Permission is granted to make and distribute copies of the software and accompanying documentation for non-profit purposes only. The DiskBasher package may not be included in any for-profit product. This documentation is part of the DiskBasher package and must accompany the software.
• DISCLAIMER
Use this software at your own risk.
While we have gone to great lengths to ensure that this application is bug-free, neither the author nor his employer make any claims, express or implied, about the suitability of this software for any purpose whatsoever.
• Preface
DiskBasher is MacUser’s mass storage benchmark. Please read this entire file before using DiskBasher. It’s not that long and you will end up with a much better idea of what DiskBasher is all about.
• What Does DiskBasher Do
DiskBasher is an application that measures hard disk performance. It creates a temporary file on a volume and executes a number of writes, seeks, and reads within that file. When DiskBasher finishes, the temporary file is deleted and the time taken to perform the test is displayed.
• How To Use DiskBasher
DiskBasher must be launched from the volume to be tested.
In DiskBasher’s main selection dialog you have the option of choosing the write/read/seek increments and the size of the test file. For historical reasons, the default settings are “Random” and a 10MB file. These setting were used in all MacUser Lab Reports that published DiskBasher results.
The explicit block sizes are self-explanatory: if you select a 10kB block size and a 10MB file size, DiskBasher writes 10kB, seeks back, and rereads the 10kB just written. Cycle repeats.
Random picks one of the sizes (from 10kB to 200kB) per cycle and goes through the file until no more room is left in the file.
Mix uses a pre-defined selection of block sizes. We will probably be switching to Mix rather than Random as the default test setting in the near future since the sequence of block sizes are repeated exactly.
• Why Does DiskBasher Exist
DiskBasher was created because we felt a need for a mass storage benchmark that mimicked an application’s behavior as closely as possible. Many heated debates raged over whether to use a “real” application to perform tests or to make an “artificial” benchmark. In the end, the decision was made to create DiskBasher; if it correlated with the results we got from using “real” apps, we would to use it.
It did (very well) and we have ever since.
DiskBasher 1.0.3 was the version used in-house since December 1988. It was released to a few vendors who wanted to be able to reproduce our testing with new drives. If you have a copy of 1.0.3 delete it. Version 1.1 supersedes 1.0.3.
1.0.3 was never released to the public at large since it was something of a kludge. This is not to say that 1.1 isn’t, it’s just that 1.1 has gone through very rigorous testing (see below) and it actually handles error conditions (see below as well).
• Error Messages
Ideally, DiskBasher will never display an error dialog. But, since Murphy was an optimist, DiskBasher 1.1 checks for some error conditions and reports them.
The most common error message is
This dialog is displayed when DiskBasher does not have enough room on the disk to create even a minimal (512kB) test file, or that the available room is not contiguous. The free space must be contiguous so that the File Manager doesn’t waste time figuring out where a particular piece of the test file resides.
The next most likely error dialog to appear is
This is the generic error dialog and will only provide a relatively cryptic OS error number. If you get this dialog, it usually means something has gone amiss with the test file.
Before going into conniptions, restart your Macintosh, and run DiskBasher again. In almost all cases, a restart will get rid of the problem. Since polyINITism and MultiFinder use run rampant, it is quite possible that some other process is running amok behind DiskBasher’s back. We run DiskBasher without MultiFinder and only with those INITs required for a drive’s operation.
If you encounter a repeatable error *please* send a bug report using one of the methods described below. Provide as much detail as possible about what you did to recreate the error.
• Development Tools Used
DiskBasher was developed with Symantec’s THINK Pascal 3.0. It is written entirely in Pascal, except for roughly 20 lines of inline assembler. DiskBasher 1.1 would not exist in its present form without Resorcerer from Mathemæsthetics and Apple’s ResEdit 2.0b2.
• Testing
We tested DiskBasher in the following (sometimes hostile) environments:
- MacsBug’s Heap Scramble
- System 7.0a9
- A/UX 2.0
- Mr. Clean’s Mysterious Hole
- Mr. Bus Error
Other than the normal kind of weird stuff that happens in high-stress environments (ever had Heap Scramble purge a button out from under you immediately after a GetNewDialog and before you could even do a HiliteControl?), DiskBasher 1.1 functions under these conditions.
DiskBasher is 32-bit clean and was tested on Macs ranging from the Plus to the IIfx and whichever drives happened to be connected to the CPUs at the time.
• Virus Information
In normal operation DiskBasher will not set off anti-viral alerts. The DiskBasher application should also never be modified. There is cause for suspicion if your anti-viral protection ever brings up an alert that DiskBasher is being modified.
We strongly recommend that you use anti-viral software if you do not already do so.
• Bug Reports, Problems and Suggestions
If you want to report a bug or a problem or suggest an improvement, please use one of the following methods to reach me:
Stephan Somogyi
NetWorkShop Manager
MacUser
950 Tower Lane, 18th Floor
Foster City, CA 94404
CompuServe/ZMac: 72511,40
Internet: MacUserLabs@cup.portal.com
America Online: MacUserNWS
No phone calls please.
• The Bonus
If you've read this far, you deserve a small token of our appreciation. There are one or more hidden about boxes in DiskBasher. However, using ResEdit to ferret around won't do you any good.
