Macworld: ON DEFRAGMENTATION ...

Subscribe to magazine

Print

Up to Discussions in Mac OS X

20 Replies Last post: Jun 12, 2007 8:22 PM by Randy_B_Singer 1 2 Previous Next

John_L_WICKHAM

6 posts since
May 25, 2007

Reply

May 30, 2007 2:20 AM

ON DEFRAGMENTATION

Do Macs running OS X ever need any periodic disk defragmentation and if so, what packages are out there to do it?

In the old "System 6" days, they used packages, such as Norton Speed Disk,

Reply

Tom_Diola

1,965 posts since
Oct 19, 2001

1. May 30, 2007 2:39 AM

in response to: John_L_WICKHAM

Re: ON DEFRAGMENTATION

If you're using something like 10.4.x you don't usually need defragging because the OS takes care of files that are less than 20 MB. Don't waste your money or time on any of those defragging programs. Optimization on the Mac - defragging included- oh and lose those Capital Letters (that's so yesterday).

Reply

maflynn

990 posts since
Jan 26, 2002

2. May 30, 2007 7:39 AM

in response to: John_L_WICKHAM

Re: ON DEFRAGMENTATION

For most users its really not needed. However with that said, if your drive is highly fragmented and you want to install boot camp you may run into issues as boot camp needs some contigous space to repartition the drive. Also video or audio work needs an unfragmented file system to work best.

Again for 90% of the users its not needed, unlike in the windows world where you need to do it constantly.

Take a look at idefrag I haven't tried the software so use it at your own risk and the usual word about having a recent backup when you are working on the drive, blah blah bhah

Reply

Randy_B_Singer

621 posts since
Dec 20, 2002

3. May 30, 2007 2:01 PM

in response to: maflynn

Re: ON DEFRAGMENTATION

You may want to have a look at:

Macintosh OS X Routine Maintenance
http://www.macattorney.com/ts.html
Item #'s 6 and Note #1

A quote from a MicroMat technician, that I think is very insightful:
"The claim that installations of Mac OS X on HFS+ volumes do not fragment is a myth believed by people who do not have disk optimizers that allow them to see how much fragmentation their disks have. It is an example of ignorance that is not able to be removed by any amount of evidence. I think theologians call that invincible ignorance. It is now a widespread form of the pollution of information space."

Randy B. Singer Co-author of The Macintosh Bible (4th, 5th, and 6th editions) Macintosh OS X Routine Maintenance http://www.macattorney.com/ts.html

Reply

Tom_Diola

1,965 posts since
Oct 19, 2001

4. May 30, 2007 2:54 PM

in response to: Randy_B_Singer

Re: ON DEFRAGMENTATION

Nothing like a little free advertising to your website huh?

Reply

Randy_B_Singer

621 posts since
Dec 20, 2002

5. May 30, 2007 3:58 PM

in response to: Tom_Diola

Re: ON DEFRAGMENTATION

Quote:<hr />
Nothing like a little free advertising to your website huh?

<hr />

I don't need to advertise the site. The site is entirely free. I derive no income from it whatsoever. (I received no consideration for the couple of banner ads on the site. I just like and recommend their products.) The site exists solely to educate mac users and give back to the Mac community. It also allows me to comprehensively answer questions such as the one raised in this forum without having to post a huge long answer here.

Randy B. Singer Co-author of The Macintosh Bible (4th, 5th, and 6th editions) Macintosh OS X Routine Maintenance http://www.macattorney.com/ts.html

Reply

albloom

2,182 posts since
Apr 21, 2004

6. May 31, 2007 8:53 AM

in response to: John_L_WICKHAM

Re: ON DEFRAGMENTATION

John, I went to put something on one of Leslye's HDs and got the
message that there wasn't enough contiguous space. Defrag time.
Yes, it can happen.

IMHO the best package is TechTool Pro. Run away from anything
with "norton" in the title. TTP does diagnosis/repair on HDs, and
it defrags. A plus is that it can make you an "eDrive" on one of
your HDs from which you can (1) boot much faster than from
an optical disc and (2) put in other tools like Disk Warrior and
Disk Utility that can't be run against the boot drive either.

A big caveat: Do not run any defrag app on any HD that does not
have a clean bill of health from a good diagnosis/repair app. Even
a slightly munged directory can render an HD useless after defrag.

Reply

tuqqer

68 posts since
Jan 26, 2001

7. Jun 3, 2007 1:43 PM

in response to: Randy_B_Singer

Re: ON DEFRAGMENTATION

Quote:<hr />
Nothing like a little free advertising to your website huh?

<hr />

Nothing like an opinion so high everyone else is wrong. Huh.

I've yet to find defragmenting take away any glitch that I've got, but it does make some programs more zippy. I wouldn't feel safe running my iDefrag, though, unless I had a second drive with a fully functional copy of everything. iDefrag actually requires you to start from that second drive. A good idea anyway, as that second drive can act as a backup.

Reply

Dan Frakes

3,249 posts since
Apr 14, 2003

8. Jun 6, 2007 10:34 PM

in response to: albloom

Re: ON DEFRAGMENTATION

Quote:<hr />
Do not run any defrag app on any HD that does not
have a clean bill of health from a good diagnosis/repair app. Even
a slightly munged directory can render an HD useless after defrag.

