[fivminwalk]

I am looking for advice about defraging my hard drive in 10.3.3. I can not seem to find a utility on my mac to do this. Do I have to install another program, or am I not looking on my hard drive hard enough? Thanks in advance!

Also I heard that os X defrags �on the fly� is the true?

[CaseCom]

Short answer: Yes, Panther does some defragging "on the fly." For a thorough defrag or optimization, though, you'll need a third-party application such as Micromat's TechTool Pro 4 or Norton Speed Disk (part of the Norton Utilities package). Alsoft has a defragger called PlusOptimizer, but you have to boot into OS 9 to use it.

Long answer:
Mac OS X: About Disk Optimization

If you want more information, go to MacNN's Mac OS X forum and search for "defrag."

Here's one recent thread:
best Panther defragger?

[Ω]

Norton is getting a lot of thumbs down at the moment. Seems to kill more drives than it fixes.....

Use at your own peril.

[spookykids]

there is really no need to defrag your harddrive on a mac, unless you do some heavy video editing....

[fivminwalk]

Great thanks guys! I was using a lot of disk space downloading red hat 9 disk images (there huge at almost 604mb each!) then transferring them to my roommates pc in order to make cds for my laptop... long story, I know... just making sure I can keep my new apple running at full speed! should I defrag after doing something like that? Thanks again!

[bradoesch]

Originally posted by _?_:
Norton is getting a lot of thumbs down at the moment. Seems to kill more drives than it fixes.....

Use at your own peril.

Disk Doctor has a really bad reputation around here. Speed Disk hasn't had that many complaints...yet!

[bradoesch]

Originally posted by fivminwalk:
Great thanks guys! I was using a lot of disk space downloading red hat 9 disk images (there huge at almost 604mb each!) then transferring them to my roommates pc in order to make cds for my laptop... long story, I know... just making sure I can keep my new apple running at full speed! should I defrag after doing something like that? Thanks again!

Do you feel that your computer has slowed down after downloading those Linux disk images? Unless disk access feels slow, I wouldn't worry about it.

[fivminwalk]

Originally posted by bradoesch:
Do you feel that your computer has slowed down after downloading those Linux disk images? Unless disk access feels slow, I wouldn't worry about it.

Nah... my mac is just as speedy as ever. Thanks for the advice you guys. Oh and why does Norton have a bad rap?

[djaastad]

Additionally, whenever you run software update at the end of the update and you've installed whatever, the os runs a system optimization that essentially acts as a defrag program. Or at least is supposed to.

dj

[bradoesch]

Originally posted by fivminwalk:
Nah... my mac is just as speedy as ever. Thanks for the advice you guys. Oh and why does Norton have a bad rap?

A lot of people have made their disk troubles worse by running Disk Doctor. It gets into a loop of problems or something. Ask Cipher, he always bashes it when he has the chance.
As for Speed Disk, I haven't heard anything bad about it on here. I've used it myself many times with no problems. Just leave your disk repair to Disk Utility or DiskWarrior.

[fivminwalk]

Originally posted by bradoesch:
A lot of people have made their disk troubles worse by running Disk Doctor. It gets into a loop of problems or something. Ask Cipher, he always bashes it when he has the chance.
As for Speed Disk, I haven't heard anything bad about it on here. I've used it myself many times with no problems. Just leave your disk repair to Disk Utility or DiskWarrior.

Thanks again. I will be sure to take a look at that stuff...

[bradoesch]

Originally posted by fivminwalk:
Thanks again. I will be sure to take a look at that stuff...

No problem.