Defragmenting HD caused 50% increased performance.. at LEAST

[James Steele]

I optimize the directory with Disk Warrior from time to time. But I know I've gone a long time since a full defrag so it would probably be beneficial at this point.

[Phil O]

My boot drive is bare bones. I have the OS with necessary files and applications. I don't use the home folder for storage of pictures, documents, etc. The only files that get stored there are the ones that apps automatically put there. All my audio and VI are on other disks. Defragging my boot drive usually takes about an hour.

Phil

[rentadrummer]

I had heard that cloning and restoring a drive defrags it while restoring. I did a search and came across this:

http://help.bombich.com/kb/usage-scenar ... hard-drive" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Has anyone tried it and had a noticeable improvement?

Edit: Oops. Missed amergin's post. Sorry.

[FMiguelez]

The serious fragmentation was more than likely due to the encryption...

Why is that, exactly?
I think the OS un-encrypts on the fly. Do you mean encryption writes/reads more temp files than normally?

You might also find that using a separate partition for audio is a faster option.

I totally agree. I was talking about my "office" laptop computer, where I keep my personal files (that's why it's encrypted).
I'd never let File Vault anywhere near my music production machines

When you feel you need to defrag it copy all the files over to another drive, reformat, then copy them back. This will more than likely be a lot faster than iDefrag (unless they've improved their defrag times considerably in the past couple of years).

I've heard that as well. In fact, since I always move the finished projects out of my Audio drive, I usually "defrag" it by just reformatting it and start new projects in there.

I haven't really compared the cloning times to the defragging times, but I guess the former is faster. But if you consider the cloning and then the cloning back, then the difference must be minimal, I suppose.
It took my laptop like 5 hours to finish (it could've been longer, though).

OSX does defrag in the background and will look after the system stuff for you.

But that would only apply to the system disk, yes?

[FMiguelez]

You might also find that using a separate partition for audio is a faster option.

I totally agree. I was talking about my "office" laptop computer, where I keep my personal files (that's why it's encrypted).
I'd never let File Vault anywhere near my music production machines

Uh-oh...

I guess I didn't read close enough the first time.

That is actually contrary to what I know. Partitioning a disk to use the 2nd partition for audio is actually counterproductive. The system would have to constantly access the slower partition (the audio one) in addition to whatever it would normally write for the system files in the first partition.
Supposedly, that would slow things more than just using the same partition for audio.

Unless you meant a separate hard disk for audio purposes. THAT's what I actually do

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Unless you are in an environment where others can access you computer, you fear theft, of you just want to keep your girlfriend away from your porn, there is no real reason to use encryption, IMO. That in and of itself will slow the processes down when you have to access a file.

Just sayin!

[FMiguelez]

Unless you are in an environment where others can access you computer, you fear theft, of you just want to keep your girlfriend away from your porn, there is no real reason to use encryption, IMO. That in and of itself will slow the processes down when you have to access a file.

Just sayin!

You are right. It does slow things down.
But it's a consequence I'm more than willing to live with.

It's not my girlfriend discovering my porn files I'm really worried about... it's the damn thieves and kidnappers (we proudly are number one or two in the last category down here - worldwide).

I take my laptop everywhere I go. My whole life is in there. Since getting robbed (or worse) in Mexico is not unheard-of , I really get a sense of security this way.

Let me put it this way, MLC: My Home Folder is encrypted. Inside there, in my Documents folder, I have another disk image that is encrypted too (256 bit encryption with a 32 character password)! Yes. I have an encrypted disk image inside my encrypted home folder.
I can type the password extremely fast, BTW.

Call me paranoid. But you must take into account my current place of residence

I'd love to get into details if I could...

[MIDI Life Crisis]

I figured as much, FMMIg. That can happen anywhere - my wife's Macbook was stolen out of her classroom (4th grade) the day before Christmas last year! But that doesn't change the fact that you're talking about performance slow downs and you're encrypting your data. It is something you'll have to love with and defragging can only help so much. You're still going to take a hit.

[FMiguelez]

.

I'm curious about Lion's enhanced File Vault feature.

Apparently it's more efficient now. Not that I'll be able to test it in my current laptop, but I'm hoping Apple really made it both, stronger and easier on the CPU at the same time. It won't be long before I get a new one. Especially now that my girlfriend will finally dump her PC for a small MacBook Pro (it will make mine feel like an old donkey in comparison, BTW).
I asked her if she wouldn't prefer mine (which is "bigger"), and let me have the new one, but she threatened to me and she literarily at me...

