Defragment Hard Disk?

tommymandel · Post by **tommymandel** » Sat Oct 14, 2006 6:32 am

In the old days of OS 9 and earlier, I'd use Nortons Speed Disk Utility to defrag my hard disks as a matter of habit, once every few months if I'd been writing a lot of sound files to my hard disks.
Then others started using Alsoft's DiskWarrior, and MicroMat's TechTool. I'd hear both praise and horror stories about them, and eventually Nortons fell out of favor with the word-of-mouth circles I listened in on.
Now we're well into OSX, with a new cat (10.5) on the horizon, and my question here, to all learned Unicornation Bro's is:
Do you defrag? What do you use? Is it totally safe?
I know that when I install certain software, "System Optimization" occurs- but I am guessing that that refers to defragmenting just the System Files. Am I correct? All opinions appreciated. Thanks!
PS. My question is for a PB Ti running 10.3.9 and a G5 DC2.3 running the latest Tiger 10.4.8.

Tritonemusic · Post by **Tritonemusic** » Sat Oct 14, 2006 6:49 am

I'm using Drive Genius for defrag. It does a whole lot of other things, as well. I think it's a great product and have never had a problem with it.

Some people will say this is unnecessary for OS X. Personally, I think it's a very good thing to do periodically. You don't have to do this very often. I know Magic Dave used TechTool to defrag his Powerbook because it was so slow that he could barely get it to run DP. He said the difference in performance was quite dramatic, as far as I can recall. I'm not sure if that post is still in the archives.

As far as your question, "Is it totally safe?": Nothing is totally safe and you should back up everything before doing something like that. Especially, if you count on your stuff to make a living.

Well, that's just my point of view, FWIW.

Timeline · Post by **Timeline** » Sat Oct 14, 2006 7:25 am

Hi.

I defrag with the latest version of Tech Tool 4 and fix drives with Disk Warrior first.

Never had a problem but MAKE SURE you have their latest drivers before you do it or you could have issues.

Usually a placard pops up saying something like This version of OSX has not been tested.

I think defrag on a by monthly basis is good but backup is always the best bet considering the horrers we went through with the old os9 utilities like •••• Norton.

adriano · Post by **adriano** » Sat Oct 14, 2006 7:30 am

You might want to try iDefrag. I have not had a problem with it at all.
I usually run Disk Warrior and use iDefrag every couple of months.
Here is a link for it for you to check out.

http://www.coriolis-systems.com/iDefrag.php

Hope that helps and as 666 said nothing is safe.
good luck

adriano · Post by **adriano** » Sat Oct 14, 2006 7:31 am

Timeline beat me to it
ouch

Aramis · Post by **Aramis** » Sat Oct 14, 2006 8:06 am

adriano wrote:You might want to try iDefrag. I have not had a problem with it at all.
I usually run Disk Warrior and use iDefrag every couple of months.
Here is a link for it for you to check out.

http://www.coriolis-systems.com/iDefrag.php

Hope that helps and as 666 said nothing is safe.
good luck

I have used Defrag and recomand it !!!

Aramis

newrigel · Post by **newrigel** » Sat Oct 14, 2006 10:22 am

Hmmm... iDefrag has some really interesting features like being able to defrag the way you want... Maybe some disk I/O speed can be aquired here by putting the most acceses files @ the inner most sectors of a drive. I'll have to investigate this one!

tommymandel · Post by **tommymandel** » Sat Oct 14, 2006 10:36 am

Thanks everyone. I just bought iDefrag (it was only $30USD), and as soon as I can back-up everything, I will try it out. I didn't completely understand the analysis it made of my PB hard drive - on one level it seemed to be telling me it wasn't fragmented at all, and yet one dv project file was in 1,296 pieces! gotta go read the manual.
Thanks again.

Timeline · Post by **Timeline** » Sat Oct 14, 2006 10:45 am

Wow 30 bucks! Teck Tool wants 25 bucks to upgrade to the same level. They suck!

Thanks. Let us know how it works out.

adriano · Post by **adriano** » Sat Oct 14, 2006 7:20 pm

tommymandel make sure you download the coriolis diskmaker (free) to make a boot disk.

tommymandel · Post by **tommymandel** » Sat Oct 14, 2006 7:23 pm

thanks adriano, i did, but i'm not sure if this will include a system, to make it bootable. ciao

EDIT:
ah, i see, it's grabbing boot files off of the Internet. thanks again.

adriano · Post by **adriano** » Sun Oct 15, 2006 8:20 am

Glad to help
You're good to go.

stratology · Post by **stratology** » Sun Oct 15, 2006 9:01 am

I don't defrag on OS X.

OS X defrags files smaller than 20MB by itself.

An excellent article with all the technical details about file fragmentation on HFS+ volumes can be found here.

From the article:
Defragmentation on HFS+ volumes should not be necessary at
all, or worthwhile, in most cases, because the system seems to
do a very good job of avoiding/countering fragmentation.
It is risky to defragment anyway: What if there's a power glitch?
What if the system crashes? What if the defragmenting tool has a
bug? What if you inadvertently reboot? In some cases, you could
make the situation worse by defragmenting.

Frank

Tritonemusic · Post by **Tritonemusic** » Sun Oct 15, 2006 9:40 am

stratology wrote:I don't defrag on OS X.

OS X defrags files smaller than 20MB by itself.

An excellent article with all the technical details about file fragmentation.....

I've read plenty of those articles and all I can say is that I've seen huge improvements on a number of computers after defragging (however, they weren't my computers). I never saw a big improvement on my computer probably because I defrag occasionally and I guess it never had a chance to go south on me. I rely on real-world results and don't tend to believe everything I read. However, I respect your opinion and if it works for you, it works for you.

I really wish that I could find the post by Magic Dave because that was a great example of what a huge difference defragging can make; even in OS X.

stratology · Post by **stratology** » Sun Oct 15, 2006 9:56 am

Have you actually read the article?
It includes a link to a tool that lets you measure the fragmentation on your hard disk, so you can determine whether it makes sense to defrag your disk.
It's technical information, not an opinion piece.

MOTUnation.com

Defragment Hard Disk?

Defragment Hard Disk?

Re: Defragment Hard Disk?