On or near 7/4/03 12:48 AM, Kirk McElhearn at [EMAIL PROTECTED] observed:
> On 7/4/03 5:33, "Allen Watson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>>
>> This also explains, in my opinion, why some people swear by rebuilding the
>> database periodically, claiming it benefits performance. They'd get the same
>> boost from just making a duplicate.
>
> Yes and no. Rebuilding defragments the database as well - if you have done
> any cleaning in your database - such as deleting a lot of messages, or
> archiving then removing old messages - this will make a difference.
Everything I've seen from the guys who designed the database seems to say
this isn't so; they claim it is a very well-behaved database, and frequent
deletions (as it bound to be the case with e-mail) do not diminish
performance. Have you definite experience to support what you say?
>>
>> The only other application I've noticed getting a boost after defragmenting
>> is FileMaker Pro, in the very large databases I use to archive my e-mail
>> messages.
>
> I think any database like that will benefit from defragmenting (or, as you
> say, copying).
Exactly; any large, frequently changed file.
>>
>> Bottom line seems to be, defragmenting the entire disk does not really help
>> much. Far better just to occasionally duplicate any files that are very
>> large and frequently updated (with additions and deletions; in-place
>> modifications won't affect fragmentation).
>
> I don't agree with that article. I have seen performance increases after
> defragmenting. It all depends on what kind of files you have.
>>
Oh, I've seen definite performance increases after defragmenting the disk,
too. It's just that, in my experience, I get virtually the same benefits
from _selectively_ defragmenting (by copying the files as I suggest).
>> The one area in which I am not sure I agree with the article's conclusions
>> is in regard to system swap files. OS X depends on some rather large swap
>> files. It can easily create a gigabyte of swap files (in chunks of about 800
>> MB, I believe) during a long period of uptime, running many different
>> applications. If you don't have about a gig's worth of 800 MB chunks lying
>> around, you will probably end up with some fragmented swap files. For a
>> time, I operated OS X from a 1.5 GB partition (something I learned is not a
>> good idea). I had about 700 MB of total free space on that partition; my
>> swap files got really badly fragmented. When that happened, my system slowed
>> to a crawl. Just restarting was like being reborn. Defragging the disk
>> frequently helped delay the inevitable slowdown and give me a much longer
>> workable uptime, although it did not prevent the eventual degradation.
>
> That is one point that the author paid no attention to. However, I don't
> think that you should ever let your Mac churn out 10 or more swap files;
> even 3 or 4 seems like a lot to me. Given the number of times the system has
> to check those swap files and manage them, I have found that it slows down
> performance considerably, especially on slower machines.
>
I agree. I have 512 MB of RAM; I should have gone for the full 1 GB possible
on my machine (15" flat-panel iMac) from the get-go. I've since learned that
upgrading to 1 GB isn't necessarily easy; it depends on whether my 512 MB is
in internal RAM with the user slot empty (so I can add another 512), or if I
have 256 MB in each, in which case I can only go to 756 MB unless I want to
crack open the case and follow the procedure outlined in the current Mac
World magazine to replace both chips. And adding more memory (or running
fewer applications) is the only way I know of to avoid having many swap
files.
This is what I see right now on my machine. Scarey, isn't it?
drwx--x--x 12 root wheel 408 Jun 29 15:00 app_profile
-rw------T 1 root wheel 80000000 Jul 2 07:10 swapfile0
-rw------T 1 root wheel 80000000 Jul 2 08:31 swapfile1
-rw------T 1 root wheel 80000000 Jul 3 21:22 swapfile10
-rw------T 1 root wheel 80000000 Jul 5 17:21 swapfile11
-rw------T 1 root wheel 80000000 Jul 2 08:51 swapfile2
-rw------T 1 root wheel 80000000 Jul 2 09:08 swapfile3
-rw------T 1 root wheel 80000000 Jul 2 09:45 swapfile4
-rw------T 1 root wheel 80000000 Jul 2 11:07 swapfile5
-rw------T 1 root wheel 80000000 Jul 2 11:53 swapfile6
-rw------T 1 root wheel 80000000 Jul 2 14:18 swapfile7
-rw------T 1 root wheel 80000000 Jul 2 14:26 swapfile8
-rw------T 1 root wheel 80000000 Jul 2 22:24 swapfile9
> This affects other apps as well - Photoshop uses scratch files; Photoshop
> Elements, on my machine, slows down a lot when many files are open and the
> system has a few swap files open.
>
Just started using PE recently; I'll watch for that.
But, the basic idea I put forth holds: periodically duplicating the
Entourage files, and making the copy the live database, gives a real
performance boost to entourage.
--
Microsoft MVP for Entourage/OE/Word (MVPs are volunteers)
Allen Watson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Entourage FAQ site:
<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/>
AppleScripts for Outlook Express and Entourage:
<http://members.thinkaccess.net/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/Scripts/>
Entourage Help Pages: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/>
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