Tool For Reading Mac Drives

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This article will teach you how to format the USB flash drive so both Mac’s and PC’s can read them. There are two parts to this tutorial. One for Mac and the other for Windows 7. AOMEI Partition Assistant: The only feature in this toolkit worth using is the partition alignment tool.By default, modern operating systems automatically align partitions on an SSD, prior to installation. However, Windows XP will not do this by default. Fujitsu Diagnostic Tool is a free hard drive testing tool designed for Fujitsu hard drives. The Fujitsu Diagnostic Tool (FJDT) is available in both a Windows version and an operating system independent, bootable DOS version.

  1. Tool For Reading Mac Drives On Pc
  2. Tool For Reading Underground Water Meters

SSDs are gradually intruding into the HDD market and replacing the role of regular hard disks in laptops and high-end desktops. Solid State Devices are offering high performance compared to traditional spinning hard disks. This flash-based memory device is consuming less battery power to read and write data with relatively high-speed that guarantee more battery life for your laptops.

The SSD system will boot will be ready to start work in seconds. If you have apps installed on SSD, the drive loads your apps faster and copies Gigabytes of data within a few seconds. SSDs are offering high performance, high-speed and less power consumption. Since this is a new technology, still SSDs are lagging behind hard disks in terms of lifespan and reliability.

Here is the list of best Windows and Mac Free Tools to Check SSD Health and Monitor Performance.

Crystal Disk Info

Crystal Disk Info helps you to monitor Solid State Hard Disk’s health status and temperature. You can use this tool to check your SSD and other Hard Disk types. Once you have installed this tool, this tool can monitor your system hard disk performance in real-time while you working on the system.

This tool can check your disk’s Read and Write speed and S.M.A.R.T. In addition to this, this open source SSD tool can project a lot of information about your SSD. This software can show you the error rates of the disk including “read error rate”. The performance measuring scales like seek time performance, throughput performance, etc. can be viewed in real-time with total Power-on time.

Key Features:

Tool
  • SSD Details (Firmware, Supported Features, Power On Hours, etc.)
  • S.M.A.R.T. Information (Read Error Rate, Seek Time Performance, Power Cycle Count, etc.)
  • Automatic Acoustic Management (AAM)/APM Control.
  • Alert Mail and Alarm Options.
  • Support most of the SSD Drives

Download for: Windows | Free

Read: Best External SSD for Mac, Windows and Android Device.

Smartmonotools

The Smartmontools package contains two utility programs (smartctl and smartd) to control and monitor your hard disk. This tool is offering the real-time monitoring of your Hard Disk. Smartmonotools can analyze and warn you about potential disk degradation and failure.

Smartmontools supports ATA/ATAPI/SATA-3 to -8 disks and SCSI disks and tape devices. This disk tool can run on Mac OS X, Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Solaris, OS/2, Cygwin, QNX, eComStation, Windows and runs from a Live CD.

Key Features:

  • Real-time SSD performance monitoring
  • Disk failure and degradation alert
  • Supports all PC platforms
  • Support most of the SSD Drives

Download for: Windows | Mac | Linux | Live CD | Free

Related: 10 Best PC Benchmark Software for Windows

Hard Disk Sentinel

HDSentinel is a hard disk monitoring software that supports Windows, Linux and Dos. This SSD monitoring tool is built to find, test, diagnose and repair SSD problems. Disk Sentinel is also capable to display SSD health. Whether it is an internal or external SSD connected with USB or e-SATA, this tool can scan and recognize your SSD problems and generate reports with the possible fix to solve the errors.

After you install Hard Disk Sentinel, the tool runs in the background and check the SSD health status and warns the user if found any error. This SSD Monitoring tool can measure the disk transfer speed in real time which can be used as a benchmark or to detect possible hard disk failures, performance degradations.

Key Features:

  • Test and diagnosis of SSD errors.
  • General error reports
  • Run in the background in real-time
  • Benchmark tool to alert performance degradations.
  • Support most of the SSD Drives

Download the free version: Windows | Linux | DOS | Free

Download Premium Version: Standard | Professional | Professional Family | 30% Off Link | Paid

Intel Solid-State Drive Toolbox

The Intel Solid-State Drive Toolbox is drive management software that allows you to monitor your drive health, estimated drive life remaining and S.M.A.R.T. Attributes. This SSD Toolbox can run quick and full diagnostic scans to test the read and write functionality of an Intel SSD.

