Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!usc!henry.jpl.nasa.gov!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!jato!mars!carmi
From: carmi@mars.jpl.nasa.gov (Aviram Carmi)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: DiskExpress II - first impressions
Message-ID: <2476@jato.Jpl.Nasa.Gov>
Date: 31 Dec 89 23:16:25 GMT
References: <42808@improper.coherent.com> <1989Dec24.200013.3435@chinet.chi.il.us> <2450@jato.Jpl.Nasa.Gov> <2948@pur-phy>
Sender: news@jato.Jpl.Nasa.Gov
Reply-To: carmi@mars.UUCP (Aviram Carmi)
Distribution: comp
Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA.
Lines: 30

In article <2948@pur-phy> cca@pur-phy (Charles C. Allen) writes:
>Is it possible to run Disk Express II in the same way as the original
>Disk Express?  I would like to know if DE II can be used as an
>application that I fire up once a month.  I specifically don't want
>anything to be installed as an INIT, DA, etc.  The upgrade info seems
>unclear about this.
>
>Charles Allen		cca@newton.physics.purdue.edu

Disk Express II is an init/cdev combination.  It can be configured
to automatically monitor your drives for file usage and to automatically
optimize in the background while either finder or multifinder is running.
It can also be configured to only monitor your usage without automatic
optimization, which can be done manually through the control panel.
Or you can also disable the monitoring and when you optimize manually,
Disk Express will use a default algorithm to optimize the disk.
They do have a problem automatically optimizing under system 6.0.2
(which is what I am using), as soon as it tries to optimize in the
background it crashes.  I called tech support and they are sending me
version 2.03 which should solve this problem (the problem does not exist
under 6.0.3, I did not ask about 6.0.4).  Meanwhile I was told to disable
automatic optimization but to enable monitoring, and optimize manually
every few days, which seems to work fine.
So you can use it in the monitoring/manual optimizing mode and manually
optimize once a month.

Hope this clarifies things a bit.


Avi Carmi (carmi@mars.jpl.nasa.gov)