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Patcarla · Mar 27, 2003, 10:42 AM

I would like to know if any of you guys has already defragmented your HD running OSX..
If yes, how often do you do it and what kind of software do you use?
I used to do it from time to time with OS 9 but I don't really know how to do it with Jaguar.
Thanks for your replies

rhogue islander · Mar 27, 2003, 10:46 AM

Hi

I use Norton Systemworks and run it from a second OS X install on another drive.

I believe you can boot from the CD and do it from there as well.

Patcarla · Mar 27, 2003, 10:54 AM

Originally posted by rhogue islander:
Hi

I use Norton Systemworks and run it from a second OS X install on another drive.

I believe you can boot from the CD and do it from there as well.

OK.Thanks. I read somewhere that norton is pretty buggy with OSX..what you experience with it?

Telusman · Mar 27, 2003, 10:59 AM

I use Drive 10 on a bootable cd, and made a custom bootable cd using "BootCD" The optimize feature is slow, but i beleive it to be more suited to the OS X file system structure. my system noted a vast improvment after doing said optimize.

wataru · Mar 27, 2003, 11:14 AM

Originally posted by Telusman:
i beleive it to be more suited to the OS X file system structure.

Both OS 9 and OS X use HFS+. All defraggers do the same thing.

I just use Norton's Speed Disk with the Optimize X profile booted from OS 9. Works fine.

Dale Sorel · Mar 27, 2003, 01:48 PM

One word: DiskWarrior

hyperizer · Mar 27, 2003, 06:34 PM

Originally posted by Dale Sorel:
One word: DiskWarrior

By which you mean "PlusOptimizer."

Coxy · Mar 27, 2003, 07:22 PM

I'm just wondering why you'd want to defragment a HFS+ drive?

coolmacdude · Mar 27, 2003, 07:35 PM

Originally posted by Coxy:
I'm just wondering why you'd want to defragment a HFS+ drive?

Same reason you would any other one. To speed up disk performance and lessen the chance of errors. HFS+ doesn't get rid of the problems of fragmentation, it just isn't as bad as with other formats, like say FAT32 (uuugh).

bradoesch · Mar 27, 2003, 07:44 PM

http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.p...hreadid=152866

Dale Sorel · Mar 27, 2003, 08:02 PM

Originally posted by hyperizer:
By which you mean "PlusOptimizer."

Exactly

Patcarla · Mar 27, 2003, 08:38 PM

Originally posted by bradoesch:
http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.p...hreadid=152866

Yes..I double posted.. I though afterward that I'd get more replies in the OSX forum..

step · Mar 28, 2003, 08:08 PM

hi-
backup to firewire external hd with carbon copy cloner, format mac hd with disk utility, restore backup.
cheap, safe. in some cases faster

Mike O'Brien · Apr 14, 2003, 11:22 AM

Drive 10 in its earlier incarnation had problems with the file systems that Apple was delivering on new machines. These HFS+ volumes weren't all clean and linearized; they had holes, exotic branches and other esoterica which, while legal, confused Drive 10 to the point that it would proceed to smash the file system � la Norton Disk Doctor Kevorkian. Current versions of Drive 10 seem to work fine, but in order to run the latest version, you have to buy the boxed version, install it on your hard drive, download the current version from http://www.micromat.com, then use BootCD to make a new bootable volume. BootCD, in fact, appears to have been written specifically so that the author could use the latest version of Drive 10 without resorting to a Firewire drive.

HFS+ file systems appear to require periodic defragmentation, just like FAT32 and FAT16 file systems. Not too many people (at least in the Mac world) appear to be aware that UFS does not require defragmentation. A UFS file system is born fragmented and stays that way for its lifetime. It has clusters of inodes and free blocks scattered across the file system, as if it were many mini-filesystems placed end-to-end. The UFS disk allocation routines attempt to cluster files in the same directory together in the same inode cluster, to minimize head movement.

