Mac Drive toolbox to fix overall disk related problems on Mac OS X

Are you searching for some application to solve disk related issues in your Mac Lion , Mountain Lion or Mavericks? Here we are with the solution.

Different computer operating systems use different file systems to format their hard drives. For example, Windows operating systems use both FAT and NTFS file systems, whereas Mac OS X uses the HFS+ file system to format its hard drive. To be more precise, in order to use a hard drive on a particular computer, you need to format it with the file system it supports. Based on the flaws a file system contains, data storage often becomes faulty or messy, which leads to degraded performance of the computers.

As mentioned earlier, Mac OS X formats its hard drive with the HFS+ file system (also known as Mac OS Extended (Journaled)) that is quite smart as compared to its predecessors in different versions of Macintosh operating system. When you format a hard drive as Mac OS Extended (Journaled), its storage space is divided into blocks of certain sizes that are divisible by 8, 16, 24, 32, and so on, aiming for data storage. When a program is executed, it requests the file system for storage blocks to store the data produced as the program’s output. In response to this, Mac file system allocates the nearest empty blocks to save the data. Meanwhile, there are a lot of chances that a few of the blocks contain free space along with the data, which is termed as the fragment. Likewise, a hard drive may contain a slew of fragmented blocks. 

“Fragmentation is a phenomenon that occurs due to inefficient utilization of the storage space of the hard drives, which results in reduced performance of the computer.”

Suppose that an array numbers [2, 4, 6, 8, 12] is produced as the result of execution of a program. Based on the size of the array produced, the program requests for 34 bytes space on the hard drive. However, since a large block of 34 bytes is not available, Mac file system divides the data into two segments, where one segment is of 32 bytes and another is of 2 bytes. However, an inefficient storage allocation algorithm may divide a file of 32 bytes into a number of segments and store in non-contiguous blocks, many of which contain free space. This causes storage space being wasted. In such a situation, the free space available inside the contiguously allocated regions is termed as internal fragmentation.

On the other hand, the implementation of an inefficient storage allocation algorithm causes storing a single file at multiple locations being scattered. Besides, such algorithms also fail to reorganize the scattered data of a single file in a logical order. Now, since free spaces are available outside the allocated regions, these are thus termed as external fragmentation.

In case of external fragmentation, since large blocks of free space are unavailable, HFS+ file system breaks large files into segments of smaller sizes. This causes scattering of data of a single large file and thus, it is termed as data fragmentation.

In fact, fragmentation is one of the major problems that computer users face. Fragmentation results in poor response from the data stored on the hard drive. In such a situation, your Mac boots sluggishly, programs execute poorly, and many like symptoms ultimately point towards degraded performance of your Mac system. A highly fragmented disk may lead to its crash and you may lose all your data, which you cannot avoid unless you use a professional application to defrag Mac drive.

Though Mac OS X includes Disk utility to fix the problems you encounter when using your Mac, it lacks disk defragmentation and speedup/cleanup tool to improve Mac performance. Well, you do not have to fuss over the issue, as you can use external disk defragmentation application instead. 

“The term defragmentation refers to the process that involves reorganizing the storage blocks of the hard drive logically in order to minimize the number of fragments.”

In addition to the internal factors, many external factors are also responsible for poor performance of your Mac. In order to fix all these problems simultaneously, a professional Mac cleaning application is required that can clean up the following areas of your Mac: 

Overfilled Mac volumes 

Today, computers provide huge amount of data storage space (e.g. 500GB or 1TB) in order to store massive amount of data. In order to store different types of data separately, you partition this storage space into required number of volumes. In case you have a collection of your favorite movies, there are chances that the volume storing movies being overfilled.

A volume is referred to as overfilled if the amount of free space available on it is below 10% of its storage capacity. Ideally, a disk must not be filled more than 90% of its capacity.

