Filed under: Software
Pssst. Want to win a 1.5TB SATA drive?
Volitans Software has announced a giveaway to publicize their hard disk diagnostic utility, SMART Utility for Mac. Between now and 11:59 PM EST on December 24th, you can enter a giveaway in which the winner gets a choice of either a new Momentus 5400.6 SATA 500GB laptop hard drive or a Barracuda 7200.11 SATA 1.5TB desktop drive. You don't need to purchase SMART Utility or even try out the software to enter, although Volitans would be happy if you download a free trial. SMART Utility provides more information than the SMART Status in Apple's Disk Utility, including predictive fault detection that can inform you that a drive is about to fail. Disk Utility only gives you an indication when your drive has already failed. While you could always run smartmontools from the command line, SMART Utility displays drive information in a clear, easy-to-read format.
Only one entry per person is allowed, and the winner will be announced on Christmas Day. Another 1.5TB of storage for the pile 'o equipment in my home office sounds like an incredible Christmas present!
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Johnny said 10:08AM on 12-09-2008
I love giveaways! But I definitely hope I win that iPhone/MacBook/Display giveaway mentioned here a few days ago. I'd settle with a 1.5TB if I had to though :)
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Thomas said 10:11AM on 12-09-2008
With all of the problems associated with the Seagate 1.5TB drives and OSX, predictive fault detection would be really nice.
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Jash Sayani said 10:37AM on 12-09-2008
Wow! Thanks TUAW !!
I hope I win! Will get the 500GB Laptop HD if I win !
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michael said 10:47AM on 12-09-2008
I never win stuff
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Raza said 10:44AM on 12-09-2008
Hmmm, I maybe be playing the spoiler here, but doesn't this piece of software do exactly the same thing as the (great) freeware utility SMARTReporter?
I have been using it for a few years, without issue or note.
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Ed said 7:20PM on 12-09-2008
I'll second that. SMARTReporter alerted me to my MacBook's drive failure early on, allowing me to swap the drive for free via applecare without losing any time or data.
Matt B said 6:44PM on 12-10-2008
I'm the developer (thanks TUAW for the link!) and no, it does more. It looks at the individual SMART attributes, where as Disk Utility and SMART Reporter just look at the overall SMART attribute. It can also look at those attributes and see a pattern that will lead to a failure.
Mike said 10:50AM on 12-09-2008
Only open to residents of the USA :(
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Paulo Diniz said 10:56AM on 12-09-2008
I will win this
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Michael Beck said 11:02AM on 12-09-2008
So.. How do you enter?
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BabyGotMac said 11:24AM on 12-09-2008
No way to export the report that i am seeing? Can't even copy/paste. :(
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Matthew Butch said 6:57PM on 12-10-2008
Sorry, unfortunately not yet. Its a common feature request, and I do hope to implement in a future version (looking like 2.2 for now).
KomputarGuy said 11:38AM on 12-09-2008
oooo, that would come in handy, you can never have enough GB's...or TB's..
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misterrios said 11:43AM on 12-09-2008
I guess the winner can now "stack the memory to the sky"
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rt said 11:47AM on 12-09-2008
re
"doesn't this piece of software do exactly the same thing as the (great) freeware utility SMARTReporter?"
the short answer is no - it does more.
the slightly longer answer is that SMARTReporter/Apple Disc Utility only looks at a subset of the SMART parameters whereas SMART utility looks at more (all?).
Can confirm from personal experience that SMART utility flagged an early problem (disc sectors failing/erroring i think it was) with a Samsung 1Tb enabling me to get all data off and the disc RMA'd.
Neither Disc Utility or SMARTReporter reported anything wrong even when disc started to get noisy during the backup data transfer!
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-wsn said 12:33PM on 12-09-2008
Hi
I was bitten by that small windows of when a Seagate 7200.11 1.5TB disk went in my Drobo and to when Drobo (along with many others) were forced to disqualified the drive.
The drive is a nightmare, and dealing with Seagate support is not very good these days either.
Ultimately newegg stepped up when they were not obligated too. (thanks newegg)
I hear that Seagate may have released new firmware for the 1.5, but given how poorly they treated me and their failure to acknowledge the problem in till they were forced to, will ensure I keep seagate drives out of my life for some time.
Seagate and Sony... two great companies that had great products, that were worth a premium... at one time... that no longer are.
Cheers
-wsn
PS: Too bad the laptop drive is only 5400, would rather have less space and better spin times. (7200)
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Terry said 1:50PM on 12-09-2008
I'd love to enter in the contest...is this all I have to do?
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Ian said 2:45PM on 12-09-2008
I was going to point out that these new 1.5TB drives have a notoriously high failure rate right now, but since it's part of a promo for a drive diagnostic utility, it's all good.
Seems like a pretty good giveaway. Count me in!
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Mike said 3:00PM on 12-09-2008
I could surely use 1.5TB of storage... :)
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Ashwin said 2:51PM on 12-09-2008
I'll take the 500GB notebook drive.
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