No one can call themselves an expert Mac user if they’ve never heard of TechTool Pro. TechTool Pro is an excellent and amazing application for testing your Mac for various problems, fixing them, and optimizing your computer as well. I’ve been using TechTool Pro since version 2 on our old Macintosh Performa which ran System 7.5.3 ten years ago, making it the one third party application which I have used for the longest time. Now Micromat has TechTool Pro 4.5, which is Mac OS X compatible, and a Universal binary for PowerPC and Intel.

TechTool Pro has certainly evolved over its major revisions. Micromat still sells version 3 of TechTool Pro, which is intended to run on the “Classic Mac OS” (OS 9, etc.), however it did sport the capability to test OS X-formatted hard drives, so long as you were running it from the OS 9 environment. Version 3 actually had a couple of things that I miss in TechTool Pro 4. For one thing, each test got its own detailed window to be run independently if you so chose, although there was a MultiTester window available. It also seemed to include some more tests than version 4 had, although some of the TechTool Pro 3 tests wouldn’t apply to OS X (Extensions, anyone?). Heck, TechTool Pro 3 included a virus scanner!

But this review is actually about TechTool Pro 4, which is the Mac OS X edition of the software. The TechTool Pro window is divided into five different sections: Suites, Tests, Performance, Tools, and Safety. People who hate brushed metal probably won’t dig TTP’s interface, although the faint watermark of a screwdriver in the background is kinda cool. However, you can probably expect some changes to the interface and other things coming up when Leopard is released.

The Suites section lists three different “suites” of tests. The Basic Tests check the major hardware components of the computer and a few basic things on the hard drive(s), including the SMART settings (Self Monitoring And Recognition Technology), which can predict hard drive failures in ATA hard drives. Micromat recommends you run the Basic tests weekly, and they go very quickly. The Intermediate Tests include all of the Basic Tests, but also checks the Finder Info, File Structures, and Volume Structures, which can essentially check for and repair corrupt files and structures on your hard drive (Micromat suggests you do these monthly). These can take longer depending on how many files you have. The Advanced Tests include all of the Intermediate Suite plus a Surface Scan of your hard drive to check for bad blocks, which can take a long time since it examines every sector of your attached hard drives, hence why Micromat recommends you do these either every 3 months or every 6 months.

You can also do tests individually by going to the Tests section. Tests are divided between Hardware, Drives, Volumes, and Files categories, and you can either run a whole category of tests, or do single tests a la carte. TechTool Pro 4 takes advantage of OS X Multitasking so that it tries to do multiple tests at once when possible–this is much improved over TTP on Mac OS 9, which couldn’t do multitasking.

The Performance section includes tests which help to improve the speed of your hard drive. Here’s somewhat how the story goes: When you store data on the hard drive, it gets stored in various places on the hard drive, trying to be efficient where possible. However, when you delete stuff, you don’t actually delete the data (just the directory info), however the data is marked to be deleted, and eventually is overwritten when you write new data on those spots. However, this means that data can find itself in fragments in various sections of the hard drive, making it slower and less efficient. When you run the Optimization test in TechTool Pro, it actually does something similar to that Puzzle Dashboard widget, and does its best to rearrange all of the data on the hard drive so that none of it is fragmented. It takes awhile, and you only want to do it on the eDrive (see below), but it really helps the hard drive to stay efficient. Another test is available called Maintenance, which optimizes the directory structures. Similar idea, but since it’s just for the directories, it doesn’t take anywhere near as long to do.

Skipping over to the Safety section for a minute, this section allows you to setup regular tests that take place in the background. Protection is a background tests that auto-saves directory structure info automatically to improve chances of data recovery on a damaged volume. SMART Setup allows you to automatically check the SMART status of hard drives (see above), and Diagnostics checks for volume structure problems. All of these tests run completely in the background at an interval that you can set (you can even turn these tests completely off if you want). Protection and SMART don’t take too much of a hit on your processors, however Diagnostics does seem to slow my computer down for a minute, so I do that one less frequently. Finally, TechTool Pro includes an Alerts section which can e-mail you an alert if these background tests find something potentially wrong.

One of the things that I’ve loved about TechTool Pro is that every version has come with a bootable CD that includes a copy of TechTool Pro on it so that if you are unable to use your hard drive, you can still diagnose it. Although TechTool Pro 4 still includes a bootable disc (a DVD, now), it now has a feature called eDrive, which creates a special emergency partition on your hard drive that includes a copy of TechTool Pro and other basic OS X utilities, meaning that it is no longer necessary for a bootable disc in this case and it runs faster.

Also in the Tools section is an excellent Data Recovery process, a secure Wipe Data routine, ability to turn Volume Journaling on/off, an Audio test, and a Video Lab which can do monitor calibration and identify dead LCD pixels.

All in all, TechTool Pro is the best and most complete Macintosh utility program out there, and it builds on a long and solid track record. It includes plenty of tests for any professional to want to use, yet is simple and easy enough as to make it an essential utility for every Mac user to have in their arsenal. TTP has saved my files many times over the last 10 years, and that kind of insurance is well worth the $100 price tag.

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Tags: Mac, Micromat, optimization, review, Software, tests, utility