Since an overfilled disk may lead to corruption anytime, make sure none of your Mac volumes contains data more than 90% of its storage capacity (i.e. is not overfilled). In case your Mac has a number of volumes, you need to go for a check. If you find any of its volumes overfilled, remove all useless data and make your Mac system free from any such risk. Instead, you can use a professional Mac cleanup application that is able to remove unused files, large files, and other system-generated wastes. This not only improves the performance of your Mac, but frees up disk space as well. 

Mac Login items 

You must have noticed that one or more of the applications installed on your Mac are launched automatically as it boots to desktop. This is because certain applications create startup shortcuts for themselves when they are installed. After that, whenever your Mac boots, these shortcuts are executed, thereby utilizing Mac system resources. This affects the Mac startup process and hence, it boots sluggishly.

In fact, more the number of login items the poorer is the Mac startup process. In order to remove all these items, you need to track the following path: Apple menu > System Preference > Users & Groups, and then click Login Items tab.

In the Login Items tab, choose your account at the left and click to select unnecessary login items, and then click delete (-) button. Well, if you do not want to remove these items manually, then you can use a Mac cleaning app instead. 

Email self-downloads 

Mac OS X includes Apple’s email client app that in addition to its several exciting features, facilitates having a quick-view of the email attachments by rapid double-clicking them.

In fact, every time you have quick-view of such an attachment, it is downloaded to your Mac automatically at a default email downloads location. This evidently means that based on the number of times you have had quick-view of an attachment, several copies of it can be found in downloads folder.

Remove all these automatically downloaded email attachments not only to free up Mac disk space, but also to increase your Mail app’s speed. 

Duplicate files 

You must be downloading images, songs, videos, applications, and many other things on your Mac from the Internet, don’t you? Once these files are downloaded, they are found at their default download locations, from where you either copy or move them to the locations where other files of similar type are stored.

However, if you have copy these files and save them to some other locations on your Mac disk, you actually duplicate these files. In order to remove all duplicate files stored on your Mac drive, you can use a professional Mac cleanup application.

Professional Mac cleanup applications are able to remove these system wastes not only from the boot volume of your Mac drive, but from other secondary volumes as well. This boosts the performance of your Mac considerably. 

Stellar Drive Toolbox v3.0

Therefore, in order to fix up all disk related problems, you are recommended to go for a drive toolbox for Mac, as it can fix up every feasible cause minimizing Mac performance effectively.

How smartphones are harmful for children – Parents must know

Many parents are unaware of the dangers their children face while using smartphones. About 20% of parents, according to a poll by BBC, said that their children go upset (once in a day) when they see something on their phones.

Of course there are many parents who talk to their kids and ask them to be away from these influencing things but until and unless we use controls or search engine filters children will naturally run for something, which disturbs their mental piece.

The research reveals that most of the parents think that internet is more harmful than smartphones and son, they are least bother about smartphone usage by their kids. But, the fact is that when children access web on their phones, they are using the same internet, with same level of risks. 

Tips for parents 

Here we suggest some tips for parents

• There should be an open talk in family about what the members are doing online
• Sit with your child to share your views about inappropriate content and convince them about bad effects of cheap materials on net.
• Interact with them so that they feel free to share with you if they come across something upsetting while social networking.

For adult users who trade online, it is recommended by Microsoft to set PINs for their mobile phones and strong passwords for online accounts.

What Makes You Upgrade Your Mac HDD to a Much Faster SSD

“Cloning your Mac drive is certainly a grand initiative to keep your data protected at the time when your Mac starts throwing errors or some similar situation is encountered. Once you clone your Mac, since it takes the bootable backup of your Mac drive, you can use the clone drive to boot your Mac machine in case it is unable to boot from the original drive. Since cloning Mac drive to an external USB drive is going to be portable and convenient, you can boot any Mac machine having same system configuration with the clone drive. Well, since SSDs are much faster than the HDDs, choosing an SSD as the destination drive would be more advantageous.”