Frankly, it's a puzzle to me as to why Apple doesn't dump HFS+ in favor of UFS. The tricks they had to pull with HFS+ in order to get it to do things like hard links are much larger than anything that would be required to support resource forks in UFS, and they'd get a far, far faster file system for their money. Not to mention that a) 'fsck' would fix ALL possible file system problems (no more Disk Doctor Kevorkian), and b) they wouldn't be the only vendor to deliver a UNIX workstation that can't back itself up on delivery (dump/restore would actually be useful).

If they want to be taken seriously in the workstation community they really should address point (b).

warnergt · Apr 14, 2003, 04:06 PM

Norton SystemWorks works fine for me.

wtmcgee · Apr 14, 2003, 04:27 PM

are there any FREE defrag apps out there?

call me a cheapskate, but i don't want to pay for a defrag utility.

coolmacdude · Apr 14, 2003, 05:44 PM

Well Norton, Drive 10, and DiskWarrior aren't just defrag programs. They can also repair disk errors and sometimes recover files in the event of a HD failure.

theory · Apr 14, 2003, 06:01 PM

Mike O'Brien

I agree with you that UFS is better than HFS+ but the main problem
with it is that 1) you can't boot OS 9 from it which until recently
apple was letting people do. 2) OS 9 programs can't see UFS disks.
3) A lot of carbon programs simply don't work properly with UFS.

So really the only reason apple is keeping HFS+ is for compatability
kind of like how XP supports NFS and FAT32.

malvolio · Apr 14, 2003, 06:38 PM

I use PlusOptimizer, for one very important reason.
If you experience a crash, a power failure, or even a power fluctuation while defragging with Norton Speed Disk or Drive 10, you will end up with major disk damage.
If the same thing happens while defragging with PlusOptimizer, you won't.

tooki · Apr 14, 2003, 07:57 PM

1. DiskWarrior does not defragment. It works strictly on the disk directory.

2. UFS is largely inferior to HFS+, and OS X retains too much Mac-ness to work on UFS well. (For example, you can't put Classic on UFS.) I have tried using OS X on UFS -- it's very significantly slower than when it runs on HFS+. Add to that that no current Mac disk utility can work on UFS disks. I have seen no compelling reason to use UFS, and it's obvious that Apple is putting all its development effort into HFS+.

My guess, though, is that eventually, even HFS+ will be phased out for a true journaling filesystem, hopefully an open-source one like ReiserFS.

tooki

suthercd · Apr 14, 2003, 09:55 PM

I don't think that defrag on OS X provides the same benefits as it did on 9 and earlier. Using Disk Utility to repair permissions, starting in single user mode...hold the Command and "s" key after the chime when re-starting and then entering /sbin/fsck -y, repeat until no errors are reported. Type either reboot or exit to activate OS X. These have kept my System stable and fast. I just did a re-format and clean install for 10.2.5 because I had an earlier build and the machine was no faster than before

Craig

mrmister · Apr 14, 2003, 10:46 PM

I use Norton's Speed Disk with the Optimize X profile booted from OS 9. Works great, and I *do* see a performance difference.

coolmacdude · Apr 15, 2003, 08:58 AM

Originally posted by suthercd:
I don't think that defrag on OS X provides the same benefits as it did on 9 and earlier.

It really depends on how much you use the drive. If you rarely install new apps or delete things, then it isn't going to be a great improvement because your drive isn't that fragmented. With me, it helps because I am constantly installing/deleting/reinstalling stuff.

CatOne · Apr 15, 2003, 10:52 AM

Originally posted by coolmacdude:
Same reason you would any other one. To speed up disk performance and lessen the chance of errors. HFS+ doesn't get rid of the problems of fragmentation, it just isn't as bad as with other formats, like say FAT32 (uuugh).

"lessen the chance of errors"...

Ummm... no.

Orion27 · Apr 15, 2003, 06:41 PM

Just defraged my 6 wk old HD with Drive 10 1.1.2. installed on my new internal Western Digital Special Edition. i've used Norton Disk
Doctor in the past and it's Speed Disk optimizing component. I don't remember the
defrag proccess taking so long, about two
hours to optimise. I prefer the Speed Disk interface. System files were different color than plain files. Drive 10 results seem to be fine. One has the option to defrag only files
or defrag files and disk space. I chose the latter. I did throw the dice though. I used Apples disk utility to repair any problems with
the disk earlier in the day. Iv'e done that several times with no reports of problems. I ran Drive 10's optimizer without running any of its other utilities. I lucked out!

ixus_123 · Apr 15, 2003, 06:50 PM

I take it as you only have one HD that you are not doing heavy deleting like one might do with video work etc so you may not need to defrag that often.