This tool can optimize the performance of an Intel SSD using Trim functionality and update the firmware on a supported Intel SSD. You can check and tune your system settings for optimal Intel SSD performance, power efficiency, and endurance. This tool supports a Secure Erase of your secondary Intel SSD. If you are looking for a new SSD, here is a couple of SSDs from Amazon that seems like best sellers.

Key Features:

  • Monitor Drive health.
  • Estimate SSD drive life.
  • S.M.A.R.T. attributes even for non-intel drives.
  • Trim functionality
  • Performance boost feature.
  • Most features are available for Intel SSD Drives

Download for: Windows | Mac | Linux | Free

Crystal Disk Mark

If you need a real benchmarking tool to test your hard disk, Crystal Disk Mark is the right tool. This tool can test your Hard Disk in Sequential Reads/Writes, Random Reads/Writes and QD32 Modes.

If you want to compare your SSD performance, Read/Write speed in random and sequential with other manufacturers, or want to confirm your SSD is offering the same performance manufacturer specified, this is going to be the best open source tool to check the disk or multiple disks based on their read-write performance.

Key Features:

  • SSD Details (Firmware, Supported Features, Power On Hours, etc.)
  • SSD benchmarking and monitor performance.
  • Compare SSD performance with standard data.

Download for: Windows | Free

Samsung Magician

Samsung Magician software features simple, graphical indicators show SSD health status and Total Bytes Written (TBW) at a glance. You can decide SATA and AHCI compatibility and status. The updated Benchmarking feature lets users test and SSDs to compare performance and speed. This tool can use to optimize your Samsung SSD with three different profiles like Maximum Performance, Maximum Capacity, and Maximum Reliability along with detailed descriptions of each OS setting.

Samsung Magician tools let you check the sequential and random read/write speeds. This tool helps to optimize SSD, make sure your system is running always fast and up to the benchmark. The additional option can check TBW (Total Bytes Written), to assess the overall health and estimated remaining lifespan of your SSD. The system Compatibility Check to make sure no conflict with the SSD. The system and Secure Erase allows to wipe out the SSD securely to avoid and sensitive data loss. If you are a Mac user, you are out of luck with this tool, Samsung magic is available only for Windows.

Key Features:

  • SSD Details (Firmware, Serial Number, Power On Hours, etc.)
  • S.M.A.R.T. Information
  • Log temperature
  • SSD drive lifetime check.
  • Health monitoring
  • Disk Error Information Check
  • Most features are available for Samsung SSD Drives

Download for: Windows | Linux | Free

Crucial Storage Executive

Crucial SSD tool is a free SSD software to optimize the SSD performance. It can automatically update curial SSD firmware, perform an SSD health check and tweak for the best performanc.e. If you are worried about the security of your data, you can directly set or reset disk encryption password from Crucial SSD Software dashboard. Crucial offer the Momentum Cache feature the SSD operations unto 10 times faster. The software support only Windows at this moment.

Tool For Reading Mac Drives On Pc

Key Features:

  • Firmware update.
  • Monitor SSD’s operating temperature.
  • Real-time monitoring of SSD health.
  • Features support for Crucial SSD Drives.

Download for: Windows | Free

Toshiba SSD Utility

SSD Utility is for Toshiba Drives, a Graphical User Interface (GUI) based tool for managing OCZ SSDs. The dashboard provides a real-time overview of system status, capacity, interface, health, etc.

In addition to this real-time overview, the tool keeps update SSD firmware. Toshiba Utility can show you how much life left in the SSD, and correct the modes to achieve the best performance of SSD. The SSD tuner lets you tune the SSD for long-term life. The Toshiba SSD utility let you find out if your SSD is hooked up to the suitable ports. This SSD Utility can set in the correct modes to achieve high performance.

