CNET 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: Mavericks support
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All versions:
3.2 starsout of 71 votes
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Current version:
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My rating:
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"Operates like malware. AVOID!"
Version: Drive Genius 3.2.2
Pros
Probably does a good job on defragmenting. Wouldn't know since the thing was so annoying.
Cons
First sign of trouble was that I couldn't seem to close it after running the disk analyzer to see how fragmented my drive was. I couldn't eject the disk image and couldn't shut off the program.
Then when I attempted to delete it, I found that it had installed itself all over the place on my hard drive. Simply dragging the app to the trash like 99% of Mac apps didn't get its tentacles out of my system and something called Drive Pulse couldn't be shut off at all.
I finally uninstalled it completely, but that can only be done by searching online for how to remove it and finding that an uninstall command is somewhere in one of the many menus.
NO program should be this Byzantine to remove from your system. I don't care if it magically added 8GB of RAM to my system, it isn't worth the trouble.Summary
It could be a good product but it behaves like sketchy malware that won't let you get rid of it.
Very bad form on their part. Legitimate companies don't resort to such tactics. -
"WARNING! Nasty-ass-Hornet bugs in 2.2!! BACKUP 1st!!"
Version: Drive Genius 2.3
Pros
copied from the 2.3 "bug fix" list (rolleyes):
* Bug Fix: Possible data loss while moving a volume with Repartition.
* Bug Fix: Repartition could spuriously fail on 10.4.x.
To date, no pros, since my first use destroyed 5 partitions!Cons
CLONE ALL VOLUMES FIRST... then pray...
1. There is nothing "possible" about "data loss" while moving with repartition. It happened. Complete Data loss across 7 partitions!
2. Repartition DID "spuriously fail on 10.4.x", leaving 'ghost volumes' that no major utility could resurrect NOR extract ANY data from. Erase was my only option.
Clone a backup of EVERY SINGLE MOTHER-LOVING VOLUME on your entire hard drive.
When this app fails, IT FAILS BIG, & trashes every volume on the hard drive.
maybe you'll be lucky... maybe...
1. I wanted to combine partitions to make a backup volume larger.
2. I carefully followed all instructions.
3. I'm not an idiot
4. Drive Genius moved the partitions...
Then reported none of them could be mounted.
All attempts to recover/resurrect those volumes failed.
This app is the very definition of "When helping hurts"
I'm tickled to see my disaster as a mere "bug" in Prosoft's world.
THAT IS NOT A freaking "bug" This app acted essentially as malware.Summary
Do not EVER use "Drive-idiot" (any version) to do ANYTHING without FIRST making a bootable clone of ALL your volumes AND your entire hard drive (if you have multiple volumes on a drive).
Apparently Prosoft is taking Microsoft's lead and letting the users discover the nightmares.
This is no way to write software! It's Prosoft's RESPONSIBILITY to rigorously test their apps PRIOR to release to an unsuspecting public.
After all, this is a disk repair utility.
All other pro's and con's are irrelevant if the software trashes your drive... -
"It killed my bootcamp & recovery partitions do not use."
Version: Drive Genius 3.2.1
Pros
It boots up and installs okay.
Cons
The disk partition does not work. It will kill your windows bootcamp and recovery partitions.
They will not show up in the startup boot any more and you will not be able to recover them. You will need to reformat your drive and re-install from scratch.
Tech support is useless they just told me to read the manual and re-install my partitions from backup. They're not even interested in finding what the bug is. you get a warning message that your data can get lost if you proceed on every function/utility you try.Summary
useless software filled with bugs, waste of your money and will cost hours of your time trying to recover and re-install. lousy tech support avoid. not worth the risk of messing up your drive.
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"High price!"
Version: Drive Genius 3.2.1
Pros
there are many alternative free software!
Cons
very high price
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"no new registration key when I changed computer"
Version: Drive Genius 3.2.1
Pros
None that I know of as I cannot use the software which I paid money for
Cons
Will not give new registration key to buyers of their software who change computers
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"The demo app it is VERY hard to uninstall!"
Version: Drive Genius 3.2.1
Pros
I can't review the demo version because it allows you to do very little, requiring that you pay the full $98 for the defrag feature.
Cons
If you try to uninstall the demo app you will end up with repeated "Launch Failure" messages on your screen until you've rooted out every last bit of the software from your library. I lost about an hour of work just trying to figure that one out!
Summary
It seemed as though the demo app and the "Drive Pulse" menu item that it embedded on my toolbar (both extremely difficult to uninstall) were a blatant attempt by the company to force me to buy their overpriced software.
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"Crap app!!!"
Version: Drive Genius 3.2.1
Pros
I don't know any
Cons
the serial doesn't work
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"Useless app destroyed my hard drive"
Version: Drive Genius 3.2.1
Pros
None that i see
Cons
It totally trashed my external hard drive when I tried to defrag it
Summary
Avoid at all cost
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"I'd strongly recommend to avoid this program!"
Version: Drive Genius 3.2.1
Pros
It took like 6 hours to skan only 30 Gb
Cons
It did not recover me files!
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"Didn't help me"
Version: Drive Genius 3.2.1
Pros
I deleted it
Cons
Slow, found nothing I was looking for
