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 VolumeWorks - 1.5resize partitions without erasing. |
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| Overall Rating: | Not rated (0.0) | Features: | Not rated (0.0) | Support: | Not rated (0.0) |
| Ease of Use: | Not rated (0.0) | Quality / Stability: | Not rated (0.0) | Price: | Not rated (0.0) |
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Featured Reviews
Not Needed Any More - Version: 1.5, 4/6/2008 04:41PM PST
(0 of 1 users found this comment useful)
DITSS
If you have MacOS 10.5, Disk Utility can resize partitions without loosing data.
why bother - Version: 1.5, 11/7/2006 08:13AM PST
(4 of 6 users found this comment useful)
howardm4
The ability to dynamically resize partitions is a native function of the
Apple supplied 'diskutil' command line tool.
Apple supplied 'diskutil' command line tool.
Most Recent Replies: View All 1 Replies
- why bother
Dangerous waste of time and money 
- Version: 1.3.3, 6/22/2006 01:19AM PST
(1 of 10 users found this comment useful)
Central Scrutinizer--2008
Resizing HD partitions on the fly is a dangerous endeavor. I don't trust any application to resize my partitions if it doesn't include utilities to defrag the files and partitions, and check and repair volume structures. Even with such precautions, it is still necessary to back up the drive that will be repartitioned.
Now, if you're going to back up an entire HD to repartition, why not just use Apple's Disk Utility to reformat and partition the drive properly? The only step saved with VolumeWorks is the last step, of copying the HD backup to your new partition(s). This hardly makes the trouble of using an app of unknown reliability to manipulate partition size.
What if the user doesn't have an extra HD to back up their drive? VolumeWorks is advertised to help, but the user still MUST back up the HD to be repartitioned. This means using a stack of DVDs or whatever to back up the drive. Not very user friendly, but here's where VolumeWorks is a rip-off of monumental proportions: add up the cost of backup media, the the $60 for VolumeWorks, and you can go buy yourself a new HD! So forget VolumeWorks - go buy a new HD, back up your old HD, and use Disk Utility to reformat and partition the right way.
Buy a new HD, and
Now, if you're going to back up an entire HD to repartition, why not just use Apple's Disk Utility to reformat and partition the drive properly? The only step saved with VolumeWorks is the last step, of copying the HD backup to your new partition(s). This hardly makes the trouble of using an app of unknown reliability to manipulate partition size.
What if the user doesn't have an extra HD to back up their drive? VolumeWorks is advertised to help, but the user still MUST back up the HD to be repartitioned. This means using a stack of DVDs or whatever to back up the drive. Not very user friendly, but here's where VolumeWorks is a rip-off of monumental proportions: add up the cost of backup media, the the $60 for VolumeWorks, and you can go buy yourself a new HD! So forget VolumeWorks - go buy a new HD, back up your old HD, and use Disk Utility to reformat and partition the right way.
Buy a new HD, and
Waste of Time - Version: 1.3.3, 5/3/2006 12:02PM PST
(3 of 7 users found this comment useful)
andreas_gruenebaum
I have spend several hours to find out
1st that the so called trial version does not do anything
2nd that the purchased software did not do better in my case anyway
I just tried to extend my MacOS X start-up partition by adding the second data partition in order to better use my resources. Before that both partitions of the internal 250 GB SATA HD were devided into two equal parts.
First I installed Tiger on an external Firewire 800 drive and backed up my data with Integos Personal Backup X4. Next I was very disappointed to find out, that VolumeWorks was still not able to extend the start-up partition of my internal drive beyound 122 GB, though I had previously deleted the second partition with VolumeWorks. No way to extend the partition. Well, I had already done most of the work with Personal Backup X4 and decided to have Apples HD-utility do it: partitioning the whole drive and restoring the software using Personal Backup X4. The whole thing took more than 4 hours and I regret to have wasted money and time on VolumeWorks.
WOW ! - Version: 1.3.3, 12/6/2005 04:09AM PST
(1 of 3 users found this comment useful)
Faruk Brlajolli
This tool solves my problems !
I just purchased this tool and then I was happy !
(Just the Price could - 20$ ;) )
I am happy !
;)
I just purchased this tool and then I was happy !
(Just the Price could - 20$ ;) )
I am happy !