Key Features:

  • Real-time overviews of the system status
  • SSD health information
  • The life expectancy of SSD
  • Tweak for high performance
  • OS Tuner to chose SSD operate-mode
  • Most features are available for Toshiba SSD Drives

Download for: Windows | Mac | Free

Kingston SSD Manager

Kingston SSD manager is designed for Kingston SSD users to monitor the performance and health status. The software can be used to update the SSD firmware, disk usage check, disk over provision, etc. The Kingston software can securely erase all data from the SSSD without any trace to score all your information. The software support only Windows.

Key Features:

  • SSD Drive details (Model name, firmware version, etc.)
  • Monitor drive health in real-time.
  • Disk usage log.
  • View and export SSD health report.
  • Designed for Kingston SSD.

Download for: Windows | Free

SSD Life

SSD Life is a dedicated tool for Solid State Drives. This tool can measure your SSD’s lifespan. You can back up your data before your SSD take its last breath. This is the best tool to install on your computer and monitor SSD’s health. SSD Life can display the disk data in real-time to inform you about any critical defects. SSDLife is checked with most of the SSD drives to check compatibility. This SSD tool can work with most SSD manufacturers such as Kingston, OCZ, Apple MacBook Air built-in SSD.

Key Features:

  • Drive details (Trim support, Firmware, etc.)
  • SSD health status
  • Lifetime calculation of SSD
  • Support most of the SSD Drives

Download for: Windows (free trial)

SsdReady

Do you ever wonder how long your SSD is going to last? This is a tool you must have to install on your computer and let it run in the background. This tool track daily Writes and the total usage of your SSD on a daily basis. SSDReady tool can predict how long your SSD going to live. This will give you enough time to prepare and shop around for next SSD. In addition to this, this Solid Disk tool can feedback you what to optimize if it finds too many disks writes, to extend your SSD life.

Key Features:

  • Drive details (Trim support, Firmware, etc.)
  • Predict lifetime of SSD
  • Support most of the SSD Drives

Download for: Windows

SSDs are more fragile than HDs when you compare the lifespan. However, these tools let you check the performance and lifespan of the drive. For Mac users, there are not many tools available to maintain and check performance for SSD. Most of the tools are build for Windows users. However, we listed the best SSD Tools for Mac to Maintain SSD Drive.

Tool For Reading Underground Water Meters

There are several tools available to Tweak SSD or enable TRIM on SSD to improve performance. These tools are recommended to use if you see any performance issue while working on your system with SSD. There are SSDTweker and TRIM Enabler to try on your SSD for performance improvement and we provided the list of tools on Tools to Tweak SSD article.

Once you made up your mind to buy SSD, please see our recommended list of SSDs for Mac, if you own a Windows system, please refer the list for best Solid State Drives for Windows. It is always better to keep an eye on your SSD. Install at least one SSD health monitoring tool for your laptop. To be safe, keep a backup disc for the entire system. Backup up your computer once in a month or a week based on your computer use.

Did your SSD start out Usain Bolt fast but now limps along? You can whip your drive back into shape using a handful of toolkits and optimization software, but caveat emptor: Some SSD optimization software are pure snake-oil at best and potentially damaging to your solid state drive at worst.

I divide optimization software into four categories: SSD analysis tools, SSD Toolkits, SSD Benchmarking Software and Snake-oil optimizers. Three of these four categories will help you maintain your device for longer than and at optimal speeds. Analysis tools help determine your model, its condition and its firmware version. Toolkits will automatically optimize the drive. Finally, SSD benchmarking software determines whether or not your drive functions at peak or near peak performance.

Beforehand, it’s important to explain some basic concepts regarding SSDs.

Reading, Writing and SSDs

SSDs receive praise for their intensely fast read times, which speeds up booting and load operations. They are equally well-known for their notoriously weak ability to absorb writes. As most solid state enthusiasts know, the multi-level cell flash memory cells in SSDs sustain only a finite number of writes before failing. The average MLC memory block can absorb roughly 10,000 such writes, which often translates into about 5-years of heavy use or much longer with lighter use.

Additionally, SSDs do not erase blocks of memory in the same manner as a standard, platter-based drive. The SSD controller must mark each block of memory for erasure before successfully overwriting it. To speed up the read-write process, SSDs use TRIM to keep the drive running optimally.

