First, I am pleased to say that TechTool Pro has always, always been a reliable product for me. It is a significant part of my disk cleanup/maintenance, and backup processing (Onyx and SuperDuper! are the other, excellent products I use). Whenever I use any of those products, and including each feature of TechTool Pro, I am not using either of my machines for any other tasks.
In regards to performing a Surface Scan, on another Mac forum, an individual raised a question about using one's machine while running a Surface Scan. Part of the reason for the question was how long the Surface Scan taking.
My take on this is:
1. Running other software while a Surface Scan is going on could partially (or mostly) cause issues. I for one would not want to be writing anything to the device being scanned, especially with a possibility of writing a bad block (or two).
2. For each of my 256 gig SSDs, it only takes between 20 and 25 minutes to run the Surface Scan.
3. For the two 1 TB, 7200 rpm external drives I have, and via a Firewire 800 connection, it takes 4 hours to complete a scan on each drive. I of course run those overnight.
On that forum, some folks "claimed" it was OK to be doing other things on their Mac while the Surface Scan was running. In fact, one user quoted a discussion here about TechTool Pro 7 and such surface scans. Here is the link:
www.micromat.com/component/kunena/techto...face-scan-of-and-ssd
So, I'd like to see micromat's take on this. Also, what influence do the following factors have on how fast the Surface Scan runs:
1. Amount of free space on the volume.
2. Rotational speed of the device. For traditional hard drives, rotational speed (ie, rpm) is used for that. For SSDs, there are stats for Sequential and Random Reads and writes.
3. For internal drives, speeds of the internal bus. For external drives, type of connectivity (USB 2.0, USB 2.0, Fire2ire 400, Firewire 800, and Thunderbolt).
In regards to performing a Surface Scan, on another Mac forum, an individual raised a question about using one's machine while running a Surface Scan. Part of the reason for the question was how long the Surface Scan taking.
My take on this is:
1. Running other software while a Surface Scan is going on could partially (or mostly) cause issues. I for one would not want to be writing anything to the device being scanned, especially with a possibility of writing a bad block (or two).
2. For each of my 256 gig SSDs, it only takes between 20 and 25 minutes to run the Surface Scan.
3. For the two 1 TB, 7200 rpm external drives I have, and via a Firewire 800 connection, it takes 4 hours to complete a scan on each drive. I of course run those overnight.
On that forum, some folks "claimed" it was OK to be doing other things on their Mac while the Surface Scan was running. In fact, one user quoted a discussion here about TechTool Pro 7 and such surface scans. Here is the link:
www.micromat.com/component/kunena/techto...face-scan-of-and-ssd
So, I'd like to see micromat's take on this. Also, what influence do the following factors have on how fast the Surface Scan runs:
1. Amount of free space on the volume.
2. Rotational speed of the device. For traditional hard drives, rotational speed (ie, rpm) is used for that. For SSDs, there are stats for Sequential and Random Reads and writes.
3. For internal drives, speeds of the internal bus. For external drives, type of connectivity (USB 2.0, USB 2.0, Fire2ire 400, Firewire 800, and Thunderbolt).