DiskFresh

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For those concerned with safely preserving their data – esp static archival data such as photos, video, music, etc, DiskFresh may be of interest.

“DiskFresh is a simple yet powerful tool that can refresh your hard disk signal without changing its data by reading and writing each sector and hence making your disk more reliable for storage. It also informs you if there are any damaged/bad sectors so you know the right time to replace your disk. The best part is, unlike other tools it does all this when Windows is running and it does not interfere with the speed of your work at all.”

“If this is done on a regular basis, the magnetic signal of every part of the drive will be refreshed long before the signal fades or becomes ambiguous.”

For a complete DiskFresh product overview, click here …

https://web.archive.org/web/20160413062810/http://www.fact-reviews.com/info/diskfresh.aspx

Note that DiskFresh “… allows you to continue to use the drive while the refresh is being performed.”  This is important since it takes much time to read and write all sectors of a hard drive. Running DiskFresh on my 4TB external drive required 33.677 hours to process (YMMV).

I have used DiskFresh on several external drives with no problem.

I’d be interested in hearing from any other users of DiskFresh re your results and any problems encountered.

 

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Fred

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1: Per the link: a) available July 2013; b) Windows XP to 8, and 2012 Server.

2: Shingled Magnetic Recording – SMR – was introduced September 2013.

3: Would this function be advisable on a SMR disk?

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I tested it overnight and it took 6 hours 39 minutes to process a 500GB WD Green 3.5″ drive. I may give a 1Tb drive a spin this evening.

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
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RetiredGeek wrote:

I tested it overnight and it took 6 hours 39 minutes to process a 500GB WD Green 3.5″ drive. I may give a 1Tb drive a spin this evening.

And keep in mind that running in ‘Read Only Mode’ will complete in much less elapsed time.

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Re this statement: “DiskFresh is not the first program to do this, but it is the first program for the PC that allows you to continue to use the drive while the refresh is being performed”

Anyone here know of other program(s) that function similar to DiskFresh? I don’t.

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PaulK wrote:

1: Per the link: a) available July 2013; b) Windows XP to 8, and 2012 Server.

2: Shingled Magnetic Recording – SMR – was introduced September 2013.

3: Would this function be advisable on a SMR disk?

Good question. I’m running Win10 Pro 22H2. I’ve recently run DiskFresh on SMR external drive with no apparent problem.

How would reading/writing a sector be different for SMR vs CMR?

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1: I would expect that this type of program is not Version sensitive.

3: I don’t remember now what all I learned about SMR back when it came out. But a quick re-read of this Wikipedia article leads me to think that processing a SMR disk probably will be much (up to 50%) slower than a CMR disk. The beast has the same outward skin, but the skeleton and organs are different.

I defer to critiques on this by Woody disk-gurus.

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unbob wrote:

Re this statement: “DiskFresh is not the first program to do this, but it is the first program for the PC that allows you to continue to use the drive while the refresh is being performed”

Anyone here know of other program(s) that function similar to DiskFresh? I don’t.

The description makes this program sound very much like Steve Gibson’s SpinRite, the main difference being that SpinRite works only outside of Windows in its own OS environment. Given its emphasis on working without having to exit Windows, I’d wager that DiskFresh was conceived as an alternative to SR.

 

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Cybertooth,

“The description makes this program sound very much like Steve Gibson’s SpinRite, the main difference being that SpinRite works only outside of Windows in its own OS environment. Given its emphasis on working without having to exit Windows, I’d wager that DiskFresh was conceived as an alternative to SR.”

Yes, I’m familiar with SpinRite and actually purchased it many years ago. Assuming everything Steve wrote in the SR overview is true, it’s apparent that SR is much more “sophisticated” than DF and actually functions as a data recovery product whereas DF only “refreshes” the existing data with a simple read/write of each sector.

It seems that if you’re only objective is to safely preserve your data – as opposed to recovering “lost” data, DF should suffice at no cost (home user) vs a high cost for SR.

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@unbob, if you purchased SpinRite at some point, you should still be able to use it at no extra cost, as the license doesn’t expire. And depending on which version of SpinRite you purchased all those years ago, you may even be able to upgrade to SR 6.1 for free.

Keep Running Windows 7 Safely for Years to Come  
Make Windows 10 look and work like Windows 7

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CyberTooth,

As a decades long user of SpinRight I can tell you that SR is a much more in-depth program and worked great in it’s day. However, trying to run it on a 1Tb drive will take days and have the machine tied up all that time.

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
Computer Specs

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@RetiredGeek, I was responding to the part about how DiskFresh refreshes the data on the drive by reading and writing the contents. But you’re right, there’s no question but that SR does much more than DiskFresh does.

Steve Gibson took his sweet old time finally updating his program, but I can attest to the fact that version 6.1 is blazingly fast. I had stopped using SR years ago for the exact reason you give, that scanning very large drives was highly impractical. But the current version will run a level 2 scan of an old-fashioned HDD in just a few hours! See here for a discussion of the scan time for an 8TB drive.

Give version 6.1 a “spin” and check it out! 

 

Keep Running Windows 7 Safely for Years to Come  
Make Windows 10 look and work like Windows 7

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wavy, RetiredGeek

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Would you believe it? I purchased SpinRite when it first came out and used it constantly, now decades later I get a free upgrade from 6.0 to 6.1. It pays to keep good records!

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
Computer Specs

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Cybertooth

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RetiredGeek wrote:

It pays to keep good records!

Indeed!  I purchased SpinRite on 3/30/2011, still have the purchase receipt email.  I just downloaded v6.1, and will give it a go soon.

>>>edit<<< Unfortunately, my MB does not support legacy USB, only UEFI.  But on upside, SpinRite 7.0 (coming soon, hopefully) will support UEFI.

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do with our systems; we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

We were all once "Average Users".

Computer Specs

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bbearren wrote:

RetiredGeek wrote:

It pays to keep good records!

Indeed!  I purchased SpinRite on 3/30/2011, still have the purchase receipt email.  I just downloaded v6.1, and will give it a go soon.

>>>edit<<< Unfortunately, my MB does not support legacy USB, only UEFI.  But on upside, SpinRite 7.0 (coming soon, hopefully) will support UEFI.

Me too! I purchased SpinRite on 4/17/2007, still have the purchase receipt email.  I just downloaded v6.1 (for free!), and will give it a go when I get some time.

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Cybertooth wrote:

@unbob, if you purchased SpinRite at some point, you should still be able to use it at no extra cost, as the license doesn’t expire. And depending on which version of SpinRite you purchased all those years ago, you may even be able to upgrade to SR 6.1 for free.

Yes, correct. I downloaded v6.1 for free!

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Cybertooth

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There is no need to write data to “refresh” your drive. You are only wasting time and resources.
Reading the data is all you need to do.

https://www.askwoody.com/2020/from-the-lounge-simple-and-cheap-data-backup-and-storage/

cheers, Paul

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Paul T wrote:

There is no need to write data to “refresh” your drive.

Then why run sfc /scannow?  Why run chkdsk /r?  Why run dism /online/ cleanup-image /restorehealth?

There are ways to mitigate the problems that require the use of these and other utilities.  SpinRite is one of those mitigation techniques.

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do with our systems; we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

We were all once "Average Users".

Computer Specs

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