[crazylegs5150]

Hey all. I was wanting to know if there is any type of periodic maintenance required with Macs in general. I have owned my Macbook now for a year and have never had to do any required clean ups as you would have to do with a PC such as Defragment the HD. I doubt there is anything involved but thought I would ask for my own knowledge. You know the saying ," If it ain't broke, don't bother fixin it" . Thanks

[C.A.T.S. CEO]

You don't need to do anything other than repair permissions every once in awhile. (Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility then click your HD and hit Repair Permissions.)

[CharlesS]

You don't even need to do that.

[Langdon]

OnyX

[Krusty]

Ever so often, I check my activity monitor for signs of memory leaks. If one app (usually Safari) is taking up giant amounts of real and virtual memory, I will quit those programs and restart them.

[analogika]

Originally Posted by Langdon 

OnyX

UnNecessary

[besson3c]

You don't need to do anything since Tiger and the introduction of launchd.

You don't need to repair permissions either, this is just mythological Mac voodoo possibly perpetuated by people that may not really understand permissions in the first place.

[ankurcd]

Hi All,

you mean no disk-defragmentation is required on a Mac???

[analogika]

Originally Posted by ankurcd 

Hi All,

you mean no disk-defragmentation is required on a Mac???

a) the Mac OS and the HFS+ disk format are not *nearly* as prone to fragmentation as Windows is, and

b) Mac OS X will defragment automatically in the background, so

No. Disk-defragmentation is NOT required on a Mac, and anybody telling you otherwise is trying to sell you snake oil.

[crazylegs5150]

Thanks everyone. I figured that nothing was required but thought I would ask just to find out. Appreciate it.

[Christopera]

I like to Safe Boot every once in a while. Oh, and I back up my files/move unnecessary files to an external.

I also clean the screen and case. That about does it.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by analogika 

a) the Mac OS and the HFS+ disk format are not *nearly* as prone to fragmentation as Windows is, and

b) Mac OS X will defragment automatically in the background, so

No. Disk-defragmentation is NOT required on a Mac, and anybody telling you otherwise is trying to sell you snake oil.

Well, I'm not sure about OS X automatically defragging in the background, I think this statement is incorrect:

About disk optimization with Mac OS X

However, your overall assessment and recommendation are correct

[analogika]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

Well, I'm not sure about OS X automatically defragging in the background, I think this statement is incorrect:

About disk optimization with Mac OS X

From the link you posted:

Mac OS X 10.3 Panther can also automatically defragment such slow-growing files. This process is sometimes known as "Hot-File-Adaptive-Clustering."

[DCJ001]

Originally Posted by analogika 

a) the Mac OS and the HFS+ disk format are not *nearly* as prone to fragmentation as Windows is, and

b) Mac OS X will defragment automatically in the background, so

No. Disk-defragmentation is NOT required on a Mac, and anybody telling you otherwise is trying to sell you snake oil.

I see that I've got

a. about 1100 fragmented files

b. about 1000 file fragments

c. over 33000 disk fragments

I've seen the following article from over three years ago:

About disk optimization with Mac OS X

But I've never seen any reason that I shouldn't defrag/optimize my Mac hard drive. Doing so just makes sense. If anyone can explain why it should not be done or why it's unnecessary, please explain. Thanks.

[JKT]

You should backup your drive first before performing any de-frag. That is a given.

If you are doing this then you might as well wipe the drive and reformat it then restore the system from your backup, than do a de-fragmentation. Less likely to screw up and achieves the same effect (only in less time). Either way, the amount of time you spend doing this (several hours) will far exceed any marginal speed gains that you will obtain from doing so. Ergo, the whole process is a waste of your time for very little gain.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by DCJ001 

But I've never seen any reason that I shouldn't defrag/optimize my Mac hard drive. Doing so just makes sense. If anyone can explain why it should not be done or why it's unnecessary, please explain. Thanks.

Well, the Apple article suggests that you "probably shouldn't have to", but I can't claim to fully understand the rationale either.

