Hi Pete
Many thanks for your really informative description of this issue, I
appreciate it. I will have a look at that little app you mention. I
wasnt aware that Disk Warrior was around, and you reminded me of it,
as I did use that back in the OS9 days. Im still running 10.5 on my
work macs but are considering updating to SL. Are there 2
corresponding versions of DW for these two operating systems?
Many thanks and best regards
chris
On 01/02/2010, at 8:11 AM, Peter Hinchliffe wrote:
On 29/01/2010, at 11:10 AM, Chris Burton wrote:
Hi Everyone
I have been pondering the above question for some weeks now, after
my HD became almost full (10gb free), and I decided to backup
everything to an external 1TB drive, and then remove about 30gb on
the Mac to have some space available.
I remember a fair while ago some muggers saying that it is not
necessary to defrag as the OS somehow maintains the drive. Others
have said that there are programs that do defrag the drive and it
does make a difference.
On some of my previous macs of the PowerPC models (G5 and laptops),
I used to run Techtools Pro to periodically clean up the drive, and
it seemed to work ok.
I am not so sure with the Intel machines I use. Do I need to do
anything? Are there any little apps that can show what the drive
looks like?
Any feedback on this is most welcome.
I am using a Macbook Pro 2.2ghz Intel Dual Core with 3gb Ram and a
250gb HD. OSX 10.5.8
Mac OS X always tries to writes new material to the HS in contiguous
areas of up to 20Mb, thereby keeping fragmentation to a minimum. It
seems the jury is still out regarding the question of fragmentation.
The current feeling seems to be that nowadays hard drives are so
massive (500Gb becoming the norm, and 1Tb are now common) that the
time taken in defragmenting vs any benefits achieved makes it an
almost pointless exercise. Years ago, when the average HD size was
less than 100 Mb (and files sizes were comparatively much smaller)
file fragmentation was a real problem, and regular defragmentation
had a real performance benefit. These days it's just time out of
your life you'll never get back.
Perhaps of greater value are tools such as Disk Warrior which
optimise the disk catalog rather than the files themselves. If you
want a tool to show you what the drive "looks like", try the free
utility Grand Perspective (available from www.versiontracker.com).
This gives you a graphical representation of your disk's file
structure, showing you what is taking the most space, making the
task of cleaning up your drive a little easier.
--
Peter Hinchliffe Apwin Computer Services
FileMaker Pro Solutions Developer
Perth, Western Australia
Phone (618) 9332 6482 Mob 0403 064 948
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