DiskWarrior review | igamesnews

Best Prices Today: Alsoft DiskWarrior

For over 20 years, software developer Alsoft has been producing some of the best utility software available for the Mac. And if you were a techie between 1998 and today, you know that DiskWarrior was the tried-and-true application to help you dig through a damaged hard drive. Anyone with the famous DiskWarrior CD-ROM could boot from it, rebuild the corrupted directories, and either get the drive working properly again or at least get it into a position where the operating system could mount it and data could be recovered from it, and no one seemed to do it better than Alsoft and its Mac-specific focus.

Fast forward to 2024 and version 5.3.1 of its DiskWarrior utility and things are looking good, but it feels like they’re starting to get left behind when it comes to software and file system support.

Find out how DiskWarrior compares to other Mac hard drive data recovery solutions.

DiskWarrior, which supports Mac OS X 10.8 (Mountain Lion) or later, retails for $119.95 for new users and $59.95 for users upgrading to the new version. It continues to support HFS+, as well as a wide range of protocols including FireVault 1 and 2, Core Storage for Fusion dries, RAID configurations, disk images, and sparse bundles, but has not yet been upgraded to support APFS, which is becoming increasingly popular on new Macs and the file system standard that Apple is pushing its users toward. The software, which has evolved from its classic CD-ROM format, now comes in the form of a bootable USB drive that can be used to boot your Mac when needed, and can easily handle any Mac running HFS+-formatted volumes. You pay extra for shipping on this USB drive ($8.95 in the US, $21.95 outside the US), and there is no option to not select it when purchasing.

DiskWarrior is as easy to use as ever. Just download the software after purchasing it, install it, open it, wait a few moments for DiskWarrior to start system services, browse the available volumes on your Mac (which will trigger the rainbow wheel, albeit briefly), and get to work. This is where the software still excels in dealing with failed volumes and gets to work in terms of locating corrupt directories, rebuilding file structures, and repairing normal wear and tear that occurs in file systems to get your data back in order.

Foundry

Foundry

Foundry

Throughout my testing, it was easy to mount and unmount disks and volumes, run quick tests on them, display technical specifications easily, set up automated diagnostics in the Preferences settings, and set up notifications via alerts, emails, AppleScript programs, or SMS, and I got the sense that a great program hadn’t missed a step. This was the DiskWarrior I loved, and I felt that if I came across a badly damaged volume, I would have what I needed to fix the problems and access the data I needed, the software inspiring the same confidence it had all those years ago.

Foundry

Foundry

Foundry

This is the good news.

The bad news is that DiskWarrior 5.3.1 still doesn’t support APFS, and more and more hard drives are moving to that file system, and the company’s relative silence on the matter isn’t reassuring. A company representative confirmed that Alsoft is currently working on version 6.0, which will feature full APFS support, but also noted that Apple’s changes, such as banning third-party kernel extensions and other technical changes, have made the development process much more difficult and created more hurdles than when creating previous versions of DiskWarrior. The representative cited Alsoft’s good relationship with Apple, but noted that there is no official date for DiskWarrior 6.0, as tedious as that is.

Foundry

Foundry

Foundry

Finally, the lack of a free trial version of DiskWarrior 5.3.1 confronts potential customers with the harsh reality of a high new user price and a somewhat steep upgrade price, especially when the software doesn’t support APFS and can only work with certain volumes.

Should I buy DiskWarrior?

Sometimes a great utility gets stuck in development, and it’s hard to know what the developer’s next steps will be. There’s still a great application to be developed, but it needs to find its way, and if that means half-hearted negotiations with Apple to fully support APFS, so be it. Alsoft needs to put itself in a position where it can easily announce that an updated version will be available at a certain date and that it will offer APFS support, allowing it to remain a competitive product. Until that point is reached, it’s hard to guess what DiskWarrior’s fate will be, something the customer never wants to hear before making a purchase.