From my personal experience, doing all of these sort of so-called maintenance tasks may speed up the computer a wee bit for a day or two, but this is short-lived. Really, the days of having to baby your computer are past us, in my opinion. Just run your computer, don't worry about all of this stuff. In my opinion, it just isn't worth the time and effort. Moreover, most people don't even understand why they do these tasks anymore (the prime example being repairing permissions).

[CharlesS]

The only noticeable effect defragging has on a Mac is occasionally giving you an opportunity to use your backup.

[Hal Itosis]

Originally Posted by JKT 

You should backup your drive first before performing any de-frag. That is a given.

If you are doing this then you might as well wipe the drive and reformat it then restore the system from your backup, than do a de-fragmentation. Less likely to screw up and achieves the same effect (only in less time). Either way, the amount of time you spend doing this (several hours) will far exceed any marginal speed gains that you will obtain from doing so. Ergo, the whole process is a waste of your time for very little gain.

 
While file fragmentation isn't a problem with OSX... once disks start getting 3/4 full,
then free-space fragmentation does enter the picture (on practically every platform).

While the erase/restore process may be beneficial, that method copies back onto disk
in alphabetical/hierarchical order. No advantage to that arrangement when compared
to a smart defragger (such as iDefrag... made in the UK, BTW), which is savvy enough
to place files in groups and physical locations based on their type. (So /bin and /sbin
wind up in closer proximity, for example... despite alphabetical separation). Also, the
directory of a fresh clone (restore, whatever) is something in dire need of DiskWarrior.
[ Well, it's far from "optimized" is all I'm saying. Check for yourself.]

Free-space fragmentation (i.e., lack of large *contiguous* space) doesn't usually become
an issue until the volume gets beyond 75% full, but a lot depends on usage. For example,
if someone does an 'archive and install' which almost fills the disk... and then erases the
old OS to recover lost space, they get the space back okay... but it's not a nice fat chunk.

Here is a fairly recent thread for doubters: OS X Optimization: iDefrag Review

Do I say it's a huge deal that should be done daily?
Not at all. Just pointing out facts often overlooked.

[peeb]

It's hardly ever worth it. If your drive is very full, and you are feeling that your computer is slowing down, it might be worth checking to see if defragging would help, otherwise, leave it alone.

[David Lee]

What about after installing something? I have seen many cases where installers, even Apple's, but mainly Adobe, and especially Flash or shockwave related installers, leave countless mistakes behind. Running repair permissions after that always shows many repairs. Do you mean those repairs are/were not necessary? No danger of them leading to something bad, like file corruption or errors, etc. in the future if they are left un-repaired?
Why would Apple have the capability to perform such repairs available if it isn't necessary?
Getting a little confused here, can someone spread some real light on this issue?

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by David Lee 

What about after installing something? I have seen many cases where installers, even Apple's, but mainly Adobe, and especially Flash or shockwave related installers, leave countless mistakes behind. Running repair permissions after that always shows many repairs. Do you mean those repairs are/were not necessary? No danger of them leading to something bad, like file corruption or errors, etc. in the future if they are left un-repaired?

Yes, that's what I'm saying. All Repair Permissions does is set the permissions of the files back to their defaults. However, for any given file, there is not just one set of permissions that would work. Just because a file's permissions vary from the default does not necessarily mean its permissions are "wrong", and permissions do not lead to things like file corruption.

Why would Apple have the capability to perform such repairs available if it isn't necessary?

So that if someone does something stupid like remove read access from their Applications folder, tech support can just have them repair permissions instead of having to walk them through fixing it manually.

[OreoCookie]

Other than backing up regularly … none.

[CharlesS]

And if you have Time Machine automatically doing your backups for you, you don't even need to worry about that.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

Yes, that's what I'm saying. All Repair Permissions does is set the permissions of the files back to their defaults. However, for any given file, there is not just one set of permissions that would work. Just because a file's permissions vary from the default does not necessarily mean its permissions are "wrong", and permissions do not lead to things like file corruption.

