Drive Genius

[WebHead]

I've been meaning to purchase the latest version of Drive Genius but it's not yet compatible with Sonoma. I figure the next version of macOS might be out by the time they get around to updating it.

I've read previously that DG is basically just a more detailed front end for Disk Utility. Is that correct? If Disk Utility gives a drive a clean bill of health, is that enough?

 

[HDFan]

There are drive utilities out there which are compatible with Sonoma. What features specifically are you looking for?

If Disk Utility gives a drive a clean bill of health, is that enough?

Disk utility tells you whether it sees any current problems. It doesn't predict future problems which could be shown by SMART data.

If you have a 3-2-1 backup strategy in place probably not worth worrying about it.

 

[gilby101]

What are you hoping that Drive Genius will do for you? Disk Utility (either when running macOS or booted to recovery mode) will do repairs that are possible. DG seems to be one of those apps which had a bright past (with flakey HFS+ format disks) but has little future.

Better to put your effort into backup strategy so that you can recover from disasters.

 

[WebHead]

What are you hoping that Drive Genius will do for you? Disk Utility (either when running macOS or booted to recovery mode) will do repairs that are possible. DG seems to be one of those apps which had a bright past (with flakey HFS+ format disks) but has little future.

Better to put your effort into backup strategy so that you can recover from disasters.

Thanks yes, I'm doing that too, I just liked DG's ability to identify bad blocks (even though that could be inconsistent and throw up false positives).

Oh, and doing scans with DG is an excuse to dig my backups out of storage and spin them up every six months.

I'm also using Drive Dx to check the SMART statuses so maybe that's enough?

 

[WebHead]

One more thing, I have a 20TB RAID (in RAID 0 mode) but Drive Dx only recognises one of the two drives. Which makes me nervous about the other one...

 

[gilby101]

Oh, and doing scans with DG is an excuse to dig my backups out of storage and spin them up every six months.

I prefer to retire old HDD and keep important data on my active disks which are getting at least daily backup to off-site cloud storage. I recommend either that or copy to archival cloud storage - e.g. Amazon Glacier.

I'm also using Drive Dx to check the SMART statuses so maybe that's enough?

I too use DriveDX, and that provides warnings of impending physical hard drive failure. That is sufficient for me as I only keep active disks and all are formatted APFS and have at least two backups. But DriveDX (and SMART status in general) provides no protection against inconsistencies in the file systems which used to be relatively common with HFS+ or FAT format disks.

 

[WebHead]

I prefer to retire old HDD and keep important data on my active disks which are getting at least daily backup to off-site cloud storage. I recommend either that or copy to archival cloud storage - e.g. Amazon Glacier.

Unfortunately the amount of data I want to back up - 15-20TB - makes both those prohibitive (for me, at least). As the price of cloud storage comes down that may become an option.

But DriveDX (and SMART status in general) provides no protection against inconsistencies in the file systems which used to be relatively common with HFS+ or FAT format disks.

I also plan to employ hash files to detect data changes, but yes, that's getting complicated.

Thanks for the input!

 

[WebHead]

If you have a 3-2-1 backup strategy in place probably not worth worrying about it.

Oh, one last point, I also plan to have at least a 3-2 strategy by using both HD and BD-R. The optical discs *should* retain their integrity for decades (they're the non-organic-dye type).

 

[bousozoku]

I used Drive Genius for years, but APFS is where it can't be used.

Apparently, Apple won't cooperate with any drive utilities developers, as I haven't found any that can handle APFS volumes.

 

[gilby101]

Unfortunately the amount of data I want to back up - 15-20TB - makes both those prohibitive (for me, at least). As the price of cloud storage comes down that may become an option.

I see your problem there!

I also plan to employ hash files to detect data changes, but yes, that's getting complicated.

