dave@PRC.Unisys.COM (David Lee Matuszek) (08/25/89)
I recently bought S.U.M. 1.1 from Symantec. This note details my experiences with that product. This is not the latest version of S.U.M. That's because I got it on a Friday and Symantec announced the new version on Monday. I sent in my registration card but haven't heard from them yet. So these comments may or may not be applicable to S.U.M. 2.0. (Sum II?) S.U.M. appears to consist of two primary components: Guardian, which is supposed to keep track of where your files are on disk (essentially a second directory) in the event of a disk crash, or if you want to recover a file you deleted; and a number of recovery tools you use after a crash, to try to pick up the pieces. The latter were inherited from the old MacZap program, and probably still work pretty well. I ordered S.U.M. at the same time that I ordered a new 80 Meg hard disk. I first installed S.U.M. on my old HD20; then, when my new disk arrived, I put it on that, too. Most of the following comments are about the first installation (on the HD20). Major gripe #1: Installation I began by reading the User Guide Addendum and most of the User Guide. The installation went reasonably smoothly (creation of the SUM Startup Disk depends on some later steps having been performed, but that's minor). HOWEVER, when I tried to "Install Guardian Volume Save," the program told me that I did not have enough contiguous blocks. I followed the instructions presented (move stuff off the hard disk temporarily), clearing over 1 Meg. This was not enough. I thought perhaps HD Tuneup would make some space for me, so I ran it. This appears to have been a serious blunder (see below). I used Symantec Tools to look at the hard disk. Then I cleared out 3.5 Meg on the hard disk, and tried "Install Guardian Volume Save" again. Again it failed. So I ran HD Tuneup again, looked at the hard disk, and found that my largest contiguous block of disk space was smaller than before! So I put everything back on my hard disk and went to bed. The next day I started again, clearing out space on my hard disk. Finally, when I had cleared 8.4 Meg, "Install Guardian Volume Save" finally worked (taking about a second, which at this point seemed like adding insult to injury). As my hard disk is only an Apple HD20, this seems, shall we say, excessive. And this thing is supposed to be useable for floppies? I put my files back on the hard disk, and tried to update the guardian volume save file. Much to my surprise, this worked--I fully expected not to have enough contiguous memory left. However, I would like to know whether I can expect it to continue working. Does it reserve adequate space for itself? Total installation time, approximately 8 hours, 7 of which were spent shuffling files on and off floppies. When my new hard disk arrived, installation went smoothly; S.U.M. isn't hard to install on a brand-new disk with nothing on it. There is, however, one slight problem: The manual has nothing (zero, zilch) to say about installing Guardian on systems with more than one hard disk. So I don't really know if Guardian works on the boot disk, the volume it is installed on, all mounted volumes, or just what. I did what seemed reasonable, and a little snooping around shows that Guardian's invisible files are on both hard disks, but I don't know what's in those files. So at this point, I don't know what's being kept track of. When I get some more time, I'll do some more snooping and figure it out. Major gripe #2: HDTuneup From what I can tell, this program appears to take a very short-sighted view of disk management. My theory is that for each file it looks for a block of contiguous space large enough to hold it, then moves the file to that space. (This theory is supported by the illustration on page 4-3.) Unless it is carefully done, the cost of defragmenting files this way is that free space gets really seriously fragmented, so that new files are harder and harder to fit in; this will likely result in poorer future performance, and may well be inferior to the System's native algorithm. My experience with "Install Guardian Volume Save" certainly suggests that this is the case. I may well be wrong in this, as the manual provides very little to go on. Unless someone at Symantec can explain why I am mistaken, I will shortly post to the internet a description of this problem, along with a warning that, in my opinion, HD Tuneup should never be used. Major gripe #3: The Manual The manual is obviously written for "the rest of them." I understand and appreciate the value of such an approach, but in this case the manual carefully rations out not quite enough information to actually use the program. The manual does state that S.U.M. will consume about 1% of the space on your hard disk. HOWEVER, it does not mention that this space must be in one contiguous block, nor does it suggest any techniques for acquiring such a block. (This is apart from the question of whether such a severe demand is technically justified. It may be, in which case the manual ought to explain the justification.) I have not tried to use HD partition. The manual tells all about which buttons to push; but I'm willing to bet that the disk has to be empty or nearly empty in order to create a partition. Maybe not; the manual doesn't say. From the chatter on the net I gather that S.U.M. creates some kind of "pseudo-partitions"--I don't know, but my new hard disk came with UniMac partitioning software, so I don't ever plan to try to use Symantec's HD partition. The manual does not say what the assorted files are for, hence the user has little information that can be used for determining which files must be kept on the disk