Yeah, the name "Repair Permissions" is kind of a misnomer. It would be more accurate to call it "Reset Permissions." Yes, there are problems that it can fix, but just because it changes something doesn't mean there was a problem — it just means Disk Utility remembers the file having different permissions.

[analogika]

Originally Posted by David Lee 

Why would Apple have the capability to perform such repairs available if it isn't necessary?

Apart from users doing stupid things, there's also buggy installers that can very rarely inadvertently change permissions on stuff they're not supposed to touch. This almost never happens any more, though.

[besson3c]

It may have also been a hack to fix a problem which may have existed in an earlier version of OS X. No other Unix based OS that I know of has a similar tool, permissions don't just magically change on their own.

[peeb]

Time savings from disc optimization are virtually never worth the time spent optimizing them.

[David Lee]

For Analogika: In addition to my own experience, and even given that Charles's post may well be the case, I have seen countless times when an update really messes up the permissions, as if the installer temporarily set permissions for the installation process and then "forgot" to return them to the prior state. Today at Macfixit, there is a post on repairing permissions after a security update by Apple, "Sure enough, some users have been able to resolve post Security Update 2007-009 1.1 printing issues by repairing disk permissions with Disk Utility (located in /Applications/Utilities)." So, I can only conclude that a little maintenance is required, especially after installations or updates. Many people also recommend running the repair procedure as a standard before an update.

[AKcrab]

Originally Posted by David Lee 

Many people also recommend running the repair procedure as a standard before an update.

Many people are wasting their time.

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by David Lee 

For Analogika: In addition to my own experience, and even given that Charles's post may well be the case, I have seen countless times when an update really messes up the permissions, as if the installer temporarily set permissions for the installation process and then "forgot" to return them to the prior state.

Or as if there were more than one valid state for the permissions mode on those files. I remember the last time this came up, it was sometime during the 10.4.x days, and I tried running and update and then repairing permissions once, just to see what "permissions errors" would come up. Turned out, what changed was a config file in /etc, which got its permissions changed from -rw-r--r-- to -rwxr-xr-x. Thing is, though, the -rw-r--r-- actually made more sense since the file wasn't an executable file and there was no reason to have its executable bit set. It got changed to -rwxr-xr-x, though, because that's how Disk Utility remembered it.

Today at Macfixit, there is a post on repairing permissions after a security update by Apple, "Sure enough, some users have been able to resolve post Security Update 2007-009 1.1 printing issues by repairing disk permissions with Disk Utility (located in /Applications/Utilities)." So, I can only conclude that a little maintenance is required, especially after installations or updates.

The one guy who they quoted also reinstalled all of CUPS, but that isn't important for some reason...

Many people also recommend running the repair procedure as a standard before an update.

Many people don't really understand how their computer works, then. Software Update runs as root (when it asks for your admin password, what it's doing is getting root privileges), and a process running as root ignores permissions completely. It doesn't matter if the permissions are 000 on every file - Software Update will still be able to handle it if it's running as root. Running RP before an update accomplishes exactly zero.

[AKcrab]

CharlesS wins. Thread over.

[Hal Itosis]

peeb, you haven't courageously quoted anyone.
So... it seems like you're just flailing your arms.

I'll accommodate anyway.

Originally Posted by peeb 

It's hardly ever worth it. If your drive is very full, and you are feeling that your computer is slowing down,
it might be worth checking to see if defragging would help, otherwise, leave it alone.

Might be worth checking ?
How would one "check" for that exactly?
Either you defrag or you don't. There's no way to check beforehand.
Well... I suppose we can use the defragger to count all the stats and
percentages. [A very full disk is "virtually" always a mess though.]

But since that sentence already stipulated that:

a) the drive was *very* full, and
b) the user *felt* the slowdown...

then I think we can be slightly more assertive and state that
defragging would most likely be very beneficial in such cases.

I take the stance that "very" full isn't *always* a precondition.

