Jan 3 2004
As supporters of Micromat and TechTool Pro 3, we’ve been dragged around by the constantly changing release date of TechTool Pro 4. Well, it’s finally here. All I can really say is, “Wow, it has all the new stuff that I wanted, but where are all the things that I used to like?” Continue to the review…
Note:
Jan 3 2004
As supporters of Micromat and TechTool Pro 3, we’ve been dragged around by the constantly changing release date of TechTool Pro 4. Well, it’s finally here. All I can really say is, “Wow, it has all the new stuff that I wanted, but where are all the things that I used to like?”
TechTool Pro 4 marches onto stage with quite a few new features. The most notable is the fact that TTP4 is now OS X native (it runs under OS X). TTP4 installs and runs smoothly on any OS X system and comes with a boot-able OS X CD, but that’s another story entirely and I’ll discuss it later. TTP4 now has the ability to create an eDrive partition, which is a small disk partition that houses a very minimal system and a copy of TTP4. Booting from the eDrive makes it quick and easy to perform tasks that would otherwise require booting from the CD (yes, we will discuss that later). TTP4′s last new and notable feature is its ability to multitask its tests. Selected tests or suites will run together, which greatly improves the total testing time.
I mentioned that TTP4 is actually missing some things that TTP3 had. At MWSF 2003 (yes, it was that long ago), Micromat promised “TechTool Pro 3 and more”. Well, I have the “more”, but I’m missing some of the “TechTool Pro 3″. If you compare TechTool Pro 4 to TechTool Pro 3, TechTool Pro 4′s glass is half-full…or half-empty…which ever way you look at it. Since I have the TTP3 and TTP4 manuals in front of me, I’m just going to go down the list of useful features that I remember from TTP3.
Audio: In TTP3, I could basically use a variety of standard waveforms and channels to check my speakers, but in TTP4, I have three levels that I can change and hear the resulting output…I guess that’s nice…though I’m not sure why I would use it.
Directory Maintenance/Optimization: In TTP3, I had a comprehensive, multi-colored graph of what was going on. In TTP4, I’m stuck with a white/aqua-blob graph that seems less than accurate.
Floppy Disk Cleaning: In TTP3, I had the wonderful ability to really clean a floppy drive. TTP3 would force the drive to attempt to read the cleaning disk, which actually cleans the drive better than just sticking the disk in for 2 seconds. Apparently that’s not important enough to put into TTP4. I have to disagree. In this day and age, floppy drives are gaining dust, which is exactly why we need a good cleaning program when we need to use them.
Modem Tests/Network Tests/Internet Tests: In TTP3, I had them. In TTP4, I don’t.
Virus Check/Software Conflicts Check: In TTP3, I had them. In TTP4, I don’t.
MultiTester: In TTP3, I could choose which tests I wanted to run in one testing period. In TTP4, I’m faced with three “suites” which are “Basic”, “Intermediate”, and “Advanced”. If you choose one of these suites, multitasking takes over and you have to fight your CPU usage to stop the ones that you don’t want.
Now, about that CD. I chose to boot from the CD and run Optimization and Directory Maintenance. That was a big mistake. According to Micromat’s tech support (thanks for getting back to me, BTW), “TechTool Pro 4 [Optimization] uses standard file write-copy-delete methods to rearrange the files. While this method is slower than using low-level calls, it is far safer since there is no risk to the data.” Well, the unusual time of the first half of the Optimization wasn’t the half of it. TTP4 and OS X (on the boot disk) actually froze at the half-way point! There was no progress for two hours and hitting the stop button only brought up everyone’s favorite spinning color thing. I had to force a reboot and do it again. With most of the optimization done, TTP4 quickly finished without freezing. Then came the Directory Maintenance. The same problem occurred, along with the same reboot, and the same successful second run. Update: This problem was fixed in v4.0.3, which was released in August of 2004. You can either order a new boot-able CD with v4.0.3 (or higher) from Micromat or use BootCD to create your own.
I mentioned this to Micromat’s tech support department, and they recommended that I create an eDrive. “The eDrive allows for a virtual memory file to be created
since the eDrive is on a read/write volume, unlike the CD which is a read-only volume and does not allow for a VM file to be created when booted from it. Since Mac OS X is a virtual memory operating system, we realized that the eDrive feature was the best option to avoid issue like this and more importantly allow the user to have an emergency partition to boot from when issues arise.” Well guys, while the eDrive is a nice feature, nothing beats an external (or separate internal) hard drive with a full system and all of your favorite utilities. I can also confirm that I did not experience any freezing while running off of my external drive. Honestly, I don’t know if I should blame Apple or Micromat for this. After all, it is an OS X issue, but Micromat didn’t say anything about “Beware of possible freezing” in their manual.
IMPORTANT NOTES: The eDrive and boot-able CD run under the first release of OS X 10.3, so make sure to disconnect your FireWire 800 drives before booting from your eDrive or boot-able CD (You can also disconnect your FireWire 400 drives too, but there have been no proven issued between these drives and OS X 10.3). To make an external hard drive boot-able under OS X, make sure to format the drive as “HFS+ (Journaled)”, most external drives ship as MS-DOS. In order to optimize or perform directory maintenance on an OS X volume, you will need to use TTP4 to disable Journaling.
All things considered, TechTool Pro 4 is a good utility suite, and a must-have for all Mac users.
Pros: Finally OS X native, multitasking tests, eDrive creates a small and boot-able partition, boot-able CD included.
Cons: Missing several useful tests from TechTool Pro 3.