and which may be relegated to floppies. This is particularly true of the invisible files, which are alluded to in the manual, but not named. In this matter, I can make some educated guesses, but have no real assurance that they are correct. Minor gripes The user manual is poorly edited. The most pervasive error is the frequent reference to "loosing" files. Included with S.U.M. were copies of Font/DA Mover 3.6 (not 3.8) and TeachText 1.1 (not 1.2). I don't understand why newly-purchased software can't include the latest versions of system software. Older versions of Fon/DA Mover do not understand NFNTs and can screw up your newer fonts. There seems to be no way to build a S.U.M. Startup Disk as described in the manual, and still have room to back up the Volume Save File on the same floppy, as is recommended. However, I could do this if I can omit "Disk Clinic" from the floppy. The manual makes a big deal about always accessing the programs via Disk Clinic. In italics: "You should not launch a program directly from the desktop unless you understand disk structures and the symptoms of disk problems." However, no explanation is given, and (for the use I have so far made of S.U.M.), Disk Clinic is just a 197K Finder substitute, which I could well do without, particulary on my SUM Startup floppy. What, precisely, must I know? What, if anything, does this program do for me? For some of us, at least, explanation works better than intimidation. In view of the carefully rationed information given by the User's Manual, I do think that a technical appendix is in order. This manual provides much less information than the MacZap manual (or "Inside Switcher" or the Fedit+ documentation). The User's Manual does mention an MFS/HFS Book "(see enclosed brochure)," which I would be interested in purchasing. Unfortunately, no such brochure was enclosed. The Signature Files include files for Word 1.0 and Word 3.0; however, I am using Word 4.0. Perhaps the Signature File for Word 3.0 will also work for 4.0? I guess I'll never know unless/until I have a disk crash severe enough to require the use of Signature Files. Summary If you have a disk crash, the MacZap tools incorporated in S.U.M. have a good reputation, and are probably worth having. If I were to do it over again, I'd wait until I had that crash, *then* buy S.U.M. Guardian may be a technically sound program; you will probably find it satisfactory if (1) you have only one hard disk, (2) you have lots of room on the disk, and (3) you don't mind not knowing what it does. I believe the disk defragmentation utility makes things worse, and I don't plan ever to use it again. Someday I'll probably buy Disk Express instead. I have no comment on the partitioning software, as my new hard disk (80+ Meg Seagate from Hard Disks Int'l, for $599!) came with UniMacs partitioning software. Disclaimers (1) There's a lot I don't know about this software (and yes, I did RTFM), so I am not the world's most informed reviewer; (2) I have version 1.1; if I get a free upgrade to 2.0 I'll post a brief addendum (but I certainly won't spend any money to upgrade!); (3) These criticisms should not be generalized to Symantec's other products; Think Pascal (nee Lightspeed Pascal) is superb, and I understand Think C is also great (but haven't used it myself). (4) The facts are reported above as accurately as I could manage; the interpretation of those facts, and my resultant opinions, are mine and mine alone. -- Dave Matuszek (dave@prc.unisys.com) -- Unisys Corp. / Paoli Research Center / PO Box 517 / Paoli PA 19301 -- Any resemblance between my opinions and those of my employer is improbable. * 20th anniversary? Yeah, but it's 17 years since the LAST man on the moon! *
hammen@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (Robert J. Hammen) (08/25/89)
In article <11238@burdvax.PRC.Unisys.COM> dave@PRC.Unisys.COM (David Lee Matuszek) writes: > >I recently bought S.U.M. 1.1 from Symantec. > >Major gripe #1: Installation > >performed, but that's minor). HOWEVER, when I tried to "Install >Guardian Volume Save," the program told me that I did not have >enough contiguous blocks. Most of the problems this person had with the installation of SUM are due to the fact that, for a good portion of its features (volume save + hard disk partion), SUM requires contiguous (unfragmented) disk space. Well, you might think that's no problem, since SUM includes the HD Tuneup optimizer, right? Wrong. HD Tuneup is a FILE optimizer, and not a DISK optimizer. It attempts to defragment files by moving them to a contiguous area of the disk, if possible. This can actually make the disk more fragmented, though. You need to run a true DISK optimizer (such as DiskExpress) to actually move all of the files into one contiguous area on the disk. IMHO, releasing SUM without a true disk optimizer, even though it sometimes requires one to function, was a serious error. One of the "new features" in SUM II is the disk optimizer... >Total installation time, approximately 8 hours, 7 of which were spent >shuffling files on and off floppies. >When my new hard disk arrived, installation went smoothly. Again, this is likely due to the fact that it's been a long time since you last reformatted/initialized your HD20 (maybe years) and your disk was heavily fragmented. A disk with nothing on it isn't too badly fragmented :-) >disk. So I don't really know if Guardian works on the boot disk, the >volume it is installed on, all mounted volumes, or just what. I agree that this should be documented better in the manual. A little observation shows me that as a disk is dismounted, the Shield cursor comes up for a time and the drive is accessed. At shut down time, you