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trek2008 · Apr 23, 2004, 07:27 PM

This may sound stupid, but can you defrag a Mac like you can Windows?

f1000 · Apr 23, 2004, 07:48 PM

Originally posted by trek2008:
This may sound stupid, but can you defrag a Mac like you can Windows?

Search is your friend.

Developer · Apr 23, 2004, 08:01 PM

Originally posted by trek2008:
This may sound stupid, but can you defrag a Mac like you can Windows?

Panther automatically defragments smaller files. Beyond that, read this article:

http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07254

MPMoriarty · Apr 23, 2004, 08:13 PM

Even though defragmenting your hard drive isn't needed as often as a PC, it still is a good maintenance process to run every once in a while.

While it's true that Panther does defragment files automatically, there is a file size limit. I think it is 8MB or something. So if you are moving around rather large files a lot, you'll need to use a more professional defragmenting tool.

I suggest Disk 10 from Micromat...

http://www.micromat.com

I hear its pretty good and gets the job done.

Mike

tooki · Apr 24, 2004, 03:47 PM

You realize that Drive 10 (not "Disk 10") is now an old product, since TechTool Pro 4 came out?

That said, I never defragment any more, it doesn't help anything in real-world use.

tooki

Lancer409 · May 5, 2004, 09:25 PM

Any built in defrag software, or any good ones that are free? I am used to free defrags =)

wataru · May 5, 2004, 09:34 PM

Originally posted by tooki:
You realize that Drive 10 (not "Disk 10") is now an old product, since TechTool Pro 4 came out?

That said, I never defragment any more, it doesn't help anything in real-world use.

tooki

They just updated Drive 10 a couple days ago. It is now version 1.1.5.

wunderkind · May 5, 2004, 10:50 PM

Originally posted by MPMoriarty:
While it's true that Panther does defragment files automatically, there is a file size limit. I think it is 8MB or something.

I've read somewhere that it is 50MB.

nforcer · May 5, 2004, 11:52 PM

Originally posted by wunderkind:
I've read somewhere that it is 50MB.

IIRC, 20MB files and under.

bergy · May 6, 2004, 06:37 AM

Some good info on the subject ...

Apple - OS 10 Disk Optimization
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=25668

Former Senior Engineer at Mac Norton Utilities discusses Defragging
http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07254

Micromat Defrag Discussion
http://www.macfixitforums.com/php/sh...rue#Post570760

wadesworld · May 6, 2004, 10:12 AM

For normal users, defragmenting is a waste of your time and an unnecessary risk of corrupting your disk.

Just leave it alone and get work done folks.

Wade

teszeract · Jun 25, 2004, 06:42 PM

I'm exporting my iMovie to DV Tape. The recording on the tape itself is pretty jerky and unsync'd. With my 60g HD; 10 gb free (recently taken to 1gig free) - could this be file fragmentation causing the problem? I'm searcing right now for a defrag solution, just in case.

bmhome1 · 07:54 PM

Anything less than 15% free space (9GB on a 60GB drive) is not only going to slow down the drive's speed significantly it also greatly increases the chance of irreparable data corruption such as extents directories or overlapped files (see the MacFixIt link).

Clearing out some space is first in order and defragging will probably greatly help speed since its a certainty that the large video files are scattered all over the drive in pieces. Video projects are best on an external drive with the required large free spaces. If this is your single drive with OSX on it, defragging will help in this case.

wataru · Jun 25, 2004, 08:44 PM

People claim that defragmentation is unnecessary on OS X, but when I actually went and looked I found that I had tens of thousands of fragmented files, and my free space was in a similar state.

iohead · Jun 25, 2004, 10:26 PM

Originally posted by wataru:
People claim that defragmentation is unnecessary on OS X, but when I actually went and looked I found that I had tens of thousands of fragmented files, and my free space was in a similar state.

How did you go and look? I mean, what application/utility did you use to do so.

-A

Ganesha · Jun 25, 2004, 10:40 PM

Originally posted by iohead:
How did you go and look? I mean, what application/utility did you use to do so.

-A

hfsdebug

Find it by googling for it...

iohead · Jun 26, 2004, 12:50 AM

Originally posted by Ganesha:
hfsdebug

Find it by googling for it...

Sure, I know about hfsdebug.

I wanted to know how the original poster found "tens of thousands" of fragmented files on his disk. In real life, you would need to go and *fragment* files "by hand" to have tens of thousands of fragmented files on an HFS+ volume under OS X.

Perhaps the original poster has an extremely unique use-case scenario.

That's why I want to know:

a. How did he determine that he has so many fragmented files?

b. What does he use the computer for primarily?

-A

wataru · Jun 26, 2004, 04:21 AM

Originally posted by iohead:
Sure, I know about hfsdebug.

I wanted to know how the original poster found "tens of thousands" of fragmented files on his disk. In real life, you would need to go and *fragment* files "by hand" to have tens of thousands of fragmented files on an HFS+ volume under OS X.

Perhaps the original poster has an extremely unique use-case scenario.

That's why I want to know:

a. How did he determine that he has so many fragmented files?

b. What does he use the computer for primarily?

-A

I used Drive 10. My case isn't all that typical; I have several GB worth of fink packages installed (from source) that probably contributed a lot to the fragmentation.

iohead · Jun 26, 2004, 06:09 AM

Originally posted by wataru:
I used Drive 10. My case isn't all that typical; I have several GB worth of fink packages installed (from source) that probably contributed a lot to the fragmentation.

Hmmm ... I have tons of Fink packages too. I have over 600,000 files on my machine, in fact, but I have very few fragmented files.

Perhaps the number reported by Drive 10 is different from the number of fragmented forks (data or resource) - there could be some other semantics.

It would be really interesting if you could share the output of "hfsdebug" on your volume.

Here's the link if you're interested in trying this out:

http://www.kernelthread.com/software/hfsdebug/

You could look at the output of "hfsdebug -f" (tells you about file fork fragmentation) and "hfsdebug -0" (tells you about freespace fragmentation).

Regards
-A

wataru · Jun 26, 2004, 12:10 PM

Well I defragmented my drive (why check for fragmentation and then not do anything about it?), but I just installed KDE 3.2.3, which is pretty hefty, so maybe things have gotten junked up again. I'll try it when I get a chance.

chezpaul · Jun 26, 2004, 01:59 PM

There would be an easy way to figure out if defraging helps or not.
Run a benchmark before and after. !!

I used to defrag all the time with Norton, using speed disk. I would usually "feel" better once done. I stopped about 6 months ago because Norton stopped development.

I still defrag my Pro Tools (music) files and that does make a difference. I have several 3 Gig folders worth of audio files.

Appart from that I'm done defraging. That Norton guys article just closed the subject for good for me.

Old Toad · Jul 1, 2004, 02:00 PM

FWIW, this just came out from Apple: About Disk Optimization