Encryption will probably always make things run slower. But I'd feel irresponsible driving or walking around Insurgentes avenue with an unprotected computer.

[James Steele]

You're still going to take a hit.

I think his point is that it's worth the inconvenience not to have bad guys find out where you live, grab someone you love off the street, stuff them into the barrel, and send you their severed fingers until you pay ransom, after which, nine times out of ten, they'll have been killed anyway. I hate to be so graphic, but that's the sorts of thing that happens nowadays.

[FMiguelez]

I think his point is that it's worth the inconvenience not to have bad guys find out where you live, grab someone you love off the street, stuff them into the barrel, and send you their severed fingers until you pay ransom, after which, nine times out of ten, they'll have been killed anyway. I hate to be so graphic, but that's the sorts of thing that happens nowadays.

EX-ACT-LY. I couldn't have (and didn't) put it better myself!

Encryption works like a computer's lock.

All we need now are personal iLoks to protect ourselves, or some kind of protective shell

Man on Fire rings a bell? (the movie). It's an everyday thing...

[amergin]

The serious fragmentation was more than likely due to the encryption...

Why is that, exactly?
I think the OS un-encrypts on the fly. Do you mean encryption writes/reads more temp files than normally?

OS X will auto-defragment files that are less than 20 MB. FileVault being a sparse disk image means that it doesn’t need to occupy a contiguous area of the drive, but it is also guaranteed to be larger than 20MB. As a result, a drive containing a FileVault disk will invariably fragment, and in my experience, fragment badly.

When you feel you need to defrag it copy all the files over to another drive, reformat, then copy them back. This will more than likely be a lot faster than iDefrag (unless they've improved their defrag times considerably in the past couple of years).

I've heard that as well. In fact, since I always move the finished projects out of my Audio drive, I usually "defrag" it by just reformatting it and start new projects in there.

I haven't really compared the cloning times to the defragging times, but I guess the former is faster. But if you consider the cloning and then the cloning back, then the difference must be minimal, I suppose.
It took my laptop like 5 hours to finish (it could've been longer, though).

I did try out iDefrag a couple of years ago and found it to be unacceptably slow - so I returned to just copying stuff out to an external drive and back in again (quite often I'd just be ending a project and the stuff wouldn't need to come back in so I could move it out and reformat the partition).

OSX does defrag in the background and will look after the system stuff for you.

But that would only apply to the system disk, yes?

As far as I remember OSX will defrag files less than 20mb on any drive or partition but then again how many of your files are less than 20mb if they contain audio?

[amergin]

You might also find that using a separate partition for audio is a faster option.

I totally agree. I was talking about my "office" laptop computer, where I keep my personal files (that's why it's encrypted).
I'd never let File Vault anywhere near my music production machines

Uh-oh...

I guess I didn't read close enough the first time.

That is actually contrary to what I know. Partitioning a disk to use the 2nd partition for audio is actually counterproductive. The system would have to constantly access the slower partition (the audio one) in addition to whatever it would normally write for the system files in the first partition.
Supposedly, that would slow things more than just using the same partition for audio.

Unless you meant a separate hard disk for audio purposes. THAT's what I actually do

If you are working off a single drive (say on a laptop) you might find a performance improvement by partitioning the drive and using the new partition for your audio data. The system partition would be maintained separately and defragged by osx under the hood - it would also presumably only change in minor ways. The audio partition would be managed by you and when a project finishes you might clear and reformat the partition. When osx needs to access your audio data it will be seeking in a different area on the disk in any case so that will not be a cause of a slowdown or added disk activity. New recordings laid down would store as contiguous blocks on the drive and would therefore be read faster.

A separate drive for audio is obviously an even better solution but would still benefit from a reformat when needed. Unless you are doing a lot of recording then deleting this would be an infrequent necessity in either case.

If we are not talking about a music production machine in any case then these suggestions are, of course, redundant...

[James Steele]

I did try out iDefrag a couple of years ago and found it to be unacceptably slow - so I returned to just copying stuff out to an external drive and back in again (quite often I'd just be ending a project and the stuff wouldn't need to come back in so I could move it out and reformat the partition).

I do know that they have various options with the defragmenting that can affect this and it really depends on how particular you want to be about whether it's a simple defrag or more thorough "optimization." I just do mine overnight.

[mhschmieder]

Wow, finally some compelling reasons to defrag, which I'll now start doing.

On some other forums (ones I find via Googling), I read "convincing" arguments that defragging could ONLY do harm and was to be avoided at all costs.

The advice here is more relevant to those of us doing audio though, and I know I can trust the sources. I will look into this commercial tool.