[iKwak]

On a Mac (iBook), how do we

1) defragment the main harddrive?
2) make a backup of the entire harddrive or certain folders? Would like to burn the backup.
3) optimize?
4) Any other procedure you guys take on a monthly basis?

[ginoledesma]

Well, that's all going to be easy if you have the appropriate software.

1. Defragmenting: Your choice of Norton Utilities, Norton Systemworks, or Micromat's Techtool 4

2. You can use Apple's Disk Utility to burn to CD-R, if that's your medium of choice. Alternately, you can use the Backup tool that comes with .Mac if you're a .Mac subscriber. Otherwise, you can get a backup program like Dantz Retrospect. If you get Roxio Toast Titanium 6 (which is a CD authoring tool), you get DejaVu with it, which allows you to do scheduled/automatic backups.

3. Optimizing: I'm assuming this is _disk_ optimization? If so, refer to #1, but add in Alsoft Diskwarrior.

4. Some people run Repair Disk Permissions occasionally, while others run DiskWarrior.

[sniffer]

1) You don't. The way the file system works, HFS+, the fragmentation is automatically limited by the way it works. Just make sure you have at least 15-20 % spear disk place, or else it might get a little fragmented. Besides anti fragmenting technology is already built into Panther on top of that if my memory is correct. De-fragmentation tools is just trowing away money.
2). What ginoledesma said.
3). Depends on what you mean. By more ram?
4). For Jaguar, repairing disk permissions is the thing. In Panther OTOH it seems like you don't have to do it that often.

[tomkos123]

how do i go about repairing the disk permissions?

thanks

[ginoledesma]

There's a tool called Repair Disk utility's Permissions which only works with Mac OS 10.2.x. In Panther, the disk permissions fix can be accessed using Disk Utilitiy.

[rubberduck77]

From your utilities folder inside the application folder, start Disk Utility. There, when you select your drive (from the left column), you get the buttons to check or repair disk permissions.

For the permission thing, select not the physical harddrive (from the left column), but the drive symbol below with the name of the drive that appears on your desktop. Then you should be set to go for your permission repairing...

Hope this helps.

[ginoledesma]

If I recall correctly, Panther (with HFS Extended and Journaled) will automatically defragment files under 20MB if they are fragmented when they are opened/accessed. I can't recall if there's another condition (like extents), though.

However, take note that defragmenting is just one part of the routines which applications like Norton SpeedDisk, Intech SpeedTools, and Micromat Techtool do. Each of these applications perform "disk optimizations" which places files in certain locations for maximum speed and performance. As I understand, DiskWarrior only optimizes the directory, which helps in the location of files on the disk.

[wataru]

I don't think anyone's mentioned this so far: In Panther, frequently used files are automatically put on a part of the disk that is faster to access (probably the outer edge, but I'm not sure). This is called adaptive hot file clustering. If you defragment, those files will be put elsewhere, and your performance will actually decrease.

In other words: As others have said, don't bother defragging.