Sometimes free-space fragmentation can be horrendous at 3/4 full.
It all depends on what kind of use a volume has had over its history,
and how large its capacity is in the first place. That's more a matter
of physical realities... not opinions.

Originally Posted by peeb 

Time savings from disc optimization are virtually never worth the time spent optimizing them.

Virtually never? Again, doesn't that depend on how often
and under which circumstances one performs the task?
If it's *only* done when necessary, then it's never a waste of time.
True... that's an almost impossible ideal to meet, but it seems
extreme scenarios are what's being employed in some of the
arguments here.

But, real-world practice probably lies somewhere in between.

For example (not a "file fragmentation" example but):
Do folks only run DiskWarrior when their disks breakdown... or
do they sometimes do it just to keep the disk directory healthy?

Waste of time?

How about a disk verify with Disk Utility... should we only do that *after*
our filesystem has been noticeably borked, or should we occasionally check
the status just to keep an eye on things... before disaster strikes?

Waste of time?

It's better to find and/or avoid small problems before they get more serious.
Sure... we could strictly focus on keeping good backups and then simply drive
and drive until it burns out. Borrowing an old car cliche: till it runs out of oil.

Is that how a car should be treated?

Anyway, the sort of performance differences gained may sometimes require
a disk i/o speed tester (Xbench?) to measure. Then again, sometimes we can
see that a full backup just ran a whole lot faster. A lot depends on the situation.

No need for dogmatism, one way or t'other.

[Hal Itosis]

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

I remember the last time this came up, it was sometime during the 10.4.x days, and I tried running
and update and then repairing permissions once, just to see what "permissions errors" would come up.

From its inception (around 10.1.5 ?), "Disk Privileges Utility" was mainly necessitated by
the fact that some 'developers' out there (less talented than yourself) were writing installers
for their apps (when they really didn't need to) which made a mess of just about anything.

I personally installed a program someone wrote (back in Jaguar?) that changed the ownership
of /Library and /Applications and a bunch of other files/folders to user 502 (because that's
the uid the program's author was using... mine was 501). Needless to say, some things stopped
working (along with the aggravation that I couldn't delete the app by dragging it to the trash).

No problem, since I figured it out and used Terminal. But not all users could deal with that.
And that's one reason Apple had to incorporate the perm fixer in Disk Utility (as I'm sure you
knew and would agree with): some folks were writing faulty (often unnecessary) installer code.

As silly as the whole principle evolved into: "repair before and after Apple updates" might be
(or is), there have been many threads at MacFixIt (since Puma) that were resolved only after
the user repaired permissions. No... we almost never learned the *actual* original cause for
the problem. Some users would just say 'Thanks it worked' and disappear without specifying
which perm was fixed. Some examples I have forgotten.

Anyway, at least it's fairly harmless and sometimes useful. If you're spending 4 days in a thread
trying to help some n00b fix their Mac... and then you ask "Have you tried repairing perms yet?"
... and they say "No". And then when they do, it magically cures the problem... you reach a point
where you refuse to spend days troubleshooting ****, until they have at least taken 5 minutes to
verify that perms are fine, so we can rule that out... and then put all our efforts into it.

Until you spend days working on many many many such problem posts, you won't appreciate
that sometimes we just want to rule out something, to save a whole lot of unnecessary typing,
trying out all sorts of other time-consuming trial-and-error techniques... whenever possible.

Nice pic!

[besson3c]

Just run your computer. Forget about defragging, about repairing permissions, about zapping PRAM, and about any other "maintenance" tasks. Computers aren't cars, they don't need you to perform maintenance on them.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by Hal Itosis 

From its inception (around 10.1.5 ?), "Disk Privileges Utility" was mainly necessitated by
the fact that some 'developers' out there (less talented than yourself) were writing installers
for their apps (when they really didn't need to) which made a mess of just about anything.

I personally installed a program someone wrote (back in Jaguar?) that changed the ownership
of /Library and /Applications and a bunch of other files/folders to user 502 (because that's
the uid the program's author was using... mine was 501). Needless to say, some things stopped
working (along with the aggravation that I couldn't delete the app by dragging it to the trash).

