy is.
There are also the Intech products, some versions of which might be bundled by OWC:
http://www.intechusa.com/
http://www.intechusa.com/
HDAT2 and more
I made http://apple.stackexchange.com/a/138806/8546 the accepted answer to a question in Ask Different:
What free or open source software can I use with Mac hardware to verify integrity of every block of a disk where Core Storage is used?
I made http://apple.stackexchange.com/a/138806/8546 the accepted answer to a question in Ask Different:
What free or open source software can I use with Mac hardware to verify integrity of every block of a disk where Core Storage is used?
This list is over 2 years old now. Just curious, but do these apps handle Core Storage. Better yet, do any of them do a better job doing stuff like resizing, partitioning, formatting, or creating Core Storage systems. To my surprise the regular user version of Disk Utility seems to be a little lacking when it comes to dealing with these volumes.
Scannerz can test core storage units, both standalone and Fusion, and I assume that Drive Genius and TechTool Pro can do likewise. Scannerz can break a Fusion down into components and allow you to test each one individually, and I don't know if TechTool Pro or Drive Genius have that capability, but I assume they do. I'm talking about doing surface scan tests. Scannerz can also do interface and system tests, FWIW.
Regarding managing Core Storage, it's proving to be a problem for a lot of people using Yosemite. On some systems, if Yosemite is installed it will create a single volume Core Storage partition on the drive, and once that's done you can't do stuff like resize a partition or split an existing partition unless it's done using the command line version of Disk Utility (named diskutil.) IMHO a lot of Mac users aren't even aware of the Terminal.app utility, much less doing stuff using a command line interface.
I don't think any of the utilities I've listed provide management for Core Storage, probably because the developers assumed Apple would do it. Core Storage was introduced in Lion, and yet Apple still hasn't provided the necessary updates to the regular version of Disk Utility to handle it. I've heard that if it detects both an SSD and an HDD in a single system it will try and make it a Fusion combo, but that's unconfirmed by me.
Maybe someone out there has done such a utility. You might want to try a website like MacUpdate.com because they have all kinds of programs on there that often do what others won't. If you find such a tool, or anyone reading this sees or knows about one, let me know and I'll add it to the list, provided they're doing it legally and not taking advantage of someone else's work (as in hiding open source code behind an interface.)