MicroMat's TechTool Pro (TTP) started its life as two
separate products, MacEKG and TechTool. MacEKG has been
long discontinued but MicroMat has continued development
and support for the freely
available TechTool. While TechTool is a handy utility
in its own right, it doesn't hold a candle to the power
of its big brother TechTool Pro. TTP contains a comprehensive
suite of hardware and software tests to help you diagnose
and repair various problems on your Mac. TechTool Pro's
main competition is, of course, Norton Utilities from
Symantec. TTP gained a following by supporting Apple's
new HFS+
hard drive file system long before Norton Utilities.
Symantec eventually released a version of Norton Utilities
with HFS+ support but whereas Norton Utilities only
tests and repairs your hard drive, TTP can test and
repair you hard drive and test just about every other
piece of hardware associated with your Mac including:
Scanners, Modem, Serial Ports, RAM, PRAM, VRAM, Procesor,
L2 Cache, Etc...
While many of these tests are helpful, some are what
I would consider fluff. For example do you really need
a program to tell you that your mouse isn't working
properly? TTP also includes a few benchmark tests but
doesn't include scores from other machines as a frame
of reference. With the ability to run more than 30 unique
tests, there is the potential to overwhelm the user
with too many options. TTP deals with this by providing
three different interface options: Simple, Standard
and Expert.
The "Simple" interface presents you with
a window for selecting the drive you want to check along
with a "Check" button.
The "Standard" interface groups tests into
four categories; Drives, Chips, RAM and Other. Selecting
a category adds all of the sub-tests associated with
that group. From there you have the option of selecting
the tests you want to run.
The "expert" Interface is the most comprehensive
and potentially the most overwhelming at the same time.
If you want to run a full range of tests on specific
hardware or software this is the way to go, otherwise
you may want to stick with the standard interface. TTP
also gives you the option to create and save custom
test suites, a nice touch.
The heart of TechTool Pro is its disk diagnosis and
repair function. I ran TTP on my PowerBook G3/266, and
on both internal drives on our 9500. TechTool Pro didn't
encounter any major problems beyond the usual modification
date and custom icon problems that all disk repair utilities
seem to find. This makes it difficult to asses TechTool
Pro's ability to to repair major problems. I did a quick
visit to MacFixit's
discussion forums though and didn't find any significant
complaints with the utility. In Fact, the MicroMat support
staff visit the forums often and offer excellent support.
One area where TTP excels and lags simultaneously is
in disk optimization/defragmentation. As with Norton
Utilities, you have the option of simply defragmenting
just files or defragmentating files and consolidating
free disk space. I opted for the latter on my PowerBooks
4 gig drive and was surprised at the sluggish performance.
The whole process from start to finish took an hour
and 20 minutes! Of course your mileage will vary depending
on the level of fragmentation. MicroMat acknowledges
that their defragmentation utility is on the slow side
but claims that this is because they utilize the safer
but slower "write-copy-delete" method of moving
files. MicroMat, in fact, claims their method is so
safe that you can pull the plug on you machine mid process
without worrying about data loss! The drawback to this
method is that you need enough contiguous free space
to copy your largest file, a potential stumbling block
on maxed out drives. Unlike Norton's Speed Disk you
cannot control where on the drive data is rewritten,
to store frequently used files on the faster section
of the hard drive for example.
TTP also offers the ability to rebuild and optimize
your hard drive's directory. This feature is actually
not new to version 2.5.3 but until now was only invoked
as part of a repair or by accessing a hidden command
in the "Volume Structure" test. In this most
recent version a "Rebuild Volume" menu command
has been added for easy access.
Conclusions: While it won't win any user interface
awards, TechTool Pro remains an essential piece of software
for any Mac user's emergency toolkit. Its ability to
test virtually every component will appeal especially
to those responsible for maintaining a large number
of computers. MicroMat's commitment to older Macs is
commendable; TTP will run on any Mac from the Mac II
on up. The disk optimizer could use a speed boost, but
given the choice between safety and speed, give me safety
any day.
MicroMat will be announcing TechTool Pro 3 at Macworld
Expo SF in January. According to an announcement on
MacFixit, TTP 3 will do away with the three interfaces
mentioned above in favor of a navigation window that
can be customized with your preferred tests. TTP 3 will
also include virus detection and repair. The new version
will not be available until April or May but will be
a free upgrade for those who bought TTP 2 after January
1st.
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