should notice the program updating each drive (as long as you did the "Install Guardian Volume Save" for _each_ hard drive). >I have not tried to use HD partition. The manual tells all about >which buttons to push; but I'm willing to bet that the disk has to be >empty or nearly empty in order to create a partition. Maybe not; the >manual doesn't say. From the chatter on the net I gather that S.U.M. >creates some kind of "pseudo-partitions"--I don't know, but my new >hard disk came with UniMac partitioning software, so I don't ever plan >to try to use Symantec's HD partition. You're correct here in that HD Partition needs contiguous space in order to create its files. Each partition is actually an invisible file that's the size of the partition. Personally, I don't use HD Partition, because the first version was a bit flaky (I lost some files to it when a partition got trashed) and I have to rename the INIT to " HDPartition" to get it to load on my configuration (or else it just beeps at me. Real helpful, Symantec). There are a number of other things about SUM that seem a bit sloppy - there were (and maybe still are) bugs with the process of copying the volume save file to a floppy when a previous volume save is there - and things like the SUM 1.11 #2 disk crashing my Mac II every time it was inserted (even on an INITless system)_ until I unlocked the master disk (something I NEVER do) and rebuilt the desktop file. >The manual makes a big deal about always accessing the programs via >Disk Clinic. In italics: "You should not launch a program directly from >the desktop unless you understand disk structures and the symptoms >of disk problems." Disk Clinic is really a shell for all of the other programs that allows fairly novice users to pass configuration parameters to the other programs. If you can figure out how to launch HFS Recover, select source and destination disks, load a device driver, then you don't need Disk Clinic (personally, I do still use it because I find it a quick, step-by-step way to specify all of those parameters in advance. >The Signature Files include files for Word 1.0 and Word 3.0; however, >I am using Word 4.0. Perhaps the Signature File for Word 3.0 will also >work for 4.0? I'd like to point out that SUM 1.1 shipped a few months in advance of Word 4.0, so I don't hold this against Symantec. I also believe that Word 4 uses the same type & creator as Word 3 (gnash! snarl!), so it should still work, though I can't verify it now. >Guardian may be a technically sound program; you will probably find it >satisfactory if (1) you have only one hard disk, (2) you have lots of >room on the disk, and (3) you don't mind not knowing what it does. What do you mean by "not knowing what it does?" Guardian, rather simply, will keep its own record of your hard disk's directory should it get damaged (assuming you've activated the volume save). If you turn on the file save option, it will keep a record of deleted files in a seperate, invisible file. >don't plan ever to use it again. Someday I'll probably buy Disk >Express instead. Or get the SUM II upgrade (hopefully for free, in your case). BTW, there is a new version of DiskExpress coming out, DiskExpress II (geez, where are all of these Roman numerals coming from?). The way their ads describe it, it sounds like an INIT ("always optimizing your drive when your Mac is inactive" or somesuch. I called Alsoft today: the upgrade is $28, the list is $89.95, but if you buy it now for $69.95 list (MacConnection is cheaper), you'll get the upgrade for free... /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// / Robert Hammen | Service Bureau Manager and Macintosh Consultant / / Bulfin Printers | 1887 N. Water | Milwaukee WI 53202 | (414) 271-1887 / / hammen@csd4.csd.uwm.edu | uunet!uwmcsd4!hammen | Delphi: HAMMEN / / CI$: 70701,2104 | GEnie: R.Hammen | MacNet: HAMMEN | BIX: rhammen / ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
siegel@endor.harvard.edu (Rich Siegel) (08/25/89)
In article <11238@burdvax.PRC.Unisys.COM> dave@PRC.Unisys.COM (David Lee Matuszek) writes: > > [problems with SUM 1.1] > >(4) The facts are reported above as accurately as I could manage; the >interpretation of those facts, and my resultant opinions, are mine and >mine alone. Just an addendum to the above; this posting was an identical copy of a mail message sent directly to me; upon receipt of the message I forwarded it to our utilities group in California (since I'm not connected with SUM in any way, shape or form). Since he's taken the time and bandwidth to repost his message in the entirety, I can only assume that Mr. Matuszek has (a) not received a response of any sort, or (b) not received a satisfactory response. The alternatives are as follows: - You can call 1-800-441-7234 and talk to our Customer Support department. They will try to resolve your problem. - You can call the same number and try to get a free upgrade to the new version of SUM, which will resolve some of your complaints. Much of the software, and all (I believe) of the manuals are new. - If you're completely dissatisfied, you can return the product and get your money back. This would be a shame, given the trouble you've gone to thus far. As I said, just an addendum. I don't have any control over SUM from here, but I can try. R. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Rich Siegel Staff Software Developer Symantec Corporation, Language Products Group Internet: siegel@endor.harvard.edu UUCP: ..harvard!endor!siegel "When it comes to my health, I think of my body as a temple - or at least a moderately well-managed Presbyterian youth center." - Emo Phillips ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~