;)
Worked fine here. - Version: 1.3.3, 8/19/2005 01:14PM PST
(3 of 4 users found this comment useful)
nostalgia1
Bought a Mac Mini a few weeks back and had given it some light use since, in retrospect I should've reinstalled Tiger the day I got it, but being my first new Mac in 5 years I was eager to play. I have always liked to split my disks into a couple partitions, generally because I like to have some scratch space for apps, music, videos and so forth, if I ever want to format the OS partition for a clean install.
In the case of the Mac Mini, I had about 15gig used out of the 80gig and wanted to resize that down to around 35gig and use the rest in a new partition. Firstly I checked out the partition with disk warrior from its bootable cd (seemed like a wise precaution), after which I hooked up the Mini to my trusty old iMac DV+(OS X 10.4.2) via firewire and booted the Mini in firewire target disk mode. Once the Mini had booted and the old iMac mounted its drive, I opened VolumeWorks on the iMac and proceed to resize the Mini's original partition and create a new one. The process only took around five minutes and I happily restarted the Mini to find everything as it should be.
Maybe I was lucky, undoubtedly having a partition with fairly low time in use and over 3/4 being free space also helped my success.
My only complaint.
I really don't like the interface, probably because I'm use to the layout on the pc offerings, Acronis Partition Expert and Symantec Partition Magic (I definently prefer the former of these two).
I recommend this product with caution, remember to backup critical data and it's probably a good idea to run DiskWarrior over the hard disk before using VolumeWorks.
In the case of the Mac Mini, I had about 15gig used out of the 80gig and wanted to resize that down to around 35gig and use the rest in a new partition. Firstly I checked out the partition with disk warrior from its bootable cd (seemed like a wise precaution), after which I hooked up the Mini to my trusty old iMac DV+(OS X 10.4.2) via firewire and booted the Mini in firewire target disk mode. Once the Mini had booted and the old iMac mounted its drive, I opened VolumeWorks on the iMac and proceed to resize the Mini's original partition and create a new one. The process only took around five minutes and I happily restarted the Mini to find everything as it should be.
Maybe I was lucky, undoubtedly having a partition with fairly low time in use and over 3/4 being free space also helped my success.
My only complaint.
I really don't like the interface, probably because I'm use to the layout on the pc offerings, Acronis Partition Expert and Symantec Partition Magic (I definently prefer the former of these two).
I recommend this product with caution, remember to backup critical data and it's probably a good idea to run DiskWarrior over the hard disk before using VolumeWorks.
Still Not My Cup of Tea... - Version: 1.3.3, 7/16/2005 12:32PM PST
(5 of 7 users found this comment useful)
freevito
I agree with GaryD's comments -- if I'm really crowding my available hard disk space, I'm much more inclined to just buy another drive. Hard disk space is the least expensive storage medium available, and it's sufficiently reliable that I seldom mess around with hard media backups any more (like CDR or DVDR), except when a project's data security policy requires it.
In the real world, how often is someone likely to repartition a hard drive? I dunno, but apparently SubRosaSoft thinks the answer is "Not very often." When I wrote to them and asked "Where do I get the demo version?", they responded immediately and advised me that they don't offer a demo version. Why? Because they believe that most folks need to partition so infrequently that they'd just use the demo to get the job done, and then they wouldn't buy a VolumeWorks license.
Well...maybe so, but I don't buy software I can't demo...Catch 22. OK -- they do offer a 30-day guarantee, so if the software doesn't work, you're not stuck with a pig in a poke. I guess that's fair.
I really do think that there is a market for a product like VolumeWorks, but for $60.00 ($50.00 for download only...no CD), I'm not sure that VolumeWorks is going to meet that demand successfully. To be fair to SubRosaSoft, creating an application like VolumeWorks is a doggone difficult task. As others have commented in this forum (I mean the intelligent ones), repartitioning on the fly is a process that's fraught with perils. It's probably bad enough if only your files are fragmented, but if your disk is fragmented into the bargain...well, I wouldn't even think about repartitioning on the fly unless my files and my disk were freshly defragged, the files were all repaired, and the directories were all rebuilt. (That's a job for TechTool Pro 4; as far as I know, it's the only disk maintenance utility for OS X that does everything. DiskWarrior is excellent at what it does, but it's limited to directory rebuilds.)
I suspect that despite their best efforts to be "careful", the folks who've reported serious difficulty in using VolumeWorks probably had file, directory, or disk fragmentation they didn't know about -- stuff that VolumeWorks couldn't handle, and probably wasn't designed to handle. You can warn folks until the cows come home, but if they use the product in ways that are outside the design constraints, it's trouble for sure.
