[evoLver]

hi. my internal G4 and my external 7200 rpm lacie are now both 70% full. things are moving slower. there doesnt seem to be an agreement on whether it is good to defrag or not for OSX. i've been regularly shutting down my P-book after use. i am now advised to leave it on at least once a week for automatic late-night housekeeping/defragging.

shouldn't i at least defrag my external drive? ( i keep my apps on my G4 and my audio files and sample libraries on my external.)

my research tells me that for larger audio files, and near-full hard drives, additional defragging is necessary.

if this is so what application should i use?

[mad cow disease]

Diskwarrior.

[baw]

I stopped defragging at 10.1.

[analogika]

Originally Posted by mad cow disease

Diskwarrior.

No.

Diskwarrior does NOT defragment your hard drive.

If you're on 10.4 Tiger and above, you do NOT need to leave your 'book on for those regular "housecleaning" activities overnight. They are automatically run the next time you switch on your computer.

[fisherKing]

while defragging isn't neccessary, diskwarrior might be a good idea anyway.

i use my powebook with audio as well (and external 7200rpm drives for the actual audiofiles, and run diskwarrior monthly, often replacing a (mildly) corrupted directory. seems to help...

and/or...time for another ext drive??

[Jean-Loup]

Originally Posted by evoLver

hi. my internal G4 and my external 7200 rpm lacie are now both 70% full. things are moving slower. there doesnt seem to be an agreement on whether it is good to defrag or not for OSX. i've been regularly shutting down my P-book after use. i am now advised to leave it on at least once a week for automatic late-night housekeeping/defragging.

shouldn't i at least defrag my external drive? ( i keep my apps on my G4 and my audio files and sample libraries on my external.)

my research tells me that for larger audio files, and near-full hard drives, additional defragging is necessary.

if this is so what application should i use?

Defragging is HIGHLY recommended when you're doing intensive audio work. While most casual users may not need to defrag, when you're doing audio work it's a whole other ballgame. Audio work is REALLY hard on your hard drive. That's one of the reasions why it is not recommended to record off your internal drive. This was taught to us in sound engeneering school recently and was confirmed by my Digidesign rep and a pro audio store I do business with.

You should get yourself a copy of Techtool pro and check+ defrag your drive ASAP. It's just common place to do so every once in a while.

PS: for your next external hard drive I would recommend you forget about LaCie and go with Glyph pro audio hard drives. They are similarly priced (maybe 20- 50$ more) but are MUCH more silent and carry a 3 or 5 year warranty.

[mattsgotredhair]

Originally Posted by Jean-Loup

PS: for your next external hard drive I would recommend you forget about LaCie and go with Glyph pro audio hard drives. They are similarly priced (maybe 20- 50$ more) but are MUCH more silent and carry a 3 or 5 year warranty.

I would definitely recommend getting a case and building your own external drive before buying a Glyph drive. The only reason I even like LaCie drives is because they are easily rackmountable and are the only external drives that do so for a reasonable price. Glyph drives become ridiculously over-priced when it comes to their rackmounted hot-swappable drives.

Also, to answer the original poster, why don't you just archive your data to DVD-R's? I don't see why you would need to have all of your stuff available at one time. That way you have a good and safe hard copy of your data, and you free up your drive space.

[evoLver]

so there is NO AGREEMENT, then. one person says defragging is HIGHLY RECCOMMENDED and one says NOT NECESSARY.

any other comments?

[mduell]

Originally Posted by Jean-Loup

PS: for your next external hard drive I would recommend you forget about LaCie and go with Glyph pro audio hard drives. They are similarly priced (maybe 20- 50$ more) but are MUCH more silent and carry a 3 or 5 year warranty.

I'd stay away from LaCie too, but I'd build your own and save money instead of wasting it on a "pro audio" drive (wtf does that mean?).

[Tomchu]

No file system can entirely prevent fragmentation, so yes, logic dictates that if you're doing high-end audio work with lots of audio tracks/lots of data, defragmenting will improve disk read/write performance.

[PacHead]

I do plenty of audio. Back in the day it was much more common to defrag, nowadays I'll just start a new project on a fresh drive. It's just common sense not to record onto a drive that's very full , only an idiot would do that. I prefer mine to be close to 100% empty before I begin. If anybody is doing audio in any sort of serious capacity, they'll have a bunch of drives and it shouldn't be a problem to always have plenty of space or empty drives, so no I don't worry about defragging anymore. After a project is done, you can just back it up to external media or transfer it to another drive for storage, then format the audio drive and you're good to go again for the next project. Screw defragging. I haven't had any serious fragmentation problems for years. Back in the day, when people defragged often and when drives were less reliable, I remember many, many more problems with drives back then and things getting screwed up. The last time I bothered to defrag a drive was before the Millenium. But hey, different strokes for different folks, if somebody wishes to defrag their drives then good for them, it's their time. I find it much easier to just wipe/format the whole drive.

