There are so many OS X utility to take care of Mac health and optimize the Mac drive. But I found 1 tool for 1 task only. Its pathetic and expensive too.

I want a pack or bundle of Mac applications which can optimize my Mac and easy to use as well.

Please excuse mackeeper with useless tools

I'm not an expert and so I write from the experience of a user who just needs stuff to work as advertised. Others at this site can provide more technical views for you.

I have used DiskWarrior since it was released several years ago and recommend it highly. DW has never failed to fix a damaged directory and, on more than one occasion, it has recovered drives that I thought for sure were doomed. It is very simple to use. You can find a review for DiskWarrior here .

I have also owned TechTool but found that my needs were taken care of by Disk Warrior, with the exception of defragmentation. However, I also found that defragmentation didn't seem to be an issue and stopped doing it a few years ago. With the upgrade to Pro 6 I decided to go through a defrag but can't say it made any difference. TechTool has an eDrive feature that I've never used as I repair from a backup drive. You can find a review for TechTool here .


MacKeeper? I've never heard anything except bad stories about that product.

My experience with Disk Warrior and TechTool Pro has been the same as Ryck's. While I have never used Drive Genius, I have read nothing but good comments about it. OnyX is free and does a variety of tasks. If you don't mind spending some money, Cocktail does many things that OnyX does not (although they overlap somewhat).

The guys above are smack on -- my very words. 'Tis wise and solid counsel me thinks.

It is a good idea to have at least one utility that can check the drive for bad blocks. In TechTool Pro, the relevant test is the Surface Scan. If it encounters unremapped bad blocks that belong to a file, it can identify the file, provided the disk directory can still be read.

It might sound like a worthy goal to have a one tool does all utility. But in light of the variety of functions one might want to perform at one time or another I am not so sure. Such a utility would almost inevitably be accused of "feature bloat" and likely would become too cumbersome to be helpful.

For volume maintenance and repair (a more accurate term than disk repair) IMHO any one of the three tools already mentioned, Diskwarrior, Techtool Pro, and Drive Genius will get the job done and done well. Each has its advantages and cadre of ardent advocates. Each offers a 30 day try before you buy. Which one you choose is largely a matter of personal taste. I had TechTool Pro before either of the other two were released and use it out of habit as much as anything. I got Drive Genius after the local Genius Desk used it and I was impressed with its speed compared to the other two.

For general "housekeeping" I have OnyX, Cocktial, and TinkerTool System and use all three. If I had to choose only one of the three it would probably be TinkerTool System because of my long history with TinkierTool and because it has some unique features not supported by either of the others.

MacPilot is unique in offering access to roughly 1,000 "hidden" configuration items in OS X and the OS X applications. I could easily get along without MacPilot, but it has been nice to have. If I think about adding all that to another application would be too likely to create GUI overload.

I have long been a fan of CleanApp for thoroughly removing all trces of a deleted application from the system, and there are other similar apps out there. I would not need CleanApp nearly as much if it weren't for my penchant for trying out new apps or perhaps I should be more choosey in what apps I install and I wouldn't need to remove so many.

With the exception of the volume maintenance utilities there is little that cannot be done from Terminal using the same Unix commands the various utilities use to perform their functions. The various utilities are in fact just a convenience. — Boy do I love convenience!

FWIW, DiskWarrior is my most frequently (albeit fortunately still rarely) used disk utility, followed by TechTool Pro's test suite, including the bad block test MMT3 mentioned. I also own Drive Genius, MacPilot, Cocktail and Data Rescue, to name only a few of the available commercial utilities. Most of the latter are only rarely used, but can be critical in certain circumstances. Fortunately, many of these utilities have trial versions that will allow you to assess if the expense might be worth your while when problems strike.

For those interested in the bottom line, it may also be good to know that with the exception of DiskWarrior, all the utilities I mentioned have in the past few years been offered as part of software bundles together with up to 10 other apps for bundle prices of around $50. The individual utilities too are occasionally offered at considerable sale discounts. You can keep abreast of many available offers with a free utility like MacBundleWatcher.

Have you actually had need/found use for all those utilities ( ), or are you collecting them against "what ifs?"

I've never seen any mention of a DiskWarrior free trial, various Google searches returned nothing, and quick TTP and DG searches were equally fruitless.; can you provide links?