Well, there ain’t any uncertainty that the data stored on your Mac drive is valuable and you cannot afford losing it any cost. However, a disaster may strike anytime and make you lose all your data. Since you cannot prevent a disaster to strike, you can certainly avoid losing your precious data by implementing an advanced technique, which is termed as cloning Mac HDD. Besides, cloning your Mac HDD not only prevents your data from being lost, but also copies all applications installed on it to the destination drive. One of the vital features of cloning the Mac HDD is that the process consumes considerable amount of time and system resources (i.e. RAM & Processor).

By the way, the term HDD is acronym for the Hard Disk Drive, the major source of secondary memory (i.e. the data storage space) embedded on your Mac system. In fact, the HDDs not only facilitate data storage space to large extent, but also contain all system files stored on a single Mac volume, termed as the boot volume.

You may wonder that why both the system files and user data are stored on a common drive. Well, storing your data and the operating system files on a single hard drive does not mean that both are stored on a common volume. In fact, storing data along with the system files on a common volume is quite risky, as you may lose all your data in case your Mac fails to boot. Therefore, partitioning the Mac HDD and storing all your data separate from the system files is the ultimate solution of this problem. Moreover, it becomes quite easy for Mac to access data when both are located on the same hard drive.

Using HDD on Macs

Have you ever thought of how data is stored on a HDD? What is there inside a HDD that facilitates Macs perform data read/write operations on it? Perhaps you have not; however, delving an HDD elucidates all such queries concurrently. In fact, the internal structure of an HDD is less or more a mechanical setup of electronic and magnetic components that is wrapped inside a metallic case. These components include an electrical panel powering up a spindle motor that rotates a magnetic disc (i.e. termed as the platter) and a read/write head (held by an actuator arm connected to an actuator axis) moves over it in back and forth fashion. The speed of this spindle motor is increased automatically when data read/write operations on the platter are carried out. This mechanical setup of the hard drive’s components makes it susceptible to corruption, as failure of any of these components cause the hard drive failure. Therefore, this keeps your precious data threatened 24*7*365.

Why cloning to SSD

Today, smart computers having embedded SSD are available worldwide that are thin, lightweight, and gives outstanding performance. Since it is possible to clone Mac HDD to SSD, you can get rid of your older Mac HDD and the related performance issues, as SSDs never slow down.

The term SSD is acronym for Solid State Drive that embeds Integrated Circuit chips unlike a HDD that embeds a magnetic disk (i.e. the platter) revolving over a spindle motor and a read/write head moving back and forth over it. In order to make substitution in computers and their applications easy, SSDs use the I/O interface meant for the HDDs. The vital feature of the SSDs is that the data transfer speed they offer is much faster as compared to that of the HDDs. Technically, the SSDs offer 100 times faster data read/write speed as compared to that of the HDDs.

Since SSDs apparently offer high-speed data read/write operations, it is obvious for you wishing to upgrade to a SSD on your Mac. However, for this, you will have to format and partition the new drive, reinstall Mac OS X, and shift all your data to it. Though you can perform each of these tasks on your own, all these operations consume system resources largely and require you being involved at each phase.

Well, you would certainly be glad to know that you can clone your Mac HDD to a brand new SSD using a professional Mac cloning application. Upgrading to SSD is recommended because it offers the following advantageous features:

High-speed Data Read/write operations

Since SSDs embed Integrated Circuit chips for data storage, one of the prime benefits of using the SSDs is that they offer high-speed data read/write operations. In fact, HDDs are capable of offering up to 1000MBPS data reading speed, whereas the fastest SSD today is SATA capable of offering 6GBPS data reading speed. These advantageous features make Mac users upgrade to an SSD.

SSDs are Reliable

SSDs are more reliable as compared to the HDDs, as SSDs do not embed mechanically set up electric and magnetic revolving and moving components making them unreliable. Hard drives are not reliable especially for frequent travelers. On the other hand, since the internal components of the SSDs are embedded electronically, they eliminate the odds of its failure.

