Want to know about defragmenting/optimizing?

ElDiabloConCaca

ElDiabloConCaca

U.S.D.A. Prime
Here's Apple's take:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=25668

From what I gather reading that, unless you have a rather small hard drive AND keep your hard drive very close to full capacity AND work on rather large files at the same time AND don't use Panther AND don't have your hard drive formatted as HFS+ AND don't mind risking damage to files AND use very old programs that "append" data to files rather than "rewrite" the file AND still don't believe that Mac OS X Panther optimizes the right files for you, don't bother. It's simply too much work for an undetectable amount of gain.

I decided to post this since there have been a plethora of queries about how to defrag/whether I should/can I/will I see benefits from/what software I should use/etc. I hope this puts the debate to rest.
 
Now you know if you were to post this a zillion times, you're not going to stop people asking it... :confused: :D
 
...then I will post it a zillion times plus one!

FWIW, disk optimization has had a placebo effect which I believe stems from the days of using DOS/Windows 3.1 - 95/Mac OS 6/7/8. The last time I optimized a drive was in 10.1, and I was subject to the same placebo effect others fell victim to. It did squat, except move a bunch of files around on my drive, and I only know it did that because it told me it did. There wasn't any performance benefit, and I believe the people who DO see a performance benefit are seeing it because they have to restart their computers to optimize the drive, which clears out swap files and logs and what-not, which can have an enormous benefit on percieved speed if you haven't restarted in weeks/months/years.

We're on UNIX, now, people -- how many UNIX users do you know that optimize their drives?!

Oh yeah, that brings me to another thread that I may start -- "Mac OS X users and their fear of restarting their computers." Hehe... "Oh, no! This [program/security update/package/utility] I installed requires me to restart my computer! That'll totally SCREW my uptime (which is just a number, people) and I'll no longer be the head geek in my geek mob! They will ALL look down on me! Icabod from across the street will have a longer uptime than me now! AND I have to wait 45 seconds for my Finder to appear! The world is ending! Apple sucks!"
 
ElDiabloConCaca said:
... Oh yeah, that brings me to another thread that I may start -- "Mac OS X users and their fear of restarting their computers." Hehe... "Oh, no! This [program/security update/package/utility] I installed requires me to restart my computer! That'll totally SCREW my uptime (which is just a number, people) and I'll no longer be the head geek in my geek mob! They will ALL look down on me! Icabod from across the street will have a longer uptime than me now! AND I have to wait 45 seconds for my Finder to appear! The world is ending! Apple sucks!"
Click to expand...

Am I so transparent?

Who've you been talking to?

I feel undone!.. :eek: :D
 
Hehe... yo MAMA, fool! Just kidding... how's the weather in the UK this time of year? I just did an extensive leg workout on my patio in beautiful, sunny, 65-degree weather... Fahrenheit, man, fahrenheit... screw your celsius and SI units! INCHES, POUNDS and GALLONS RULE!!!

...and guess what? I restarted my computer FIVE TIMES just for the hell of it!
 
ElDiabloConCaca said:
Hehe... yo MAMA, fool! Just kidding... how's the weather in the UK this time of year? I just did an extensive leg workout on my patio in beautiful, sunny, 65-degree weather...
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It's below zero and it's snowing...
 
Offtopic:
The only thing I find annoying is when they make you restart when it's not really needed. Kernel extensions can be unloaded, replaced and reloaded without restarting but they are just too lazy for some reason to build that into the installer scripts.

Ontopic:
I haven't noticed any difference with any optimizations I've done. The last one was with Norton Utililties a long time ago which always said the directories were severely fragmented from OS X, but I am thinking it really didn't know what it was talking about because there wasn't any speed difference.
 
Captain Code said:
Offtopic:
The only thing I find annoying is when they make you restart when it's not really needed. Kernel extensions can be unloaded, replaced and reloaded without restarting but they are just too lazy for some reason to build that into the installer scripts.
Click to expand...

Apparently, this kind of thing is on its merry way with the next update .. or something like that .. apparently!

Captain Code said:
Ontopic:
I haven't noticed any difference with any optimizations I've done. The last one was with Norton Utililties a long time ago which always said the directories were severely fragmented from OS X, but I am thinking it really didn't know what it was talking about because there wasn't any speed difference.
Click to expand...

I used to look after the video suit at my college and we had a dual RAID array that needed constant faffing around with.

One disk for clips and the other for scratch.

Both needed to be reformatted and de-fragmented on a near-weekly basis.

But this was in the days of OS 8.6 .. ah, those were the days...
 
I used to fsck after every restart prior Panther. It was dirty I tell you, fsck-ing myself. Thank you Panther for journaling ;) (Yes I know I could've turned it on in Jag... I didn't.)
 
Offtopic: One question, Uoba: what the hell are the two of us doing here on a Friday night? We should be out on the razz! I'm guessing it's snowing down your end 'n' all.

Ontopic: Yes, Journaling is a god-send. It's eerily strange having this super-stable system just .. work. No mess, no fuss...
 
Im just wondering if OSX has the core dump function from Unix? if it does why don't you just install the update --> core dump then it should recreate the core and Viola you have you updates?
 
Browni said:
Im just wondering if OSX has the core dump function from Unix? if it does why don't you just install the update --> core dump then it should recreate the core and Viola you have you updates?
Click to expand...

[Whooosh!]

What was that?!

Oh, just that last post going _right_ over my head!.. :confused:
 
I believe core dumping is basically the same thing as Captain Code was describing -- whereas kernel extensions are unloaded then loaded again. If I'm incorrect, please correct me!

Off Topic: Man, I wish we would see some snow here in Texas. We were suppose to get some this year -- twice, actually, but nothing came. We did get some sleet one night that resembled snow, but it just left funky ice patterns on all the cars. Nothing to write home about. I do remember the Winter of 1985, though -- 16 inches of snow (that's 40.64 centimeters for you dumb SI-users... ;) ) and three days off of school. Man, was that nice. They say we get it here in San Antonio every 7 years (like a broken mirror, I guess!) but we haven't seen any snow stick to the ground since '85. Ho hum. What's a skiier like me doing in Texas, anyway?!
 
ElDiabloConCaca said:
I believe core dumping is basically the same thing as Captain Code was describing -- whereas kernel extensions are unloaded then loaded again. If I'm incorrect, please correct me!
Click to expand...

Right .. I knew that! :confused:

ElDiabloConCaca said:
Off Topic: Man, I wish we would see some snow here in Texas...
Click to expand...

Yeah, maybe in a couple of million years time when continental America drifts further north!..
 
Offtopic: One question, Uoba: what the hell are the two of us doing here on a Friday night? We should be out on the razz! I'm guessing it's snowing down your end 'n' all.
Click to expand...

It's Saturday night for me! (Tonight's the night of screaming teething child :( )

As for snow, I can see the Welsh hills from here, which look lovely with their snow, but it's not sticking here :(

On-TOPIC:
Scraping the snowdrift off the hard-drive helps with optimisation... darn, it's looking like the Cafe for us fellas!
 
Nice article Fryke, to the point.

Coupled with crontab, I lovethe free backup options with OS X (got so many crontabs jumping around backing up between my Mac and Linux machine, I'm going to have to start dishing out contraception!)
 
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