Yeah, I've seen that on someone's system too. I wanted to find out what program had done that and flog the guy who made it. But yes, that's the sort of situation where Repair Permissions is actually useful. The thing is, though, 90% of the cases where people think they're accomplishing something with Repair Permissions are more like Charles' example above. I suppose it's not really harmful — I just hate to see people being told they need to Repair Permissions every time they drag in an app from a DMG or something, because that's the kind of pain people come from Windows to avoid.

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by Hal Itosis 

Do folks only run DiskWarrior when their disks breakdown... or
do they sometimes do it just to keep the disk directory healthy?

Waste of time?

Yes. DiskWarrior is a great tool to have, but it's a tool that you hope you'll never have to use, because it becomes useful when the drive is experiencing problems. It doesn't need to be run if everything is working fine.

How about a disk verify with Disk Utility... should we only do that *after* our filesystem has been noticeably borked, or should we occasionally check the status just to keep an eye on things... before disaster strikes?

If you run it before disaster strikes, it's not going to do anything. It'll just say "The disk appears to be OK."

Waste of time?

Yep.

It's better to find and/or avoid small problems before they get more serious. Sure... we could strictly focus on keeping good backups and then simply drive and drive until it burns out. Borrowing an old car cliche: till it runs out of oil.

Is that how a car should be treated?

A computer is not a car.

Anyway, the sort of performance differences gained may sometimes require a disk i/o speed tester (Xbench?) to measure. Then again, sometimes we can see that a full backup just ran a whole lot faster. A lot depends on the situation.

I have never noticed any speedup whatsoever resulting from disk defragging. I have seen a couple of disks that needed to be reformatted due to defragging. Guess which I view as a larger problem.

I think it's telling that DiskWarrior used to be bundled with a disk optimizer, but for OS X, Alsoft decided that the optimizer wasn't even worth porting.

Originally Posted by Hal Itosis 

I personally installed a program someone wrote (back in Jaguar?) that changed the ownership of /Library and /Applications and a bunch of other files/folders to user 502 (because that's the uid the program's author was using... mine was 501). Needless to say, some things stopped working (along with the aggravation that I couldn't delete the app by dragging it to the trash).

And that is exactly the kind of situation where you would run Repair Permissions - when you're having a problem. You don't need to run it if everything's working fine.

However, I've got to add that Apple's .pkg installer has improved dramatically since the original one in 10.0 - it's much harder to accidentally mess with the permissions of system directories now. The growing pains are pretty much over by now, IMO.

As silly as the whole principle evolved into: "repair before and after Apple updates" might be (or is), there have been many threads at MacFixIt (since Puma) that were resolved only after the user repaired permissions.

Or they did a bunch of other stuff simultaneously with repairing permissions, and attributed the fix on the RP.

Anyway, at least it's fairly harmless and sometimes useful.

But it's not useful to tell people that they have to repair permissions 3 times a day - it's a waste of time, and it makes the Mac look bad. If the Mac really required this much maintenance, it would be flimsier than OS 9 was.

If you're spending 4 days in a thread trying to help some n00b fix their Mac... and then you ask "Have you tried repairing perms yet?" ... and they say "No". And then when they do, it magically cures the problem... you reach a point where you refuse to spend days troubleshooting ****, until they have at least taken 5 minutes to verify that perms are fine, so we can rule that out... and then put all our efforts into it.

So feel free to run RP if you're having a problem. In my experience it only helps in very, very specific situations, but what the hey. If everything's working fine, though, you don't need to run any "maintenance."

[JKT]

To sum up Charles's post... running a verify or repair permissions is a troubleshooting exercise when something is going wrong, not a routine maintenance exercise. As the original poster is asking about maintenance routines it is disingenuous to recommend repairing permissions as one, or defragging or doing a voodoo rain dance.

[besson3c]

And there actually are problems with running RP when it isn't necessary. There are exploits out there that piggyback upon the tool. I *believe* this particular exploit doesn't work in Leopard though...