<hr />

I would go further than that and say that you should never defrag a drive for which you don't have a complete backup -- and if you have that, then the easiest way to "defragment" is to simply erase your drive and then clone the backup back to it.

As for the need, my personal opinion is that most Mac OS X users don't need to defragment. Those who will benefit the most are those who are working with large files -- e.g., video and audio, large Photoshop images -- who need large, contiguous sections of hard-drive space and those whose drives are running low on space. But a better approach for the former is a second hard drive and a better solution for the latter is a new, larger hard drive, in my opinion.

Dan Frakes | Senior Editor, Macworld

Reply

Randy_B_Singer

621 posts since
Dec 20, 2002

9. Jun 7, 2007 3:39 PM

in response to: Dan Frakes

Re: ON DEFRAGMENTATION

Quote:<hr />
As for the need, my personal opinion is that most Mac OS X users don't need to defragment. Those who will benefit the most are those who are working with large files -- e.g., video and audio, large Photoshop images -- who need large, contiguous sections of hard-drive space and those whose drives are running low on space. But a better approach for the former is a second hard drive and a better solution for the latter is a new, larger hard drive, in my opinion.

<hr />

I agree that most Mac users aren't in a position such that they need to defragment their hard drive, as most users have drives that are quite far from being full. However, you don't need to spend much time on various Mac discussion lists before you encounter folks who report that they are getting "out of memory" errors or the like. When queried, these folks will just about always report that their drives are quite full, often about 80% full (sometimes much less, sometimes more). But it isn't that their drive is almost full in absolute terms that is important. It is how much free contiguous hard drive space that they have available that is important. Usually they have about none (even though they may have many gigabytes of total free space left). It isn't just graphics and video applications that need free contiguous space to work with, the system itself needs free contiguous space to work properly. The amount of free contiguous hard drive space that one has is easy to check with available free utilities. If one lets such warnings go unheeded, data-loss can result.

There is no doubt that the situation can be remedied by simply purchasing a new hard drive. This is what Apple recommends. However, modern hard drives are huge. One can start experiencing problems due to insufficient free contiguous hard drive space when one has many gigabytes of total free hard drive space left. If one is willing to give up on all of that extra free space that they have, that's fine. But I wouldn't. An extra 30 or 50GB can often allow one to do without a new hard drive until one is ready to purchase a new Macintosh, which will often come complete with a much larger hard drive.

Discussion in-depth here:

http://www.macattorney.com/ts.html
Item # 6 and Note #1

Randy B. Singer Co-author of The Macintosh Bible (4th, 5th, and 6th editions) Macintosh OS X Routine Maintenance http://www.macattorney.com/ts.html

Reply

likely_Mc

57 posts since
Jan 6, 2007

10. Jun 11, 2007 11:48 AM

in response to: maflynn

Re: ON DEFRAGMENTATION

For those who want to know what free contiguous space is and what it means to their HD, here's an informative article (Windows related) yet helpful.
intellirecovery.com
M

Reply

moose_n_squirrel

2,826 posts since
Sep 16, 2004

11. Jun 11, 2007 12:20 PM

in response to: likely_Mc

Re: ON DEFRAGMENTATION

For those of you who want to know why Windows defragmentation advice doesn't apply as much to the Mac.
Optimizing Disks is a Waste of Time

Reply

Randy_B_Singer

621 posts since
Dec 20, 2002

12. Jun 11, 2007 2:34 PM

in response to: moose_n_squirrel

Re: ON DEFRAGMENTATION

Quote:<hr />
For those of you who want to know why Windows defragmentation advice doesn't apply as much to the Mac.
Optimizing Disks is a Waste of Time

<hr />

That article states that you don't pick up much speed from defragmenting your hard drive. If you read my Web site, you will see that I agree. However, the article that you have referenced doesn't address the problem that your system has when there is a lack of free contiguous space for it it write to. I'd guess that the author doesn't have enough experience to know about it.

As far as there not being much fragmentation, total, on Mac hard disks, go back and have a look at the quotation that I referenced from a MicroMat technician, above.

Randy B. Singer Co-author of The Macintosh Bible (4th, 5th, and 6th editions) Macintosh OS X Routine Maintenance http://www.macattorney.com/ts.html

Reply

moose_n_squirrel

2,826 posts since
Sep 16, 2004

13. Jun 11, 2007 2:44 PM

in response to: Randy_B_Singer

Re: ON DEFRAGMENTATION

I don't think there's any disagreement between us. I was replying to the posted Windows article. Too many people take that experience and assume it's teh same on the Mac. Being out of disk space is a different problem that I wasn't replying to at all.

As for the article's author, the credentials listed in the article suggests he is quite qualified.

Reply

d00d

12,136 posts since
Apr 24, 2001

14. Jun 11, 2007 3:22 PM

in response to: moose_n_squirrel

Re: ON DEFRAGMENTATION

He seems pretty "experienced" to me.

Reply

Go to original post 1 2 Previous Next

Go to original post