fink@vms.macc.wisc.edu (Jerry Fink - MACC & DACS) (08/16/88)
With all the postings about SpinRite, what about Disk Technician? How does this product compare aginst SpinRite? -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= | Jerome Fink bitnet: fink@wiscmacc | | 112 N. Mills St. #109 arpanet:fink@vms.macc.wisc.edu | | Madison, WI 53715 decnet: wircs3::fink | | (608)256-8454 | | | | Madison Academic Computing Center (MACC) | | School of Nursing: Data Analysis and Computing Center (DACS) | | University of Wisconsin - Madison | -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
svirsky@ttidca.TTI.COM (William Svirsky) (08/24/88)
In article <613@dogie.edu> fink@vms.macc.wisc.edu (Jerry Fink - MACC & DACS) writes: >With all the postings about SpinRite, what about Disk Technician? How does this >product compare aginst SpinRite? The July 25, 1988 issue of Infoworld did a head to head review of Disk Technician Plus and Spin Rite. Each of these programs uses a different technique to prevent hard disk problems. Both programs were tested on a 20M hard drive that had 2 spots found bad by a Wilson Winchester disk drive analyzer. Disk Technician: Price $130. Copy protected; you must boot and run from the floppy. Uses statistical analysis to spot disk errors and then locks out bad areas. Unfortunately, the statistical data is stored on the copy-protected floppy, so you are recommended not to use the program on more than 1 hard disk. It's possible though. It can also determine what it thinks the optimum interleave is and do a non-destructive low-level format with the new interleave. Daily runs require about 3 minutes for a 20M disk, weekly runs about 15 minutes, and monthly runs about 3 hours. Disk Technician found both known bad spots and also flagged 1 other location as unusable. If a sector is found to be unstable, but the data can be recovered, DT automatically moves the data to a good sector. Works with ST506 drives with capacities up to 136M and RLL drives up to 208M. Should work with most other drives but won't with some ESDI and SCSI. Spin Rite: Price $59. Not copy protected; 30 money-back guarantee. Spin Rite is basically a nondestructive low-level formatter. The theory behind it is that regularly refreshing the data on the drive will prevent disk problems caused by not-so-stable media and/or by slight alignment changes due to wear. SP does, though, do tests to insure that a sector can hold data. Like DT, if it finds an unstable sector, but can recover the data, it automatically moves it to a good sector. It also determines what it thinks is the optimal interleave and reformats at the new interleave. SP is designed to be run about once a month. It also takes about 3 hours for 20M. Unfortunately, SP did not find the 2 known bad spots on the disk, *but*, after running SP, Infoworld's Hardware Benchmark System disk tests did not encounter any data errors even though it examined the disk several times. Won't work with Priam drives using the EDVR.SYS driver, the Toshiba laptop hard disk, and systems using CSSL's Awesome I/O card or the Plus Hardcard. Only works with partitions up to 32M. -- Bill Svirsky, Citicorp+TTI, 3100 Ocean Park Blvd., Santa Monica, CA 90405 Work phone: 213-450-9111 x2597 svirsky@ttidca.tti.com | ...!{csun,psivax,rdlvax,retix}!ttidca!svirsky
rcj@killer.DALLAS.TX.US (Robert Johnson) (08/25/88)
With all of this talk about Disk Techician, I was just wondering if anyone
wanted to buy a copy of DT? I bought it by mistake (real good...) and
just wanted to see if anyone else wanted it. I have never used it before,
but I have opend the package and read the docs. The retail price is
$130, but I will sell it for $50. Any takers?
Robert Johnson
(214) 357-5306
..!texsun!killer!rcjarritt@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu (02/16/90)
In article <50017@microsoft.UUCP>, clayj@microsoft.UUCP (Clay JACKSON) writes: > I had an 84Mb disk "die" horribly in a power surge (it was my personal > machine, so getting it replaced was a "last resort"). I used Disk > Technician Advanced, by Prime Solutions, and after a few weeks or repeatedly > running it overnight (the manual has a bunch of suggestions on how > to recover from such things), it found and locked out all of the bad > spots caused by the surge (I assume that the head contacted the media in > a couple of spots). I've also had very good luck with Disk Technician (Pro, not Advanced, but they're functionally near-identical). The only problem is that it seems to be too conservative. Repeatedly running the "total media" test locks out more and more sectors; it's beginning to look like it would eventually mark the whole disk bad if run enough times. The "track integrity" and "hyperspeed" tests do not seem to behave in this way. (This is a minor gripe, considering DTP saved me $300 by reviving my old hard disk, which had been comatose for two years.) Has anyone else had similar experiences with the Disk Technician products? ________________________________________________________________________ Ray Arritt | Dept. of Physics and Astronomy | Univ. of Kansas | Lawrence, KS 66045 | arritt@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu | arritt@ukanvax.bitnet |