Disk Image Comparison





There are three main disk image utilities : Disk Copy 6.3, Disk Copy 4.1 & D.A.R.T. I decided to do this comparison when I discovered other programs were more reliable than others. I would recommend to anyone with system 7.0.1 or higher to have a copy of Disk copy 6.3 because there are a lot more features. However, this web site is about vintage macs & system 6. Both Disk Copy 4.1 & D.A.R.T run under system 6. In this test I will compare compression, reliability, features. I am also going to test Disk Copy 6.3 to show users if having Disk Copy 4.1 & D.A.R.T may be a good idea.

Software
 

D.A.R.T  1.5.3

Features :

An excellent feature of D.A.R.T is that it shows you the format of the image inside its icon.

Disk Copy  4.2

Features :


Disk Copy's best feature is the very small application size.

Hardware

Here is a list of the hardware I used for this test :
Powerbook 140
  • 8 MB ram
  • 16 MHz 68030
  • System 7.1
 Power Macintosh 7100/66
  • 40 MB Ram
  • 60 Mhz PowerPC
  • System 7.1.2
Macintosh LC III
  • 12 MB Ram
  • 25 Mhz 68030
  • System 7.1

I used this computers with system 7 to test Disk Copy 6.3 to give a full comparison between all of the available disk utilities. I also chose this hardware based on the floppy drives installed each computer uses different drives. The drives may behave differently this will help determine which program will be more reliable.
 
 

Powerbook 140 DriveThe Powerbook 140 Floppy Drive also found on the Powerbook 100 is an older drive, you have to insert the disk manually & push down until the disk enters the drive. The drive is slightly more compact than the previous drives. (Newer powerbook drives have the eject hole above the disk.)
 
 
 
 
 

LC III Floppy Drive
The drive found on the LC III is the original style found on the Lisa II & Macintosh. This style of drive can be clearly identified by having the eject hole located on the right side of the drive & by having no dust cover. It was replaced in the early 1990s by this next style of floppy drive.
 
 

Newer DriveThis is the most current style of drive introduced in the early 1990s it now has a manual inject mechanism unlike the older style. This style has been used until the floppy drive was removed starting with the iMac. It can be identified by the casing & by the eject hole below the disk.
 
 
 

Testing
(Best Results are in Bold Print)
 
 

The first test was to insert a disk, make an image to compare compression levels.

Disk Copy 4.2 D.A.R.T. Disk Copy 6.3
400 KB 420 KB 183 KB 203 KB
800 KB 840 KB 136 KB 123 KB
1440 KB 1475 KB 809 KB 835 KB

Overall the compression used in D.A.R.T. is better than Disk Copy 6.3. Disk Copy 4.2 has no compression.


Conclusion

In Conclusion I would choose D.A.R.T beacuse of the better compression if I had a Hard Drive. I like Disk Copy 4.2 small file size however you do not save any space in the end because Disk Copy has no Compression. D.A.R.T. is also faster than Disk Copy 4.2 if you have system 7 I would recommend having a copy of Disk Copy 6.3 or MountImage to mount disk images.