[Hal Itosis]

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

If you run it before disaster strikes, it's not going to do anything. It'll just say "The disk appears to be OK."

Wrong. Disk Utility can show us small little catalog problems that exist. We cannot
possibly detect them otherwise. It's when those small little problems are ignored that
they get more entangled and **evolve** into the human-perceptible "disaster" stage.

If caught early on, even a lightweight tool like Disk Utility can patch it up. It's when
users never check for those little problems and just let them fester that they multiply
and become worse than they were originally.

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

A computer is not a car.

Brilliant. Only -- since no one ever said "a computer is a car" -- it's also pointless and evasive.

Every time I backup... before I eject the backup volume, I run Disk Utility to verify the
backup disk. Okay, maybe it's not "maintenance"... but it's a good practice (I believe),
and perhaps it qualifies as pre-maintenance (or possibly preventative maintenance).

So I do whole-heartedly recommend the O.P. and anyone else do the same.

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by Hal Itosis 

Wrong. Disk Utility can show us small little catalog problems that exist. We cannot possibly detect them otherwise. It's when those small little problems are ignored that they get more entangled and **evolve** into the human-perceptible "disaster" stage.

You do know that we're using a journaled filesystem now, right? How often have you seen this happen in recent times (not talking about System 7)?

Brilliant. Only -- since no one ever said "a computer is a car" -- it's also pointless and evasive.

You were asking "do you treat your car this way?", implying that computers and cars need to be maintained in a similar fashion. They do not.

Every time I backup... before I eject the backup volume, I run Disk Utility to verify the backup disk. Okay, maybe it's not "maintenance"... but it's a good practice (I believe), and perhaps it qualifies as pre-maintenance (or possibly preventative maintenance).

So I do whole-heartedly recommend the O.P. and anyone else do the same.

Holy crap, every single time you backup? That is positively obsessive. I definitely would not recommend this, nor any other type of preventive (preventative isn't a word, btw) maintenance.

You know, besides repairing permissions and running DiskWarrior every 5 minutes, another thing that's unnecessary is hitting the Return key to put a hard break after every horizontal line of text that you enter. If you just hit Return when you want to start a new paragraph, the browser will automatically word-wrap the rest of the lines in your post. This will make your posts much easier to quote, as I won't have to keep deleting all the line breaks to make things line up right.

[Hal Itosis]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

And there actually are problems with running RP when it isn't necessary. There are exploits out there that piggyback upon the tool.

Now now. I dispelled that MacNN myth once already... have you forgotten? (sorry Charles)

Exploits don't need to "piggyback" on the tool (as in requiring human action).
If their malware is up and running (by whatever means), it can simply call:
 

diskutil repairPermissions /

anytime it wants to.

[Hal Itosis]

Originally Posted by JKT 

To sum up Charles's post... running a verify or repair permissions is a troubleshooting exercise when something is going wrong.

That's good, thanks... because I missed the post where he actually said that.

Originally Posted by JKT 

As the original poster is asking about maintenance routines it is disingenuous to recommend repairing permissions as one, or defragging or doing a voodoo rain dance.

It's a little late, but you should at least quote C.A.T.S. CEO (way back in post #2) when calling
his advice disingenuous... since -- as far as I can see- his was the only post to suggest routine
permissions maintenance.

[Hal Itosis]

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

You know, besides repairing permissions and running DiskWarrior every 5 minutes,

... which has no relevance to me whatsoever, so you're unnecessarily wasting time and
space mentioning them in a reply to me.

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

another thing that's unnecessary is hitting the Return key to put a hard break after every horizontal line of text that you enter. If you just hit Return when you want to start a new paragraph, the browser will automatically word-wrap the rest of the lines in your post. This will make your posts much easier to quote, as I won't have to keep deleting all the line breaks to make things line up right.

How disturbing. However, I find using returns makes for easier reading (like a newspaper).

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

Holy crap, every single time you backup?