A cheap way of doing this is simply just to install the os X system updates - they optimise your disk before they are done.

Simon · Apr 16, 2003, 12:28 AM

Originally posted by ixus_123:
A cheap way of doing this is simply just to install the os X system updates - they optimise your disk before they are done.

Well, they optimize the pre-bindings by updating them but they do not defrag your files/disks. That would require unmounting the disk which they don't (and couldn't since in most cases the system is running from it).

coolmacdude · Apr 16, 2003, 03:36 AM

Originally posted by CatOne:
"lessen the chance of errors"...

Ummm... no.

Umm, yes. I have encountered numerous file corruption errors over the years due to the fact that my drive was severly fragmented. While it isn't the number one cause, a badly fragmented drive can definitely lead to errors. I am talking about minor file errors here, not disk crash/failure types. Maybe that's what you meant.

bradoesch · Apr 16, 2003, 09:49 PM

Originally posted by coolmacdude:
Umm, yes. I have encountered numerous file corruption errors over the years due to the fact that my drive was severly fragmented. While it isn't the number one cause, a badly fragmented drive can definitely lead to errors. I am talking about minor file errors here, not disk crash/failure types. Maybe that's what you meant.

How do you know the errors were caused by a fragmented drive?

970 · 02:10 PM

If fragmentation was really a significant problem and produced a large, measurable slow down, don't you think Apple would have included this utility for its users?

Maybe after 3 years of daily use your HD needs defragementation. But I think the cost of the time spent defragging is much less than the benefits.

fortepianissimo · Apr 17, 2003, 07:26 AM

Originally posted by Mike O'Brien:
Drive 10 in its earlier incarnation had problems with the file systems that Apple was delivering on new machines. These HFS+ volumes weren't all clean and linearized; they had holes, exotic branches and other esoterica which, while legal, confused Drive 10 to the point that it would proceed to smash the file system � la Norton Disk Doctor Kevorkian. Current versions of Drive 10 seem to work fine, but in order to run the latest version, you have to buy the boxed version, install it on your hard drive, download the current version from http://www.micromat.com, then use BootCD to make a new bootable volume. BootCD, in fact, appears to have been written specifically so that the author could use the latest version of Drive 10 without resorting to a Firewire drive.

Okay so I tried to do exactly the same - boot from cd and defrag my startup volume. Drive 10 (1.1.4 to be exact) reported structure errors and after hours of checking it presented a dialog comparing "vital statistics" before and after repair. I clicked OK but then it warned me again about "the unusal values in blah" (I forgot). And I chickened out.

My question is, was anyone brave enough to proceed at this point? Any traumatic experience?

My system is 10.2.5 (PB G4).

Orion27 · Apr 17, 2003, 01:45 PM

This is what I would do. Back up to CD files you can not live without. First of all trying to repair a volume from the CD is not the fastest
of implementations. I would seriously consider
buying an external FireWire disk, like the new
Lacie d2 for around $200. You need backup anyway. Partition this drive in two. This creates two separate volumes on the new disk.
Make the first volume bootable by installing X.
The second volume will be strictly storage.
Install Drive 10 and Apple Disk Utility on the
boot volume. This gives you maximum flexibility. Restart your computer with the new boot volume. Run Apple Disk Utility and run disk repair until it reports disk seeems to be OK. Launch Drive 10. Go to the services menue and choose Rebuild Volume Structure.
Next, go to Services and choose Optimise. Listen, if it screws up and it happens, you have to be prepared to reformat the main drive. Only you can say whether optimizing is worth the small risk of a failure. You have another option. Since you did decide to go with the new firewire disk, you may have room to back
up a mirror image of your main drive on the new disk. You can always return to your present misery.