Best hard drive maintenance program for Leopard

Hello,
What software program (Prosoft's Drive Genius, Micromat's Techtool Pro or other)
available best maintains a healthy hard drive throughout its lifetime? I have read many good and bad things about each listed.
Frighteningly, I have read that hard drives, with data on it, that sit idle for longer than a year could have its data evaporate unless surface scans or other maintenance tasks are performed quarterly or so to maintain the drive's effectiveness. This is why I'm looking for a program that does this.
Thanks,
Jordan

Thanks for the Techtool Pro advice. Now here is the excerpt from the an engineering manager of a hard disk drive company:
"Magnetic signals recorded on a hard disk are designed to be refreshed periodically. If your hard disk stay on this happens automatically. However, if you store your projects to a removable hard disk drive, then store that hard drive on a shelf, unattached to a computer, those magnetic signals will fade over time...essentially, evaporating.
So.. in the interest of checking things out, simply reading every sector on a disk actually is preventative . If the controllerwithin the hard disk detects any marginal data in either the servo tracks or the data bits recorded on the surface, the controller will automatically rewrite the data to the sector. If it cannot, this block is mapped out, again, automatically, and a substitute data block will be mapped in. All modern disks to this for you today. A simple read cycle of every sector or data block is all that is neccessary.
So, the scanning is simply reading every sector of the disk surface. The act of copying all the files from one disk to another disk would almost accomplish the same thing. With this latter method, unused parts of the disk would not be read again.
As for duration, I would say that the disks could lose data if not used for a long period of time. Doing this surface scan every year or two is preventative. It is hard to define a point in time when a failure due to degraded media occurs. I do have drives here that have not been spun up for several years, and they are fine, but I have heard from many who do have issues after leaving the drive in storage for several years. Sometimes it is actual fade, sometimes it is power supply related, sometimes it is due to extremes in temperature or humidity.
Bottom line, revisiting your storage archives periodically is some assurance that what you have saved away is really still there."
What do you think about this one man's opinion about this issue?
Jordan

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Best hard drive setup for Logic Pro?..

Hi all,
I'm about to get a Mac Pro, and I was wondering a bit about the best hard drive set up for running Logic Pro.
1. Should I go with Western Digital Caviar SE ? Noise is a primary issue, I'd like them to be as silent as possible. Could anybody tell me their experiences with this disc?.. I also hear that Samsungs Spinpoint are almost silent. Any truth to this? (I want my discs in sizes of 500Gb.)
2. Is this a good setup:
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3. I seem to remember from another post that someone wrote that raiding discs could actually decrease performance when working with audio. Is this the case?
Thanks,
Curvebender.
Message was edited by: curvebender
Message was edited by: curvebender

curvebender wrote:
2. Is this a good setup:
D1: Mac OS, Logic Pro
D2: Audio for Logic Pro
D3: Sample libraries, including direct from disc streaming.
Yes, excellent way to go. One suggestion: on your sample or audio drive, or an external FW, install a basic system + Logic app only. This enables you to have another system to boot from in case of trouble, or you can use it as a test bed for future updates etc. without affecting your primary system. You'd only boot into this drive in case of problems or for testing. I currently have Leopard running on one drive to test it out as I don't want to move to 10.5.x yet.

Best Hard Drive Size, Brand, etc.

I just purchased two Seagate 400gb external firewire hard drives (model#ST3400801CB-RK), one for storing my analog video footage and allowing me to have several imovie projects available at one time, and the second hard drive for backing up my 80gb mac mini and the first 400gb hard drive. I haven't opened the boxes yet, so my question is: do you have a recommendation as to the best hard drives out there for my uses? I don't want to purchase the wrong thing. If you think Seagate is good, I'll keep what I bought and start my movie projects this weekend. Thank you for your time.