Almost negligible heat, noise, and vibration

Since HDDs embed electronic circuit powering up the spindle motor to revolve the magnetic platter, all these components heat up because the speed of the spindle motor is highest during data read/write operations. Moreover, the incessantly revolving magnetic platter causes vibration and sometimes, the random noises. Since SSDs do not embed any such component, there is almost negligible noise and vibration.

No need for Defragmentation

Unlike HDDs, since the SSDs are manufactured to store data evenly in their sectors, Mac file system cannot split the storage space of a SSD into blocks to store data. This prevents fragmentation to occur on the SSDs. Therefore, when no fragments are there, you do not have to defragment the SSDs.

Cloning your Mac HDD to SSD

As the prime requirement for cloning, you must have a secondary disk (i.e. the SSD in this case). Make sure the SSD is larger or at least equal as compared to your Mac HDD. Moreover, you need a cloning tool for Mac as well. Once all these requirements are satisfied, you can start cloning your Mac HDD to an SSD. In case the SSD you have is brand new, you need to initialize it on Mac and then format it as Mac OS External (Journaled). For this, you need to track the following steps:

• Once you connect the SSD to your Mac, a Disk Insertion message pops up.

  

  Stellar Drive clone

• Click Initialize button on this message box.
• Clicking the Initialize button opens Disk Utility.
• Select the SSD in the left pane of Disk Utility and go to the Partition tab in the right pane.
• Here, click Options button and choose GUID Partition Table, and then click OK button.
• After that, click the Volume Scheme menu and select the number of partition to create

Important: In the Volume Scheme dropdown menu, the number of partition you select should be equal to that on your Mac drive.

• Now, give these partitions a Name, choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled) as the volume Format, and specify a Size
• Finally, click Apply button to format and partition this SSD

After Disk Utility is finished with formatting and partitioning the SSD, you see this drive on your Mac desktop. You can use this SSD on your Intel-based Mac for both data storage and booting purpose, whereas only for data read/write purpose on a PowerPC-based Mac.

Now, all you need to do is clone your Mac HDD including all applications to this SDD. For this, you will have to boot your Mac Lion or Mountain Lion in Recovery Mode or an earlier Mac machine with Mac OS X install disc and follow these steps:

For Mac OS X Lion or Mountain Lion

• Restart your Mac and hold down the Command + R keys or the Option key
• Once you see the grey screen, release these keys
• Choose Disk Utility in the Utilities window

For earlier versions of Mac OS X

• Insert Mac OS X install disc and press the C key
• Release the C key as soon as you see the grey screen
• After that, select a preferred OS language and click the Next button
• Select Disk Utility in the Utilities window

Once Disk Utility is launched, go to its Restore tab. Herein; drag your Mac HDD to the Source field and the SSD to the Destination field. Finally, click Restore button to start cloning your Mac. Once Mac cloning is finished, quit Disk Utility and restart the Mac. On Mac keyboard, hold down the ALT key and choose the SSD to boot with. In case it boots successfully, you can replace the HDD with the clone SSD.

Cloning Mac Volume is far Better than Backing it up

“Cloning technology refers to creating a replica of an object to another of similar kind, where the resulting object possesses properties exactly same as that of the original object.”

In order to keep your data protected from various threats, you might have been backing it up regularly, as data backup is one of the most reliable ways of data security and it is preferred the most.

In this regard, which backup strategy you have been implementing ever since you started backing up your data? Have you been backing up your files manually? Alternatively, are you using a data backup application? Well, in reality, backup techniques do nothing apart from copying the files from the source disk to the destination disk in an archived form. In adverse situations like, if the original files get corrupt or become inaccessible, you can easily restore them from the backup.

Even though you can back up every file manually, it becomes quite easier and more efficient if you use a professional data backup application. Alternatively, you can also use Mac OS X inbuilt data backup tool – Time Machine.

