On Friday, January 3, 2003, at 06:31 PM, Kundan Ewan wrote: > Actually, what is a "scratch disk". Is it a partition in which you do > a lot > of work so that it gets fragmented easily? >
Essentially it's a partition that normally contains no or very few files, such as works- in- progress like video footage or graphic files. The way fragmented disks slow down is because the "needle" on the HD (kind of like a tone arm on an old hi- fi) in a regular System disk must go back and forth to many places to assemble or access data when you need it- that takes physical time. The UNIX- based OS X systems which contains many more files, typically, than a Classic System ever would is particularly prone to becoming slowed down due to fragmentation. De- fragmentation utilities essentially copy and re- write the files in a linear fashion- this speeds up access. An analogy is if someone asks you to retrieve 3 files from a cabinet, say, "Billing", "Expenses" and "Receivables", in that order. If the cabinet is alphabetized, you could just go right down the line and pick them up in order. If it were randomized, say, the "Ees" were way at the end, etc., you'd have to go back and forth to get them in the desired order. A scratch disk doesn't suffer from this for the aforementioned reasons and is dedicated to only scratch files and also illustrates why de- fragmentation helps disk access. HTH dave -- The iMac List is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | - Epson Stylus Color 580 Printers - new at $69 | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> iMac List info: <http://lowendmac.com/imac/list.shtml> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/imac-list%40mail.maclaunch.com/> --------------------------------------------------------------- >The Think Different Store http://www.ThinkDifferentStore.com ---------------------------------------------------------------
