Scan & Fix 100 registry errors freeCNET Editors' review
Drive Genius is a hard-working hard-drive utility from longtime Mac developers Prosoft Engineering, with the honorable distinction of being employed at the Apple Store Genius Bar as part of their ProCare Yearly Tune Up service.
The interface of Drive Genius shares some similarities with that of its data-recovery sister program Data Rescue: you navigate through a 3D "tool arena," a sort of virtual lazy Susan of hard-drive tasks that's fast and fluid enough to not be annoying (and it's actually kind of fun). You choose from six primary tasks, Information (with detailed readouts on S.M.A.R.T. status, file system type, and more), Defrag (to optimize drive speed), DriveSlim (to free up space by eliminating duplicate or unused files), Repair (to verify, repair, or rebuild a volume), Scan (to check for bad blocks), and DrivePulse (a monitoring tool that checks your drive in the background, when your computer is idle--although unfortunately there's no way to turn off its menubar icon if you decide to use it). You can also flip to the other side of the "tool arena" for even more esoteric tasks: Integrity Check, Initialize, Repartition, Duplicate, Shred (with up to 35-pass Gutmann erasing), Benchtest, and (perhaps scariest of all, "for expert use only") Sector Edit.
Many of these tasks can be time-consuming, but Drive Genius does a good job of keeping you entertained with graphs, lists, and live updates--or you can always just have Drive Genius notify you by email whenever it completes a task. You'll also want the DVD version of this program (which you can either have mailed to you, or download and burn yourself), so that you can work on your drive when it's not running the OS (or when it won't boot at all).
Drive utilities aren't for everyone (and Drive Genius isn't cheap), but if you're interested in keeping your Mac in tip-top shape, it's hard to go wrong with a tool that the pros use. Drive Genius gives you a lot of features in an all-in-one package that's easy to use and understand.
Publisher's Description
From Prosoft Engineering:
Maintain, Manage and Optimize your Hard Drive Is your Mac running slower? Is your hard drive filling up and you don't know why? Are you seeing the beach ball more or having other issues with your hard drive? Try Drive Genius 3, the best hard drive utility on the Mac platform - DrivePulse, Enhanced Defrag, DriveSlim, Enhanced Repartition are only a few of the award-winning features of Drive Genius 3. Drive Genius 3 is used by Apple at the Genius Bar as part of the ProCare Yearly Tune Up.
What's new in this version:
- Application Help is now provided via the standard Mac OS X help viewer.
- Repartition will automatically prompt to create a new volume when an existing volume is shrunk.
- Bug Fix: DrivePulseâ?¢ now updates its menu to reflect volume name changes.
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All versions:
3.7 starsout of 58 votes
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Current version:
2.3 starsout of 3 votes
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My rating:
Write review
Results 1-3 of 3
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"Amateur tool with attempt at pretty interface"
Version: Drive Genius 3.1.2
Pros
No pros. DEfrag is pratically useless.
Cons
Its 2012 - your defrag tool should not tell me that it can not unmount the drive.
The disk scan feature stated that it will take 88 days to scan my 500 GB drive. The feature is useless and Tech Tool Pro did this in 4 hours.... A disk tool that can not scan a drive. Useless
The tools seems to be a collection of amateur stuff thrown together with a pretty interface.... -
"Optimized my disks!"
Version: Drive Genius 3.1.2
Pros
Works very well and reliably so far
Cons
Works great for me
Summary
I've recently bought this product and it seems to work quite well, addressing the OSX-specific needs that a Mac owner has. It does work very quickly and quite well in conjunction to Diskwarrior. I will never rely upon Norton again.
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"I feel hoodwinked with the false claims"
Version: Drive Genius 3.1.2
Pros
Vertigo inducing GUI for those who are so inclined
Cons
Doesn't do the simplest of Disk repair functions.
Summary
I couldn't get my backup drive to mount on my Intel mac book and so, after reading the remarkable abilities advertised on the OWC site, I ordered Drive Genius 3.0 .
After getting somewhat used to the vertigo producing GUI, I set out to repair my HFS+ drive. To my dread, It wouldn't repair nor defrag my drive. It just simply said it couldn't. No further tips or suggestions. Just that it couldn't.
Well I thought "Oh Boy $1000 bucks for a data recovery company." I then tried one more thing as a lark. I powered up Diskwarrior and lo and behold; a replaced directory and all my data was back, less the name of my drive.
Not to be able to do a disk defrag by a program that Prosoft touts it to be what they claim? I felt hoodwinked and so I tried returning the software.
OWC was very understanding and suggested I call Prosoft and get an authorization to return the software.
When I called, I was told by Bob at Prosoft that "no software company guarantees their software so there would be no returns authorized by him".
Well, I strongly suggest you save your money and stick with Diskwarrior and Apple's disk utility for your Disk maintenance needs.
At least now when i want to feel oozy and lightheaded I can always fire up Jive Genius and let it's GUI do its thing ;(
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