Do you have to defragment Hard Drives?

Posted:
in macOS edited January 2014
I am used to having to Defragment hard drives on the PC. Is this necessary on the Mac and if so is there a good program to buy to do it or does this come with the computer?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 3
    mr. memr. me Posts: 3,221member
    No. Defragmenting is a Windows solution to a Windows problem. To the extent that it is necessary on the Mac, the OS automatically defrags files. Apple recommends that you do not use a defrag utility unless you are one of the very rare birds who edits large video files.
  • Reply 2 of 3
    Yeah, commonly read files are auto-defragged on-the-fly- as they are read. Cool, eh?
  • Reply 3 of 3
    chuckerchucker Posts: 5,089member
    http://www.kernelthread.com/mac/apme/fragmentation/



    Quote:

    Conclusion

    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.



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