Scannerz Performing a Surface Scan Test on a Drive With The Logging Window Active

When performing tests on a drive or system with Scannerz, the logging window may be brought up to provide additional details about the test results to the user. In the shot above, Scannerz is performing tests on a Fusion Drive named "Fusion" which is made up of a USB SSD and a Firewire hard drive. All fully featured versions of Scannerz include Phoenix, Performance Probe, and FSE or FSE-Lite. Scroll down further to see screen shots of these products running under Yosemite as well. If you would like to visit the Scannerz page for more information, click here.

Scannerz Performing a Seek Scan Test on a Drive With The Logging Window Inactive

Scannerz, evaluates a hard drive or SSD by performing a surface scan (media) test followed by a seek scan test. In the image above, Scannerz has completed the surface scan test and is now performing a seek scan test and the logging window is not being used. If you would like to visit the Scannerz page for more information, click here.

Configuring a Diagnostics Mode Test with Scannerz

Scannerz can evaluate more than basic hard drive or SSD problems. In Diagnostics Mode, Scannerz can be used to evaluate possible cable or connector problems by enabling the "Perform Interface Tests" option, determine the severity of drive or SSD damage by enabling the "Analyze Errors and Irregularities" option, and can evaluate the system bus and memory by enabling the "Perform Memory Tests" option. As shown above, interface and memory tests may be configured to run a number of iterations allowing you to catch that one elusive problem that other tools can't catch. If you would like to visit the Scannerz page for more information, click here.

Cursory Mode tests performing a seek scan test after finishing a surface scan test.

Scannerz is capable of isolating and confirming bad and weak sectors on a hard drive, bad blocks on an SSD, detecting failures in the seek mechanism of a hard drive, detecting likely system faults, detecting memory errors, and identifying interface errors which are most often caused by cable or connector problems. The logging window and the log file will  provide details about the nature of the problems detected. All a user needs to do is select the tests they want to evaluate, click on the "Start Diagnostics" button, and let Scannerz do the rest. If you would like to visit the Scannerz page for more information, click here.

Phoenix Performing a Basic Volume Clone

Phoenix is a tool that's included in the fully featured Scannerz packages or it can be obtained as a standalone product. Phoenix can perform basic and simple volume cloning and create an emergency boot volume, known as a Phoenix Boot Volume that can be used to function as an emergency drive or re-install it's own OS image onto a new drive or volume. Phoenix can also attempt to recover damaged files allowing a user to not only clone a good drive, but also extract recoverable files from a damaged drive, provided the drive is functional enough to do so. To visit the Phoenix information page, click here.

Performance Probe 2 Performing Basic Load Monitoring

Performance Probe 2 is a tool that's included in the fully featured Scannerz packages or it can be obtained as a standalone product. Many times, people would purchase Scannerz thinking they had a drive or system problem only to use Scannerz to evaluate their system and find there was nothing wrong with it. To help these customers, we developed Performance Probe 2. Performance Probe 2 is a specialized version of OS X's Activity Monitor in that it can allow a user to focus on specific application or system loading problems. The basic application, illustrated above, can tell you when you're running out of memory or disk space while the three probing threads can indicate overall CPU, Input/Output, or memory performance loading. The new HUD (heads up display) that became available with version 2.0 (and newer) releases of the product can show CPU usage, memory usage, averaged loading (configurable), as well as drive and I/O loading in detail. The screen shots below show Performance Probe 2 in action with the HUD active. To visit the Performance Probe 2 web information page, click here.

Performance Probe 2 Performing Advanced Load Monitoring

Performance Probe 2 allows a user to perform advanced load monitoring, filtering, and averaging. If you've ever tried to use Activity Monitor to try and figure out where all the CPU power is going, you're often greeted by a display that's bouncing around like crazy, with one application being the top CPU consumer one instance, and another the next, making it nearly impossible to tell which application is really the problem. With load monitoring and averaging, the most active processes are averaged and filtered out to help you find the real culprit. To visit the Performance Probe 2 web information page, click here.

Performance Probe 2 Monitoring Drive I/O

The Heads Up Display (HUD) previously described can be made to appear and disappear on demand. It has five tabbed entries which can provide snapshots of the top CPU and memory consumers, perform load monitoring (see the preceding image/paragraph), and graphically depict drive and network I/O. In the screen shot above, Performance Probe 2 is showing drive activity right after intensive drive activity has started. To visit the Performance Probe 2 web information page, click here.

FSE Exposing Spotlight Indexing Activity

All fully featured versions of Scannerz come with either FSE or FSE-Lite, which are file system event monitors. FSE is configurable and can target and expose specific file system events, whereas FSE-Lite is not configurable. In the screen shot above, the metadata server process (mds) is writing a fair amount of data to the drive causing the system under evaluation to bottleneck. FSE may be obtained as a standalone product. If you would be interested in learning more about FSE and FSE-Lite, click here.

SpotOff with Spot-O-Meter and MDS Indexing Active

SpotOff with Spot-O-Meter are applications dedicated to controlling and monitoring metadata server (mds) activity used by Spotlight and Time Machine. Many people have few, if any problems with mds any longer, but if you frequently attach and detach drives or boot into another volume using another version of OS X, the problem can potentially become severe. For this reason, we offer Spot-O-Meter as a free download which will allow you to see if you need SpotOff to bring mds activity under control. In the screen shot above, SpotOff is allowing mds activity to proceed, and Spot-O-Meter is indicating a moderately high level of indexing activity. SpotOff and Spot-O-Meter are not part of any Scannerz packages. If you would like to know more about SpotOff with Spot-O-Meter, or download a free copy of Spot-O-Meter, click here.

SpotOff with Spot-O-Meter After Disabling MDS Indexing

In the screenshot above, SpotOff has disabled mds indexing and now Spot-O-Meter is showing no activity. Aside from slow downs, an over active mds can cause systems to heat and fans to come on, and on laptops it may cause the battery to drain much faster than normal. SpotOff and Spot-O-Meter are not part of any Scannerz packages. If you would like to know more about SpotOff with Spot-O-Meter, or download a free copy of Spot-O-Meter, click here.