OK. I need to sit down. I just had one of those ?Oh, wow!? moments that computer folks have from time to time. Unfortunately, ?Oh, wow!? moments have become less common as we?ve grown accustomed to the ever-changing world of technology. Over the past few months, upgrades to Adobe Creative Suite, along with the upgrades to OS X and Macromedia Studio, have dominated discussion among designer types. Upgrades don?t bring a lot of ?Oh, wow!? moments. Every now and then a feature like Photoshop?s Shadow/Highlight tool elicits gasps from the audience, but these moments have become all too rare. This week, I had the opportunity to experience an unexpected ?Oh, wow!? moment while checking out a piece of hardware called Disk Jockey, a tool which gives users greater control over hard drive backups. Sure, ample resources exist for backing up files to hardware and USB drives. In addition, cloning software is available (e.g. Carbon Copy Cloner). Finding cloning software that works with drives running operating systems older than OS X.3 is a little tougher. Just when all seems lost, Diskology?s Disk Jockey appears. Disk Jockey is a hard disk diagnostic and copy tool that can fit inside the palm of your hand. It works with Macs and Windows computers connected via Firewire or USB ports or as a standalone unit. Disk Jockey makes it possible to mount drives, copy data between hard disks, verify, test and erase hard disks. You know me; I?ll believe it when I see it. Newspapers often need to make a duplicate of a hard drive, especially when upgrading a server or workstation to a new operating system. When upgrading system software on a server, I want to be sure I have an exact replica of the original hard drive. Then if something goes wrong after the upgrade, I can simply put the cloned drive back in the server. To test the Disk Jockey, I began by opening the door of a G4 server in our office. I removed the 160 Gb hard drive from the server and connected it, using cables supplied with Disk Jockey, to the Disk Jockey box. Next, I took another hard drive (a 250 Gb Maxtor Ultra ATA drive) and connected it to the other side of the box. I quickly learned that the manual was correct when it stated that both drives must be set up as master drives for this to work. A warning beep let me know I hadn?t done this. After moving the jumper on the back of the hard drive, I was ready to clone the drive. Next, I pressed a button on top of the Disk Jockey. I heard the first drive power up. After pressing the button again, I heard the second drive power up. Finally, I pressed the button a third time and a green light appeared. This signalled that the drive was being cloned. The documentation indicated that Disk Jockey would clone approximately 2 Gb per second. It actually worked a little quicker for me. My 160 Gb drive was duplicated in approximately an hour. Since most Macs have 40 or 80 gig hard drives, duplicating a drive will often take 40 minutes or less. Finally it was time to test the drive. I placed the new drive in the server that had housed the original drive and connected all the wires. After starting up the server, I asked someone on the network to see if they could connect as they normally did. Sure enough, it worked like a charm. That?s when I had the ?Oh, wow!? moment. In addition to duplicating drives, Disk Jockey has seven other modes: Verification: Disk Jockey checks to ensure that two disks are exactly the same, preventing loss of data. Spanning: Create one large volume from two hard drives. Mounting: Mount one or two hard disks to the desktop of your Mac or Windows computer through Firewire or USB ports without installing any extra drivers. Hard Disk Read Test: Disk Jockey performs sector by sector read tests on drives. Mirroring: Disk Jockey allows you to mirror two hard disks for real-time backup. If one drive fails, the same data will be on the second drive. Two Levels of Erase: Government groups use the three pass erase function for ultimate security. Forensic use: OK. You probably won?t have any need for this one. But it allows police and other government officials to duplicate drives with no signatures written to the disk. This means a forensics specialist can go to work on a cloned drive as if it were the original. What does all this mean to newspaper users? You can now back up a drive on a server or workstation without worrying about losing vital information in the process. It makes it safe to upgrade systems without risking permanent damage to the systems or files. I quickly learned a couple of important details about Disk Jockey during the testing process. First, it doesn?t support Serial ATA (SATA) drives (the type that comes with most G5 computers) out of the box. Fortunately, Diskology has recently come out with SATA drive adapters. This adapter sells for around $40, and you would need two to clone a SATA drive to another SATA drive. Second, Mac users cannot use the extra space when they clone a smaller drive onto a larger drive. To make up for this, Diskology recently released Disk Jockey Expander, a $25 utility that allows Mac users to use all of the space on the larger drive. I would suggest this utility be included with the Disk Jockey in future versions. Do I recommend Disk Jockey? You betcha! Disk Jockey retails for $329 (USD) and is available at www.diskology.com and www.fwb.com. For more information, visit www.diskology.com.