Before I eject the disk, yes absolutely.

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

(preventative isn't a word, btw)

Well there seems to be more than one dictionary that recognize it as an alternative spelling.

Sorry to see you reduced to petty tyranny now. Perhaps a nap would help?

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by Hal Itosis 

... which has no relevance to me whatsoever, so you're unnecessarily wasting time and space mentioning them in a reply to me.

You are in the thread as an advocate of "preventative maintenance", no?

How disturbing. However, I find using returns makes for easier reading (like a newspaper).

Actually, if you don't do that, it makes your text fit the user's custom window size better, and thus makes it easier to read. If the user's window size is wider than yours, hard breaks make your lines too narrow. If the user's window size is narrower than yours, then the hard breaks make everything look seriously messed up, with some lines containing only one or two words due to being word-wrapped and then immediately hitting a line break. It also makes it harder to quote.

It's not a problem with a newspaper, because a newspaper has a fixed size. Computer windows have variable sizes. Plus, if you go on a website for a newspaper, they usually won't display their articles with hard breaks after each line...

Before I eject the disk, yes absolutely.

Why?

Sorry to see you reduced to petty tyranny now. Perhaps a nap would help?

There wasn't much substance to your post. And where there was, you specifically ignored my response.

Again, how often have you seen small problems "evolving" into larger ones on the modern journaled filesystem? Or is this a relic from the System 7 days, back when any program that wanted to could just write to the disk directories without unmounting the drive first, resulting in all kinds of directory damage and making preventive maintance actually make sense?

[David Lee]

This thread is getting rather complex, isn't it? It might be best to remember that PCs aren't called Personal Computers without reason. Everyone has their own methods, practices and so on. People like Charles, being a programmer and rather well informed about the way computers work will obviously have a different view than someone that just uses his computer for mail and net browsing. Who's to say that one view is better than the other? At the beginning of the thread there was a question posed, but I wonder if the person asking that question is now better informed than he/she was before this convoluted discussion. I know I am losing it. Just my 2 cents worth, no offense intended. When I have a question, leading to a post, I would like to see more focused answers, as in the beginning of the thread.

[peeb]

David. How can you possibly presume to speak for the original poster? You comment is arrogant and unfounded. Who is to say whether the op wanted a 'focused answer' or a convoluted, argumentative, and tangential debate? I find your dismissive attitude towards the hostile personal attacks and snide assaults in this post to be typical of the lowest-common-denominator pandering that passes for debate in these forums. Shame on you.

[Hal Itosis]

Well spelt. (Perfect paragraphs too).

[ZakAdelman]

It was said a while back but i will sum it up even more, if it ain't broke don't fix it.

Repair permissions is just that for repair and not really necessary if something is acting odd it doesn't hurt but running it every night or something is really unnecessary.

As far as fragmentation, either a file is never used(unused apps) or so big (100+MB video files for example) so it is not worth the strain on a HDD, RAM and CPU. I believe the limit for what it will defrag is 10MB but correct me if I am wrong, besides it may be different for leopard. The strain is minor of course but it does add up.

Anyone reading this looking for an answer, let OSX do it's thing it is very good at it

[Tomchu]

Anyone who understands UNIX understands that "repairing file permissions" is really only something that will fix fringe issues with some applications, and is not a "regular maintenance" procedure.

Anyone who understands file systems and fragmentation understands that no file system can completely eliminate fragmentation and still perform well in real-time, HFS+ included. Thus, some files will become fragmented, and free space will become more fragmented the less disk space is available. Some people may wish to re-organize the block contents of their hard drive so that they are more contiguous (ie. by using a defragmentation app, or backing up/restoring, etc.), because a fragmented file reduces read performance, while fragmented free space reduces write performance.

And lastly, modern defragmentation applications are not dangerous.

[Hal Itosis]

I will only add that scolding someone for verifying their backup disk
just before ejecting it with Disk Utility -- a process lasting less than
one minute typically (usually half a minute, depending on size) -- is
not exactly the epitome of wisdom either.