Hard Drive Utility

[maestrosteve]

Is there a Mac hard drive utility that tells you how many hours use the drive has?
Does this utility work for external USB and Firewire drives as well as internal drives?

I need to purchase some new hard drives and was reading some reviews on Amazon.com from PC owners who have some kind of utility that tells them how many hours use is on their drives, and some have found that drives that they purchased NEW had many hours of use on them, that they really weren't new at all, but sold as new. These drives were purchased on Amazon and shipped by Amazon, so you'd feel like you were buying from a reputable seller. I'd like to be able to check all the new drives that I purchase.

 

[kohlson]

Is there a Mac hard drive utility that tells you how many hours use the drive has?
Does this utility work for external USB and Firewire drives as well as internal drives?
You want a SMART utility, like from Volitans. For SATA connected devices you get all sorts of information, including hours. I believe there are issues with getting this information through FW and USB.

 

[maestrosteve]

Thanks for the reply. Since all the drives I'd be buying from now on are going to be externals, probably in a USB 3.0 case, I'd be looking for info that the Volitans Smart Utility can't give me. The few externals (Firewire and USB 3) that I already tested with this utility come up as unsupported and give no info on them at all.

 

[Weaselboy]

http://binaryfruit.com/drivedx

I've been happy with DriveDX. There is a third party driver here that is required to read SMART status over USB. This will be the case no matter what SMART utility you use.

 

[simonsi]

+1 for DriveDX, I don't use it on externals but I'll have a look at that driver...

 

[chscag]

+1 for DriveDX, I don't use it on externals but I'll have a look at that driver...

Note... the driver download is only necessary if you purchase DriveDX from the Mac App Store since drivers are not allowed. If you purchased DriveDX from the developer's web site (see Weaselboy's link) the driver is already included.

 

[simonsi]

Note... the driver download is only necessary if you purchase DriveDX from the Mac App Store since drivers are not allowed. If you purchased DriveDX from the developer's web site (see Weaselboy's link) the driver is already included.

Hmmm - I can't remember which, my externals are listed as unsupported in DU so will have to check...

 

[simonsi]

Note... the driver download is only necessary if you purchase DriveDX from the Mac App Store since drivers are not allowed. If you purchased DriveDX from the developer's web site (see Weaselboy's link) the driver is already included.

I have the App Store version, downloaded the driver package, installed, rebooted....nada. Still same on two machines and 2 different external drives, at least 1 seems to be on the supported list so will investigate further tonight....

 

[chscag]

I have the App Store version, downloaded the driver package, installed, rebooted....nada. Still same on two machines and 2 different external drives, at least 1 seems to be on the supported list so will investigate further tonight....

Yeah, I ran into that with one of my external hard drives (iomega). Supposedly supported, but DriveDX says it's not. I tend to believe DriveDX.

 

[simonsi]

Yeah, I ran into that with one of my external hard drives (iomega). Supposedly supported, but DriveDX says it's not. I tend to believe DriveDX.

Me too LOL