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I do get occasional dropped frames (0-6-10 frames per hour) but I think journaling does not cause them. Some tapes have 0 dropped frames while some tapes have a few so I think the tape and bad spots on the tape play a much bigger role there.
Sure, it would be very interesting to run a test by importing a few tapes a few times with journaling on and off and then compare the amount of dropped frames. ...but there are so many other variables (the HD's fragmentation and self calibration, network activity, etc) that I haven't bothered to do this...
Journaling does need a minor overhead but AFAIK this is neglible with modern HDs with big caches and iMovie work which needs 3.6 MB/s (in practice this must be doubled to at least 7 MB/s to take care of occasional hiccups in the system).
I prefer the slight added robustness at the expense of minimal speed decrease that journaling offers.
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My computer is part of the iMac 1TB Seagate Hard Drive replacement program. What is the best external modem to use in order to back up my files prior to me dropping off my computer.

My computer is part of the iMac 1TB Seagate Hard Drive replacement program. What is the best external modem to use in order to back up my files prior to me dropping off my computer.

As Babowa says, get an external disk. You should have one for normal backups anyway.
Actually, I'm a strong fan of having multiple backups. 3 copies including the original, 2 different backup formats, and 1 backup off-site.
And when you have your iMac in for service, if you have just 1 backup at that point in time you have just 1 copy of your data. I get paranoid about my data.
But if you are just making 1 backup, I would use SuperDuper (free for a full clone, and extremely good software, as is Carbon Copy Cloner, but it is not free anymore).
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From Kappy (note: with this method, you will need to update to the present OS version using the appropriate Combo Update from Apple Downloads.)
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https://discussions.apple.com/message/12364050?messageID=12364050#12364050

Best hard drive for use with Time Machine

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Has anyone determined what the best external hard drive is for use with Time Machine? Is there a particular one that works exceptionally well with Time Machine, or is it much of a muchness?
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Hello! Help please! Best external hard drive preferably 1TB for macbook pro 2011. thank you!!!

Hello! Help please! Best external hard drive preferably 1TB for macbook pro 2011. thank you!!!

You can pickup any 1TB USB powered drive for about $100 at just about any local office supply store.
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However if your files sizes are going to be larger than 4GB in size (like video tends to be) then your going to need to select the drive in OS X's Disk utility (in the Applicaitons > Utilities folder) and format the drive exFAT instead.
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Do backup the 1TB to another 1TB drive using Carbon Copy Cloner or another backkup utility because 1TB is a lot of data to lose on a $100 drive.
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What's the best Hard Drive for TM? USB or FIrewire?

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Michael Conniff wrote:
The most recent is 1TB, and cost about the same as the previous one which was 500GB. The first d2 was only a little cheaper and was 60GB!
Same experience here! They keep the price about the same but you get double the storage, so the price of storage has been going down big time! But now I find myself ******* after Drobo Hey, that editor whacked me for "l u s t i n g" that isn't foul language is it?
-mj
Message was edited by: macjack

What is the best hard drive replacement for a first generation mac mini 1.25 mhz 40gb hard drive 1gb ram year 2005

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You posted this same question 24 hours ago, which has a reply. Did you have questions on that answer or did you want further discussion? You could reply to that thread, there's no need to start a new thread.

What is the Best Hard Drive for a Powerbook Pismo 200 and best size for sto

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http://eshop.macsales.com/MyOWC/index.cfm?StartOver=1&TI=5006
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What's the best hard drive for my 2008 24" I Mac Intel ?
I use to have a WD3200AAJS but it's dead now , and I would like to upgrade to a good one does any body know what I can get ?

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Best hard drive for raid.

Hey,
I know this question may be posted quite frequently, but I can't seem to find a definitive answer.
I plan on getting one 500gb hd from mac when I buy my pro ( I will use this drive as my boot drive). Then buy three aditional 500gb hard dirves from other world computing. These three hard dirves will all be striped in a RAID 0. Until this point I planned on purchasing three maxtor maxline 500's. But I am not completely sure this will be best for my set up.
* I plan on using this computer for digital media content, ie. Shake, After Effects, Final Cut Pro, and Color. I also want to eventually be importing and editing HD footage.
So, whats the best hard drive I can buy three of to stripe together in a RAID 0 in my Mac Pro?
Thank you in advance for your help.
powerbook Mac OS X (10.4.10) getting mac pro

