Hey, Just wondering if it is nessessary to defrag a harddrive running macOSX 10.1.5. If so is there something built into the os that will do it for you? If not can someone tell me a good program that does defrag harddrives.
it is generally unnecessary. the mac file systems (hfs, hfs+) take care of most defragging automatically. there is some fragged space, but less 5% i think ususally, unless you work a lot with large files. there are third party programs to defrag your drive though, but it is not needed. i've used macs for many years, and have never (and never had to) defrag my computers.
I was trying to figure that out for the longest time after I bought my first Mac just a a couple months ago. One reason I was wondering about defragging my Mac was when I first installed all my new software on it, because every time I had to do it on my XP machine (to many to count) you know you would have to defrag the drive. But with the Mac you don't.
Mac OS and Mac OS X are typically far less susceptible to fragmentation than Windows' FAT formats. I've never used NTFS; so, I can't comment on that one.
The only time I've had actual file fragmentation on my Mac is when working with extraordinarily large files (video files can quickly grow into the gigabytes) or when the hard drive is reaching capacity and fragmentation is the only way to keep adding files.
Individual file fragmentation doesn't happen frequently, but over time the free space may become fragmented and it is good practice to optimize it and "open up" a much larger contiguous storage area. I *really* stress my hard drives sometimes and so I'll either optimize or simply reformat them once every few months. The average user probably doesn't need to do this, though.
I keep a complete backup of my iBook on an external firewire hard drive. If I erase my iBook and restore from my external drive, would it put the gaps or the fragmentation back onto my iBook.
Sorry if this is totally ignorant. This kind of stuff ain't my bag, man!
<strong>I keep a complete backup of my iBook on an external firewire hard drive. If I erase my iBook and restore from my external drive, would it put the gaps or the fragmentation back onto my iBook.
Sorry if this is totally ignorant. This kind of stuff ain't my bag, man! </strong><hr></blockquote>
No, it should not put the gaps back onto your original hard drive. When copying data, the data itself is copied, but the layout of the data is not.
Comments
The only time I've had actual file fragmentation on my Mac is when working with extraordinarily large files (video files can quickly grow into the gigabytes) or when the hard drive is reaching capacity and fragmentation is the only way to keep adding files.
Individual file fragmentation doesn't happen frequently, but over time the free space may become fragmented and it is good practice to optimize it and "open up" a much larger contiguous storage area. I *really* stress my hard drives sometimes and so I'll either optimize or simply reformat them once every few months. The average user probably doesn't need to do this, though.
[ 08-01-2002: Message edited by: Brad ]</p>
Sorry if this is totally ignorant. This kind of stuff ain't my bag, man!
<strong>I keep a complete backup of my iBook on an external firewire hard drive. If I erase my iBook and restore from my external drive, would it put the gaps or the fragmentation back onto my iBook.
Sorry if this is totally ignorant. This kind of stuff ain't my bag, man!
No, it should not put the gaps back onto your original hard drive. When copying data, the data itself is copied, but the layout of the data is not.