[Jean-Loup]

Originally Posted by mduell

I'd stay away from LaCie too, but I'd build your own and save money instead of wasting it on a "pro audio" drive (wtf does that mean?).

It means that the enclosures are meant to be much more silent for on and that the warranty is better on the drives. There is a reason why they are usually the most common drives found in studios.

[PacHead]

Originally Posted by Jean-Loup

It means that the enclosures are meant to be much more silent for on and that the warranty is better on the drives. There is a reason why they are usually the most common drives found in studios.

I judge silent drives by the drive brand itself, not the enclosure brand. An enclosure doesn't make noise unless there's a fan in the enclosure, something that's not really needed anymore IMO. Certain drive brands do have their own sound and some are slightly more quiet than others. How do you know which drive you're getting if you're buying a Lacie or another kind of case that comes with a drive ? Everybody has their drive brand preferences and it seems kind of foolish to me if somebody buys something without even knowing what's inside.

[Jean-Loup]

Originally Posted by PacHead

I judge silent drives by the drive brand itself, not the enclosure brand. An enclosure doesn't make noise unless there's a fan in the enclosure, something that's not really needed anymore IMO. Certain drive brands do have their own sound and some are slightly more quiet than others. How do you know which drive you're getting if you're buying a Lacie or another kind of case that comes with a drive ? Everybody has their drive brand preferences and it seems kind of foolish to me if somebody buys something without even knowing what's inside.

Sorry, but while I agreed with your previous post about reformating being a worthwhile option, this post make no sense to me. You're talking about the drive being the primordial factor for you. I can understand that in some cases where you would want an internal drive when building a system...but in this case this doesn't apply (IMO). Glyph drives are made for audio pros and have great specs for those individuals. You could not build a system with the same specs as their drives...and enclosures ARE a big part of that. I have not yet heard of a plce to buy rackmountable drives that will be as silent as the Glyphs.

Secondly, the warranty makes the point of caring about what is in the enclosure moot. If I buy a piece of equipement from a reputable company which is known for good service and they are willing to give me a better warranty than what I would normally find in other competitors, I know that it's a good product.

If we were to apply your reasonning to monitors, no one should buy ADAM-audio, Dynaudio or any monitor since we don't know the magnet that has been used and several other components.

All that being said, it really depends on the users needs. If you're an audio pro, Glyph is a widely adopted option, if you only want to have a home DAW, you can go with what ever makes you happy. My suggestion about Glyph was only that, a suggestion. I'll let the OP make his mind up with regards as what he wants to do with it. He may go check it out and fall in love and he may disregard it all together. I guess equipemnt in the end is basically a question of individual taste. To stay with the monitor example, I'm a fan of ADAM-Audio monitors, and some people will prefer Dynaudio and neither is a bad choice if you manage to do what you want with it.

[PacHead]

Originally Posted by Jean-Loup

Secondly, the warranty makes the point of caring about what is in the enclosure moot.

I guess we'll just have to disagree on this point, because it does matter to me if there's a Maxtor or Seagate or Western Digital or another brand inside the enclosure. Most people who have used computers for many years have their own preferences regarding drive brands, since they've probably gone through a ton of drives and they have based their opinions on their own experiences with what has worked well for them and what has failed. If I were to buy a finished made hardrive, I'd need to know what brand and model drive they use, does it have a 2 meg cache ? 8 meg cache ? 16 meg cache ? The best enclosure in the world wouldn't be worth much to me if it had a drive that I didn't care for inside of it.

I see your point about the speakers and which magnets they might use, but I don't believe that's entirely comparable to an enclosure and which drive brand is inside. And yes, Glyph does make decent stuff, I own a few Glyph things, though I decided what would be put inside of it.

[mduell]

Originally Posted by Jean-Loup

It means that the enclosures are meant to be much more silent for on and that the warranty is better on the drives. There is a reason why they are usually the most common drives found in studios.

Originally Posted by Jean-Loup

You could not build a system with the same specs as their drives...and enclosures ARE a big part of that. I have not yet heard of a plce to buy rackmountable drives that will be as silent as the Glyphs.

Secondly, the warranty makes the point of caring about what is in the enclosure moot. If I buy a piece of equipement from a reputable company which is known for good service and they are willing to give me a better warranty than what I would normally find in other competitors, I know that it's a good product.

You said in an earlier post that they're offering a 3 or 5 year warranty. That's no better than the rest of the hard drive industry (most offer 3 years on all drives, Seagate offers 5 years on all drives).

I looked up one of these oh-so-great Glyph enclosures, and I thought it looked rather familiar.
Glyph NetDrive (click for source and larger pic):

Mapower enclosure (click for source and larger pic):


Yep, Glyph is using the same ODM and marking the price up.

Glyph 250GB NetDrive: $252 with a 1 year warranty
Same Mapower enclosure + 250GB Seagate: $153 with a 5 year warranty

Ouch.