Mac OS X includes a data backup tool, called Time Machine, which automatically backs up data every hour once it is configured. In fact, Time Machine is highly compatible with a range of hard drives (such as internal and external hard drives, and Time Capsule), so you can choose any of these to be used as the backup drive. However, ever since cloning has set up its feet in computers world, data backup techniques are no longer in fashion. Now, you can clone Mac volume containing your valuable data, which is much more advanced as compared to a simple data backup. In fact, in addition to an individual volume, you can also clone the entire Mac drive, which is termed as the bootable backup. The term bootable backup states that you can boot from the clone drive too. 

“Hard drive cloning refers to a process that involves replicating a hard drive to another based on certain criteria.”

·      Make sure the secondary disk is larger (in capacity) or at least equal as compared to the primary disk.

·      The primary disk should be formatted as Mac OS Extended (journaled), so the secondary disk as well.

·      The primary disk should be using GUID Partition Table as the Partition Map Scheme, so the secondary disk as well.

·      In case you are going to clone the entire hard drive (i.e. containing multiple volumes), the secondary drive must have partitions equal to that of the primary drive.

Now, if you are still wondering why to go for cloning even since you can back up your precious files manually, then you need to go through the following significance of cloning:

·      As you know that clone drive is the exact replica of your Mac drive, you can use both drives interchangeably.

·      Once you clone your Mac drive, since both drives are independent of each other, you can use any of them even if the other one is no longer available.

·      In corporate, engineers use cloning technology to replicate their system's hard drive and use the clone drive for software testing and other similar operations

·      Since cloning results in bootable backup of your Mac drive, you can boot from a clone drive as well

These features collectively make cloning techniques an edge over typical data backup techniques.

Since hard drive cloning refers to creating a bootable replica of your Mac drive, you must have a secondary hard drive and a cloning application to satisfy its major requirements for cloning. In case you are going to clone the boot volume of your Mac OS X Lion or Mountain Lion, you need to boot it in Recovery Mode. For earlier versions of Mac OS X (i.e. Snow Leopard and earlier), you can boot with Mac OS X install disc.

In case you are going to clone one of the secondary volumes (i.e. containing data only, except Macintosh HD) to another volume of your Mac drive, you can directly jump to Step4.

Step1: Secondary disk must be formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled)

The secondary drive connected to your Mac is shown on its desktop. Alternatively, if you use a new drive, a Disk Insertion message pops up. This message says, “The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer.” Therefore, click the initialize button given on this message box; it launches Disk Utility. 

• Select this drive in the left pane of Disk Utility and go to the Erase tab in the right pane
• In the Format dropdown menu, choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
• In the Name field, specify a name for this drive
• After that, click Erase button to format it

Step2: GUID Partition Table should be the Partition Map Scheme

Once the secondary drive is formatted, you see it on the desktop with the given name. Since cloning requires the secondary drive be using the GUID Partition Table as the Partition Map Scheme, it should be an Intel-based Mac.

• Select this drive in the left pane of Disk Utility and go to the Partition tab in the right pane
• Click the Options button and choose GUID Partition Table in the window that opens, and then
• Click the OK button

Step3: Creating partitions of the secondary drive

As mentioned earlier, the secondary drive must have the number of partitions equal to that of the primary drive.