Consequently, the kind of optimization software out there aims to do three things: reduce writes; update the drive’s firmware; check to see if the drive is optimized.

The SSD Optimization Toolkits

The three best OEM optimization programs are the Intel toolkit, the OCZ optimization toolkit and Samsung’s SSD magician. If you don’t have a drive from any of the above companies, I recommend using SSD Tweaker, which shuts off a number of write-intensive features of your operating system, potentially lengthening the life of your SSD’s flash memory.

  • SSD Tweaker: The SSD Tweaker does several important functions that Windows may not enable during the default installation process. It also includes an “auto tweak” function, which streamlines the optimization process into a one-click affair. Most of these improvements provide only a marginal reduction in total writes. And it comes at the expense of some of Windows’ other features. For the most part, it provides the easiest way to optimize your drives.
  • OCZ Toolbox: The OCZ Toolbox does not install on your hard drive, since all it does is update the system’s firmware. You may notice from the screenshot that it does not properly detect my RAID 0 configuration. In fact, in order to flash a drive, you must have two drives connected to your computer. The Toolbox will only flash secondary drives. It also doesn’t help that I have a RAID 0 array, which wasn’t detected by any of the software in this article.
  • Intel Solid-State Drive Toolbox: Intel’s Toolbox provides not only the easiest to use drive optimization process, it’s also the most frequently updated. In addition, since many of Intel’s older drives do not offer background garbage collection, Intel had to design into its Toolbox the ability to manually run garbage collection on the drive. This feature can actually be scheduled and automated, which is extremely handy.
  • Samsung Magician: Samsung provides solid toolkit support in the shape of the SSD Magician. It provides firmware updates, drive health analysis, optimization and over provisioning (which extends SSD life). It comes very close to rivaling even Intel’s Toolbox in value.
  • AOMEI Partition Assistant: The only feature in this toolkit worth using is the partition alignment tool. By default, modern operating systems automatically align partitions on an SSD, prior to installation. However, Windows XP will not do this by default. Also, most disk-cloning software do not properly align an image onto an SSD. In either case, you will want to use a disk alignment program.

Analysis and Benchmarking SSD Tools

An SSD analysis tool can tell you some amazing things about your hard drive. In particular, it can provide insight into how many writes it already absorbed – and therefore how long until it fails – as well as the firmware number. Together, this information tells you whether your drive requires a firmware update.

Benchmarking software determines the speed of your drive. It will often reveal the Achilles ’ heel of your SSD. For example, if you bench (short for ‘benchmark’) a drive and it shows poor write performance, then you most certainly have a malfunctioning TRIM command. On the downside, benchmarking software write a tremendous amount to your drive and should only be used sparingly.

  • CrystalDiskMark and CrystalDiskInfo: CrystalDiskInfo can tell you a great deal about an SSD’s life expectancy by pulling information from its SMART sensors. CrystalDiskMark can also benchmark SSD drives. However, be aware that using CDM frequently may expedite your drive’s failure as it writes a great deal of information to hard drives. The astute may notice that my drives are actually substantially underperforming.
  • SSDLife: SSDLife does about a quarter of the work CrystalDisk does, however, it has the advantage of specialization, telling you exactly how much data has been written to your drive.
  • AS SSD: AS SSD reigns as the king of benchmarks for solid state drives. If you elect to bench your drives, give AS SSD a try. As you might notice from the screenshot below, my write performance is abysmal for an SSD. Especially for a RAID array.

Snake-oil SSD Optimizers

Configuring your system for fewer writes will extend its lifespan. Fortunately, modern operating systems already optimize SSDs out-the-box. Windows 7 and 8 do virtually everything for you. On the other hand, Windows XP does not – and so a toolkit may provide some degree of benefit for XP.

Unfortunately, many SSD optimizers will do quite a bit of damage to your drive. Avoid any “optimizer” claiming to defragment or erase empty space. Defragging an SSD will only cause a tremendous number of writes and won’t increase your drive’s speed.

