Volitans Software

Jun13

SMART Utility and Mac OS X Catalina 10.15

So far, SMART Utility is fully compatible with Mac OS X Catalina 10.15. This includes the kernel extension to read external drives.

With the notarization requirement, and the changing of how kernel extensions are permitted, there might be additional work. However, right now it completely works.

This was only tested on Beta 1, so this could change with future Beta’s and the General Release.

If you run into any issues while using Catalina, please contact us!

Update: SMART Utility also works Beta 2. There have been conflicting reports about the external driver however.

Jan08

The Future of SMART Utility

We wanted to give an update on SMART Utility. As you probably know, version 4.0 is much delayed. This lead to a re-evaluation of the roadmap. Version 4.0 was too ambitious for a single release, especially re-designing the interface. So the revise plan is this:

Version 3.3 (out in a few weeks): Some new features and a bunch of bug fixes

Version 4.0 (out in six months): Re-work the algorithm to better match todays drives

Version 5.0 (out in one to two years): Re-design the interface

While a new interface is the sexy feature, the core algorithm work is much more important. This roadmap is much more achievable, and since there will be point releases in between, better updates instead of delaying everything.

Please send us any questions via email ([email protected]) or Twitter (https://twitter.com/VolitansSW)

Aug28

SMART Utility and MacOS 10.14 (Mojave)

We tested SMART Utility against the most recent beta build of MacOS 10.14 (Mojave) and its nearly fully supported. Everything works except dark mode.

While version 4 remains in development but still delay, we will released a small update to version 3 that will bring support for dark mode.

Dec16

SMART Utility 3.2.4 is Out!

SMART Utility 3.2.4 has been released, which fixes a couple of small bugs.

Download for 10.9 (Mavericks), 10.10 (Yosemite), 10.11 (El Capitan), 10.12 (Sierra), and 10.13 (High Sierra)

 

Here’s the full release notes:

– Added support for NVMe drives in newer Macs

– Fixed crash on first install of SAT SMART Driver

– Updated to Sparkle 1.18.1

– Updated to smarctl 6.6 which supports many more drives

Sep07

Updated SMART Utility 4.0 Tentative Release Date (Updated)

Work is still progressing much slower than expected on SMART Utility 4.0, so the previously announced release date needs to be pushed back. The new interface what has been taking the longest to implement.

Update: At this point, setting a specific date only leads to disappointment. Work is still progressing, just not as fast as desired. When SMART Utility 4.0 is near ready, a Beta release will be announced.

Sep07

SMART Utility and High Sierra

SMART Utility was tested on High Sierra and found fully supported. No issues were discovered during testing, though that could change with the final release of High Sierra.

Jun27

SMART Utility 4.0 Tentative Release Date (Updated)

Work is still progressing SMART Utility 4.0. The new interface is really nice. And the SSD algorithm improvements will be great as well.

The current tentative release date for version 4.0 will be September 5th. There still is a lot of work to do, as well as a lot of testing. That date could be moved up or pushed back depending on how the work and testing goes.

Update: See this new announcement

May03

Email is back! Plus news about SMART Utility 4.0…

Our email server has been restored. Steps have been taking to ensure this will not happen again. Please resend any email that has not been responded to, as we may not have gotten it.

Now that our web presence has been restored, work on SMART Utility 4.0 can resume. Look for a beta signup in the next couple weeks!

May01

We’re Back! Plus Postmortem

We are back finally! Glad to have the site back up and running.

So what happened? Digital Ocean was doing maintenance on the host of this virtual server this site was hosted on. Something happened and severely corrupt the filesystem. A couple days were spent attempting to recover data. While this site was backed up, other things were not.

Why did it take so long to get back? The original server hosted the web code, the database, and the mail for the company and everything was hand set up. It was planned to improve this infrastructure, but of course something happened before that could be accomplished. The decision was made to focus on doing the new infrastructure instead of losing time resetting the original config.

In hindsight, knowing that it would take this long,  a temporary site should have been set up to at least handle interested parties. Lesson learned!

In any case, the site is now running on four separate virtual serves (web, database, caching, and mail). All the set up is scripted out, and in the case of one server going down, its a quick 15 minutes to bring a new one back up. The site will also be faster due to the use of Redis as a caching server.

Note that the mail server portion is still being configured, and we’ll post an update when that’s complete. For now, please contact us via our Twitter page.