You'll get get different people giving you different responses based in their personal preferences. Ultimately though, there are realistically only 3 main contenders when it comes to the 500GB drive which are…
- Maxtor MaXLine
- Seagate Barracuda ES
- Western Digital RE2
The Maxtor is an extremely proficient all-round drive but does tend to run a little hot. Uncomfortably hot for some though I've found that my MaXLine IIIs, which run at similar temperatures to be just fine. One big downside to this drive is that Maxtor/Seagate no longer manufacture this drive. These drives are the small file access kings in my opinion which makes them fantastic boot/small file scratch drives like for Photoshop.
The Seagate drives really suck at small file, fast access performance so that make really poor boot/general use drives. However, they excel at large file sustained transfers which should help with your video editing.
Finally The Western Digital drives are the queitest and coolest of the bunch. Again they're a good all-round performer and are the favourite of many. Having the least experience with these I can't say too much of their performance.

IMac 1TB Seagate Hard Drive Replacement Program - how long does it take?

I started a new thread for this issue since the original thread has degenerated into a rant. I just got my love letter from Apple informing me that my new 27" iMac has the bad drive. I backup to an external USB drive using Time Machine, and I am planning to have my nearest Apple store replace the drive sometime in the next few weeks.
I am posting to ask if anyone has yet contacted Apple about this issue? I am curious how long it takes to swap the drives. Can it be done while you wait? Does Apple have any ability to clone the old drive's data to the new? Has anyone been able to arrange for in-home service as mentioned in the original thread?
Please don't use this new thread to rant about the problem. If you need to let off steam, please post to the original thread.
Thanks for the help!

Greetings from an apple mac newbie in UK. On the one hand, after getting the email today I was disappointed to find my brand new shiny mac 21.5 might have a fault on hard drive, on the other at least apple points it out! But doubly frustrating for someone that has just taken the plunge and converted from pc/microsoft rubbish after two decades and still finding my feet in macworld....and who upgraded to OS X lion this past weekend without a hitch (nervous as an XP SP2/SP3 veteran)...and had to pay for Lion because I bought my imac just a week to early to qualify for free Lion upgrade.
My decision on Hard drive is to wait and see, firstly to guage experience of apple turn around times/customer experience etc in UK and secondly because I would like to understand what kind of percentage of the seagate drives are faulty...I am backing up with time machine, the machine is under warranty and applecare too, so maybe no need to rush, there's a year yet at least.
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PS does anyone else in the UK have my mac dual drive configuration...?

I have a power mac g4 with mac os 10.4. 11 , I want to change the hard-drive ,what program can I used to transfer one hard-drive to another hard- drive on this mac pc.

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Hard Drive Maintenance & Final Cut Pro

Hello,
I am a student running Final Cut Studio on my Mac Pro with 3 500GB Hard Drives, 2 Internal, 1 External LaCie Firewire 800. I do a lot of work with Maya and HD Editing. I am wondering if it is a good idea to have some sort of hard drive maintenance software to keep the drives working in great condition? Or does Mac OS X Tiger's disk utility do the job? If it is a good idea to have software what is a good one to use? I have heard of Disk Warrior and Drive Genius...but maybe there are better ones? Or should I not really be concerned?
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Good advice David. I generally subscribe to the "if it aint broke, don't fix it" policy as well.
But I have to say that since I started using DW (I run it on my system drive every 2 months and on capture drives after heavy use or accidental disconnect in the case of FW) I've virtually eliminated drive issues, from sluggishness to certain types of failure. Is it a "be all end all" app. certainly not, I've lost a few drives in my time... it's gotta happen, but it's the first app. I've found that seems worth using for regular maintenance. And as you said, the times I needed it NOW, it's more often than not, been the app that saved my butt.
That being said my system does get heavy use. There's always something going on, often around the clock, with a lot of transferring from drive to drive, creating and deleting render files etc. So perhaps I abuse things more than some and because of that, find it more useful than some.
rh

Best hard drive maintenance program for Leopard

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