Marketing an app like VolumeWorks is probably even more difficult than designing it. I mean...if it's really true that even the folks who use it (properly) are likely to do so very infrequently, then there's a kind of reverse cost/value thing going on here. I'll pay more for an app that I use every day, especially if it saves me time, money, or both. I probably wouldn't use VolumeWorks very often, so it doesn't have a lot of time-saving potential. That means I'm less inclined to shell out the bux for it
What about saving money? Well, if hard disk space were more expensive, then maybe an app like VolumeWorks would make more sense. But hard disk space is cheap, so...
Maybe VolumeWorks would work better as a deal sweetener for a much larger, more comprehensive package of disk maintenance utilities. Right now, there's TechTool Pro 4 and Disk Warrior, and...uh, what else? Not Norton Utilities...that has never worked properly in OS X. There's room for some competition there. TechTool Pro 4 got my business because Micromat offered a crossgrade from Norton. On a future upgrade cycle, I might go for a different utilities package if it offered the same functionality as TechToolPro, PLUS on-the-fly partitioning.
I don't envy SubRosaSoft on this one. In creating VolumeWorks, they've endeavored to fill a market demand that has been sorely unaddressed by OS X app developers for too long. I commend them for tackling it. I'm sure VolumeWorks is a fine product when it's used properly. I run relatively big hard drives with lots of partitions, and I clone my primary drives to identical backup drive -- I mean software cloning via Synchronize! Pro X — in addition to using RAID-1 mirroring for my server, so I probably have more use for VolumeWorks than most folks do. But for me, it's still not at the right price point for an app that I would use infrequently.
In the real world, how often is someone likely to repartition a hard drive? I dunno, but apparently SubRosaSoft thinks the answer is "Not very often." When I wrote to them and asked "Where do I get the demo version?", they responded immediately and advised me that they don't offer a demo version. Why? Because they believe that most folks need to partition so infrequently that they'd just use the demo to get the job done, and then they wouldn't buy a VolumeWorks license.
Well...maybe so, but I don't buy software I can't demo...Catch 22. OK -- they do offer a 30-day guarantee, so if the software doesn't work, you're not stuck with a pig in a poke. I guess that's fair.
I really do think that there is a market for a product like VolumeWorks, but for $60.00 ($50.00 for download only...no CD), I'm not sure that VolumeWorks is going to meet that demand successfully. To be fair to SubRosaSoft, creating an application like VolumeWorks is a doggone difficult task. As others have commented in this forum (I mean the intelligent ones), repartitioning on the fly is a process that's fraught with perils. It's probably bad enough if only your files are fragmented, but if your disk is fragmented into the bargain...well, I wouldn't even think about repartitioning on the fly unless my files and my disk were freshly defragged, the files were all repaired, and the directories were all rebuilt. (That's a job for TechTool Pro 4; as far as I know, it's the only disk maintenance utility for OS X that does everything. DiskWarrior is excellent at what it does, but it's limited to directory rebuilds.)
I suspect that despite their best efforts to be "careful", the folks who've reported serious difficulty in using VolumeWorks probably had file, directory, or disk fragmentation they didn't know about -- stuff that VolumeWorks couldn't handle, and probably wasn't designed to handle. You can warn folks until the cows come home, but if they use the product in ways that are outside the design constraints, it's trouble for sure.
Marketing an app like VolumeWorks is probably even more difficult than designing it. I mean...if it's really true that even the folks who use it (properly) are likely to do so very infrequently, then there's a kind of reverse cost/value thing going on here. I'll pay more for an app that I use every day, especially if it saves me time, money, or both. I probably wouldn't use VolumeWorks very often, so it doesn't have a lot of time-saving potential. That means I'm less inclined to shell out the bux for it
What about saving money? Well, if hard disk space were more expensive, then maybe an app like VolumeWorks would make more sense. But hard disk space is cheap, so...
Maybe VolumeWorks would work better as a deal sweetener for a much larger, more comprehensive package of disk maintenance utilities. Right now, there's TechTool Pro 4 and Disk Warrior, and...uh, what else? Not Norton Utilities...that has never worked properly in OS X. There's room for some competition there. TechTool Pro 4 got my business because Micromat offered a crossgrade from Norton. On a future upgrade cycle, I might go for a different utilities package if it offered the same functionality as TechToolPro, PLUS on-the-fly partitioning.
