Software and Computer System Company’s (http://scsc-online.com) Phoenix, an operating system tool for Mac OS X, allows users to clone volumes, create emergency boot volumes, and attempt to recover data from drives and SSDs with bad blocks.

Phoenix was originally developed to do two things: perform basic volume cloning with user configurable recovery options, and create an emergency boot volume to host our Scannerz line of system and hard drive testing tools. The basic cloning option allows a user to clone one volume to another, and if the drive or SSD has problems, it can attempt to recover damaged files. If a file on a damaged drive or SSD can't be recovered, Phoenix will flag it in a log file allowing the user to identify which files need to be replaced or completely discarded as appropriate.

Phoenix won’t quit or give up if errors are detected; it will proceed with the cloning operation until all viable data is copied to another drive. In essence, Phoenix can step over the bad files allowing a user to get as much information off a bad drive as possible. Needless to say, if the source drive is in good condition, the operation is really just a normal volume cloning operation.

The latest version (2.1) has performance improvements specifically implemented to improve the product's performance under OS X El Capitan. The performance improvements will also help speed up all operations on earlier versions of OS X, but they will be most noticeable under El Capitan.

Phoenix is offered as a standalone product and is a standard component in the company's main product, Scannerz for Mac OS X. Version 2.1 offers several performance improvements. Phoenix may be obtained as a stand-alone product for $13.95. Or it may be obtained as part of the either of the fully featured versions of Scannerz (but not Scannerz-Lite).