When I decide it is important I use this script:

#!/bin/bash
# Create _sha256tree.txt with checksums for each file in tree
# Excludes file starting with . or ^
# Uses /tmp for temp files
# May fail with some chars in file names
# Check with shasum -c _sha256tree.txt
# Based on https://superuser.com/questions/458326/sha1sum-for-a-directory-of-directories
#
# Create two temp files
tsort=$(mktemp /tmp/shar256srt.XXXXXXXX)
tsh=$(mktemp /tmp/shar256sh.XXXXXXXX)
# Get sorted list of files excluding starting with . or ^
find . -type f \! -name ".*" \! -name "^*" \! -name "_sha*" | sort > $tsort
# Create script to shasum each file
awk '{print "shasum -a 256 \""$0"\""}' $tsort > $tsh
# Run scrip to create file with the shasum of each file
bash $tsh > _sha256tree.txt
# clean up
rm $tsort
rm $tsh

Also easy to wrap in an Automator action and call from Quick Actions on a directory.

Howard Oakley https://eclecticlight.co/ prefers a hash stored as an xattr with each file and has apps to help with that.

 

[HDFan]

Unfortunately the amount of data I want to back up - 15-20TB - makes both those prohibitive (for me, at least). As the price of cloud storage comes down that may become an option.

Not an issue, at least in the U.S. Backblaze and Crashplan offer unlimited backups for ~$120 a year.

 

[WebHead]

I used Drive Genius for years, but APFS is where it can't be used.

Apparently, Apple won't cooperate with any drive utilities developers, as I haven't found any that can handle APFS volumes.

I see your problem there!


When I decide it is important I use this script:

#!/bin/bash
# Create _sha256tree.txt with checksums for each file in tree
# Excludes file starting with . or ^
# Uses /tmp for temp files
# May fail with some chars in file names
# Check with shasum -c _sha256tree.txt
# Based on https://superuser.com/questions/458326/sha1sum-for-a-directory-of-directories
#
# Create two temp files
tsort=$(mktemp /tmp/shar256srt.XXXXXXXX)
tsh=$(mktemp /tmp/shar256sh.XXXXXXXX)
# Get sorted list of files excluding starting with . or ^
find . -type f \! -name ".*" \! -name "^*" \! -name "_sha*" | sort > $tsort
# Create script to shasum each file
awk '{print "shasum -a 256 \""$0"\""}' $tsort > $tsh
# Run scrip to create file with the shasum of each file
bash $tsh > _sha256tree.txt
# clean up
rm $tsort
rm $tsh

Also easy to wrap in an Automator action and call from Quick Actions on a directory.

Howard Oakley https://eclecticlight.co/ prefers a hash stored as an xattr with each file and has apps to help with that.

Not an issue, at least in the U.S. Backblaze and Crashplan offer unlimited backups for ~$120 a year.

Thanks for the tips!

And good to know about the Backblaze plan as they're probably the only cloud storage I'd trust outside Amazon.

 

[HDFan]

Although Crashplan can handle unlimited backups I have found a soft limit of ~16 TB. They have a lot of maintenance programs which run and as you start exceeding this number your spend most of your time in maintenance rather than in backing up. I have about 4x this amount in Backblaze. Only limitation is upload speed which means it took months to upload all of the data. Haven't tried a restore so would be rather interesting if the whole amount had to be restored.

 

[gilby101]

Haven't tried a restore so would be rather interesting if the whole amount had to be restored.

Waiting for lots of zip files to be created and then waiting whilst they download and then restoring to the right places. Restore is one of the weaknesses of Backblaze.

 

[HDFan]

Restore is one of the weaknesses of Backblaze.

I thought it was one of their strengths, as compared with other services. They will restore to an 8 TB hard drive and refund the purchase price if you return it in 30 days.

 

[gilby101]

I thought it was one of their strengths, as compared with other services. They will restore to an 8 TB hard drive and refund the purchase price if you return it in 30 days.

I was thinking of restores of anything less than everything. When I tested it, this had to be done via web browser and involved selecting files/folders to restore, BB creating a zip file with what you requested, and then (some time later) being able to download the zip file. And at some point sending your encryption password to the BB servers.

A dog's breakfast compared to restores from Arq or Crashplan.

How well does the HDD restore method work internationally? I assume (wrongly perhaps) that it would be quicker to download 8TB over the Internet.