I don't envy SubRosaSoft on this one. In creating VolumeWorks, they've endeavored to fill a market demand that has been sorely unaddressed by OS X app developers for too long. I commend them for tackling it. I'm sure VolumeWorks is a fine product when it's used properly. I run relatively big hard drives with lots of partitions, and I clone my primary drives to identical backup drive -- I mean software cloning via Synchronize! Pro X — in addition to using RAID-1 mirroring for my server, so I probably have more use for VolumeWorks than most folks do. But for me, it's still not at the right price point for an app that I would use infrequently.
Right On! - Version: 1.3.3, 7/16/2005 09:24AM PST
(3 of 3 users found this comment useful)
rogerwilco
Tracy Valleau is right, but so are some of the other comments. Why not just purchase a new drive and partition it if possible? Sure they're cheaper nowadays. Of course sometimes that's not possible, and that's when a program like this one comes in handy. Some computers' hard drives are such a pain to access that using software to repartition is much easier and very time-saving. SubRosa rocks.
Balance - Version: 1.3.3, 7/15/2005 10:52AM PST
(4 of 5 users found this comment useful)
tracy valleau--2008
In response to the previous posts, and as a satisfied customer, (not at all related to the company) I'd say this:
1) SubRosa has -always- promptly replied to my emails, usually within minutes. I own a number of their products, and have found them to be able to do what they claim to do.
2) I cannot imagine they are involved in any kind of fraud, or such would be common knowledge. Sounds like a mistake of some kind to me.
3)As to this product, (and as an ex programmer) I can say that any software that mucks about with the entire contents of a drive is fraught with danger. This goes for defraggers as well as this (which is essentially a defragmentor couple with a partition creator.) Look at the comments regarding any other such product, and you'll see the same thing: lots of successes and lots of complaints. It's just plain hard to do, --> given that most people do not assure that they have a "clean" hard drive before running the software <--.
Hard drives can get mucked up all kinds of ways, many of which are known, and compensated for by good software, and many of which are simply beyond the realm of prediction.
That is why -every- piece of similar software says "...back up first!"
My own experience with this software is that I've used it 4 times. Three times it worked just fine, and one time it messed up the drive. That was, BTW, the one time I didn't run DiskWarrior on the drive first.
Bottom line for me on Subrosa and this product is this: Subrosa is just fine, thank you... and... if you don't know how to handle guns, you shouldn't have one.
1) SubRosa has -always- promptly replied to my emails, usually within minutes. I own a number of their products, and have found them to be able to do what they claim to do.
2) I cannot imagine they are involved in any kind of fraud, or such would be common knowledge. Sounds like a mistake of some kind to me.
3)As to this product, (and as an ex programmer) I can say that any software that mucks about with the entire contents of a drive is fraught with danger. This goes for defraggers as well as this (which is essentially a defragmentor couple with a partition creator.) Look at the comments regarding any other such product, and you'll see the same thing: lots of successes and lots of complaints. It's just plain hard to do, --> given that most people do not assure that they have a "clean" hard drive before running the software <--.
Hard drives can get mucked up all kinds of ways, many of which are known, and compensated for by good software, and many of which are simply beyond the realm of prediction.
That is why -every- piece of similar software says "...back up first!"
My own experience with this software is that I've used it 4 times. Three times it worked just fine, and one time it messed up the drive. That was, BTW, the one time I didn't run DiskWarrior on the drive first.
Bottom line for me on Subrosa and this product is this: Subrosa is just fine, thank you... and... if you don't know how to handle guns, you shouldn't have one.
avoid this program!!! - Version: 1.2.2, 3/13/2005 08:16PM PST
(1 of 5 users found this comment useful)
macronin
This program has cost me two days. I believed the advertising and used CopyCat II buy the same company to copy the system disk over of a OS X Server machine (upgrading form dual G4 to a dual G5), but after several hours just to copy 12 GB over Firewire 800 that leaves me with a two thirds of the new larger disk unusable. So next I tried to use VolumeWorks. Acording to instructions, I reset the partition, but that space is still not useable. I then tried to expand the partition. This results in an unbootable drive. I wiped the disk and tried again. I was careful. Still end up with a hosed drive!!!! VolumeWorks is a dangerous program that easily screws up your drive. It justs goes ahead and screws things up without anyway to undo or telling you or warning you about what it is about to do. AVOID, AVOID, AVOID, do not waste your money and time on this pretty looking peice of junk.