1. Select this drive in the left pane of Disk Utility and go to the Partition tab in the right pane
2. Click the Volume Scheme dropdown menu and choose the number of partitions you need to create
3. Select one volume and give it a Name, choose its format as Mac OS Extended (Journaled), and specify its Size
4. Repeat the step 3 for other partitions as well
5. After that, click the Apply button

Step4: Begin with Cloning

(I.) If you are going to clone a secondary volume of your Mac

• Select your Mac drive in the left pane of Disk Utility and go to the Restore tab at the right
• Drag the volume that you need to clone to the Source field and
• Drag the secondary volume to the Destination field, and then
• Click the Restore button

(II.) If you are going to clone the boot volume of your Mac

• Boot your Mac Lion or Mountain Lion in Recovery mode or boot with Mac OS X install disk if your Mac is Snow Leopard or earlier
• Launch Disk in the Utilities window
• Select your Mac drive in the left pane of Disk Utility and go to the Restore tab at the right
• Drag the boot volume to clone to the Source field and
• Drag the secondary volume (i.e. it should be a volume of the secondary hard drive) to the Destination field
• After that, click the Restore button

(III.) If you are going to clone the entire Mac drive

• Once in Recovery mode, launch Disk in the Utilities window
• Select your Mac drive in the left pane of Disk Utility and go to the Restore tab at the right
• Drag your Mac drive to the Source field if it is not already shown therein
• Drag the secondary hard drive to the Destination field, and then
• Click the Restore button

Apart from Disk utility, you can also use a professional cloning application to clone Mac volume. However, it is recommended to use a professional cloning application only.

Which file system is the best for SSD Partition - NTFS or FAT32

While creating partitions in SSD drive a very obvious question that arise is which is better for SSD file system – FAT32 or NTFS.
Here we are discussing the point and trying to find the best answer for it.
Would it be better to prefer FAT32 file system to NTFS for an internal SSD drive?

You would have learnt many times that NTFS is more flexible and smarter with read/write operations than FAT32 and thus is doubted to cause reduction of longevity of SSD. But that is not the only reason for moving to FAT32 but backup support and portability also count more.
There is no native utility for NTFS -> FAT32, but it can be done via some third party tools like AOMEI.

1.) Does it work? Yes
2.) Is it reliable? Yes
3.) Does it work with files greater than 4GB also? No
4.) Would it be better to use the FAT32 file system for a data partition? (Yes/No)

FAT32 is a less safer than NTFS because there is no concept of journaling in FAT. Let me explain the fact. Absence of journaling means that in case of some  power loss, BSOD (Blue screen of death), or other unexpected interruptions during writing data, the file system can reach some inconsistent state and ultimately cause a data loss. NTFS can also lose your data but it will leave you to the most recent consistent state so that your files still work, even if not with the most recent contents. On the contrary, FAT32 breaks and lets you to a stage with corrupt data.
NTFS takes care of performance degradation and does not do a significant   amount of extra writing to the SSD.

So, we recommend that it’s not a good idea to use FAT32 unless you have a very unusual workload. Here, the unusual means high volume of saturated writing task to the disk.
Please note that there is no file system or OS in the universe, which can protect your drive from being failed. So, always keep a valid backup of your drive and in case you have lost your data due to hard drive crash, there is a good option for data recovery software, independent of OS you are working with.

Windows data recovery software
Mac data recovery software

Should I buy Photo recovery software for Mavericks or a Combo

Last week we had this dilemma and were struggling whether to buy Mac photo recovery program or data recovery software, which can retrieve all types of data. We (Me and my cousin) sat together to find the answer.

I have Mac mini with the latest Mavericks installed in it. While searching for some tool to undelete photos on my camera memory card, I came across many tools. Some were specified with single type of task (recovering photos only) whereas some were to recover all types of data.

If we talk specifically about products then here is a short comparison Yodot, Stellar Phoenix and Card Rescue

Sr. No	Name of Software	Features	Price
1	Card Rescue	Recovers photos, Videos	$ 39.95
2	Yodot	Recovers photos, Videos	$ 59.95
3	Stellar Phoenix Mac Data Recovery	Recover all types of data	$ 99.00

If we concentrate only on price and neglect the features, then Card rescue is best but, I was searching for some long term solution for data loss problem in my Mavericks. So, instead of buying a light product for photo recovery software for Mac, I invested in Stellar Phoenix Mac Data Recovery and now feeling working in a risk free environment.