Conclusion

I recommend the following: If you’re having issues with your SSD, consider benchmarking or using an analysis tool to determine the kind of issue. Slow writes generally imply a fault within either TRIM, firmware or garbage collectionHow To Optimize SSD Speed & PerformanceHow To Optimize SSD Speed & PerformanceAlthough Solid State Drives can deliver break-neck computing speeds, most users don’t know a nasty secret - your drive might not be properly configured. The reason is that SSDs don’t come optimized out of the...Read More. If it does display such a fault, use an optimization toolkit to streamline the drive.

If you use a notebook and are looking for additional optimization tips, check out Simon’s roundupGetting Cramped? 5 Ways To Increase SSD-only Ultrabook or Netbook StorageGetting Cramped? 5 Ways To Increase SSD-only Ultrabook or Netbook StorageThe ultra-portables can't afford the room for a big, hulking hard drive. SSD comes at a price; literally, and figuratively. These expensive drives (although progress is made every day) still cannot reach the capacity of...Read More of the best five tips for improving notebook performance. Matt, on the other hand, recommends moving write-intensive operationsUsing a Small SSD & a Regular Hard Drive: How To Organize Your FilesUsing a Small SSD & a Regular Hard Drive: How To Organize Your FilesI recently reviewed a Samsung 830 512GB solid state drive that now serves as the primary drive for my computer. Before it, however, I was using a 60GB solid state drive. Why? For the same...Read More to a standard platter-based drive.

Does anyone else have any optimization toolkits, software or tips for SSDs? Feel free to share in the comments!

Explore more about: Computer Maintenance, Solid State Drive.

  1. Hi Kannon, I run a laptop xpSP3 and just bought a Sandisk Plus SSD ( no xp compatible optimizer available from this brand, and not sure it has a Garbage Collection function either )

    Is it better to do a manual trim with a live tool (live CD/USB) or is it ok with the OS running ?

    How many hours are needed for a manual trim (SSD 120 GO) ?
    Is it possible to use the pc when trimming is launched, or does it imply to shut down any running software ?

    Many thanks

  2. Kannon, Do you if any of any tools keep track of how many times garbage collection or TRIM is triggered? Is the information available on S.M.A.R.T.

  3. Kannon, it'd be very nice to see an update on this article covering Windows 10 and the latest Apple and Linux versions. Happy Holidays!

  4. Enable TRIM to linux ssd optimization trim

    TRIM (Trim command let an OS know which SSD blocks are not being used and can be cleared)

    Back up fstab first in case something wrong happen.
    # cp /etc/fstab ~/fstab.bk

    Edit fstab file
    # nano /etc/fstab

    Add discard to your ssd drives or partitions, after ext4
    UUID=bef10b86-494d-41c6-aa46-af72cfba90fd / ext4 discard,errors=remount-ro 0 1

  5. Let me add my personal experience to this article: make sure to keep your firmware updated! I once lost the entire contents of my SSD due to a firmware bug! Check online or with your SSD software (IE. Samsung SSD Magician) to ensure that you are using the most up to date firmware!

  6. Any tools for Linux?

    • Linux (most flavors anyway) works very nicely with SSDs. I had a SSD rendered inoperable because XP doesn't have support for TRIM and my computer was rarely idle for more than 20 minutes to allow the garbage collection to work. I booted to a live CD of Linux Mint and I had no troubles with the drive. I also tried Knoppix and it worked fine. After a little research I found that most distributions of Linux have supported TRIM commands for 3 or 4 years. So there shouldn't be any need for these tools.

      • -Hi, kevin, I'm in the same case than you with my windowsXP-SSD(soon) laptop.
        Do you think a LiveUSB Linux will work too, or only a LiveCD (as trim function and USB are not friends if if understand correctly, and a CD drive has a SATA connection) ?
        Did you simply burn directly an available linux Mint distro onto a CD, or did you optimize it i.e. enabling trim and other changes before?
        Many thanks

  7. I have a Crucial SSD in a WinXP system. Although the SSD has GC built in, it is a pain to run. I have to leave the drive powered for between 8 and 24 hours for it to run. Would something like the Intel Toolbox work with it or are this tools specific to the particular SSD?

  8. how bout for Mac?