Blackmagic Disk Speed Test

Name: Blackmagic Disk Speed Test
Rating: 4.3 (11 reviews)

3.2

25 October 2018

Measure disk performance for video work.

Overview

Blackmagic Disk Speed Test is an easy to use tool to quickly measure and certify your disk performance for working with high quality video! Simply click the start button and Disk Speed Test will write test your disk using large blocks of data, and then display the result. Disk Speed Test will continue to test writes and reads from your disk so you can evaluate both performance and readability over time.

What's new in Blackmagic Disk Speed Test

Version 3.2:

Improve UI to support faster disks.

Blackmagic Disk Speed Test Screenshots

9 Blackmagic Disk Speed Test Reviews

This use to be my favorite app for testing the speed of disks. However, as of OS X 10.9.5, it can only test the start up drive. If I try to select another drive, the app FREEZES. You have to force quit it to stop it. And until you do, it can take up 100% of the CPU time of one of your Intel Cores. Unfortunately, this app hasn't been updated since October 25, 2012. it is now December 24, 2014. So this app has gotten old. And it has developed incompatibility with the latest OS X.

Like (1)

Version 2.2

Filou53

05 February 2019

it worked well before... but now, under High Sierra, it won't open. Nothing happens... :-(

Version 3.2

1 answer(s)

Filou53

05 February 2019

as replacement, I test now AJA system test lite
https://itunes.apple.com/be/app/aja-system-test-lite/id1092006274?l=fr&mt=12

gibhenry

14 January 2016

Worked great under 10.10 Yosemite. Under 10.11 El Capitan, Blackmagic Disk Speed Test 2.2.2 reports every disk as locked, and therefore not testable. :-(

Version 2.2.2

3 answer(s)

Shannyk

11 February 2016

Try selecting a folder on the drive you want to test that you know you have read/write permission for. It wouldn't let me use the root of the drive, though I could select it, but a folder worked just fine.

gibhenry

11 February 2016

Yeah, that did it, thanks! The manual is misleading; it should say select a FOLDER, not a disk, to which you have read access!

Mcr

12 September 2016

Disclaimer, I have not used the app, just commenting on what has been stated here.

User says in El Cap, one must select a folder (not a disk) otherwise the app reports the disk is locked, but it worked fine in Yosemite. That indicates to me very lazy and/or lack of knowledge programming on the part of the developer, neither of which is a good sign for a utility program.

1) given it works in Yosemite, but not El Cap when you just select a drive, likely indicates that if SIP is enabled (System Integrity Protection), the program fails; that means the program is attempting to write to system folders (which under Yosemite, was still possible). Why in the world would you risk writing huge blocks of test data to sensitive system folders?

2) In any version of OS X, there are defined temporary folders that can be written too that the current user has permission to access, that the program could have used without having to ask the user. Here's three just to name a few:
/private/tmp AND /private/var/tmp AND TMPDIR environment variable.

That is what those folders are there for, for applications to write temporary files. If the developer does know that and STILL chose to write to protected system folders, shame on him. If he DIDN'T know these temp folders existed,, that doesn't speak well either.

You really have to wonder about the safety of using this app. One hopes that the app cleans up after itself after writing all these test blocks.

Version 2.2.2 crashes instantly on OS X 10.6.8. You can fix this but I would say the solution is definitely NOT worth it. First, download and install MacPorts (free open-source) for Snow Leopard from: https://www.macports.org/install.php Make sure you get the Snow Leopard one. After MacPorts is installed, go to Applications > Utilities > Terminal and run the following command: sudo port selfupdate Then run the following command, which may take like an hour to compile: sudo port install clang-3.3 -analyzer -python27 Then run the following command, which may also take like an hour to compile: sudo port install libcxx +universal configure.compiler=macports-clang-3.3 After you've done all this, Blackmagic 2.2.2 will open properly again (and congratulations on your determination and patience).

Version 2.2.2

1 answer(s)

Smayer97

21 February 2016

To install MacPorts, it says "Also required is the installation of Apple's Xcode programing suite", if you do not have it (most users do not).

Do you also have info on how to uninstall all this if/when we no longer need it?

Ok, now that I've tried it, there appears to be no way to get a log of the test results. So how is one supposed to compare one disk with another? It reports multiple results for different kinds of video files and file sizes. It's not practical to write those results down by hand - or remember them. So BD's got a nice, fancy interface. But that's not enough by half. Without a reporting feature it's all but useless.

Version 2.2.2

1 answer(s)

mikes429

28 September 2015

If you click the little gear icon between the two large dials, you'll get a pop-up menu that includes "Save Screenshot". It saves a png file of just the app's window. Include a date code in the filename when you save it, and you're all set. Not the greatest approach, but better than nothing.

Like (1)

Version 2.2

1 answer(s)

B-Jefferson-Le-Blanc

17 January 2015

You can still select other disks. Choose Select Target Drive in the File menu.

version after 2.1 not reliable with SSD because is not considering firmware compression algorithms. performances measured are 50% of real speed. :-(

Version 2.2

2 answer(s)

Mikael-B

31 August 2013

Black Magic says you're delusional. From the Mac App store: "Some SSD's use hidden compression when writing data to make their benchmarked speeds appear faster. Disk Speed Test will now measure the true speed of these SSD's so you know if they are suitable for high quality uncompressed video capture."

Like (1)

Mosenga

31 August 2013

Delusional is your answer after almost one Y :-)

Does what it says... although would be nice to read/write multiple test files at the same time to test stream playback.

Version 1.0

Blackmagic Disk Speed Test

Overview

What's new in Blackmagic Disk Speed Test

Blackmagic Disk Speed Test Screenshots

9 Blackmagic Disk Speed Test Reviews

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