Better HDD Performance

[Dronecatcher]

Something to consider with larger capacity hard disks - I'll try this the next time I do an install. Although I've done System and Data partitions in the past, I've never specifically made a System partition as small as possible for access time improvements - has anyone done this and seen a significant improvement?

https://www.pcmech.com/article/performance-tuning-black-art-short-stroke-hard-drive/

 

[amagichnich]

Never done that before, don't think it really helps that much. Proper defragmentation though helps a lot on old hard drives! Maybe the combination will do it best

 

[Dronecatcher]

Never done that before, don't think it really helps that much.

On the various reports I've read, it can increase seek times and data throughput by over 50% in benchmarks.

 

[CooperBox]

Interesting link.
I had no idea what short-stroking was..........honest!

 

[eyoungren]

Never done that before, don't think it really helps that much. Proper defragmentation though helps a lot on old hard drives! Maybe the combination will do it best

Other than iDefrag, a commercial Mac app, how do you defrag a Mac hard drive?

Apple has never made that possible under OS X.

Or are you speaking solely of Windows PC machines?

 

[amagichnich]

On the various reports I've read, it can increase seek times and data throughput by over 50% in benchmarks

Oh, okay, that's impressive, I'll have to try that on my Athlon XP Retro-Gaming machine
[doublepost=1512338751][/doublepost]

Other than iDefrag, a commercial Mac app, how do you defrag a Mac hard drive?

Apple has never made that possible under OS X.

Or are you speaking solely of Windows PC machines?

I do indeed, as I don't know of any way of doing that in OS X either

 

[weckart]

Other than iDefrag, a commercial Mac app, how do you defrag a Mac hard drive?

Techtool Pro defrags as do a few other similar utilities. I remember getting Drive 10 for OSX back in the day. That had a defragger. To be honest, OSX/macOS defrags small fragmentations on the fly automatically. I remember reading that it was more important to leave at least 10% of your drive free so that macOS could shift files around as required rather than forcing through a full defrag Windows style.

Cheap way to defrag? Clone your drive and copy back. That cuts out a lot of any defragmentation.

 

[eyoungren]

Techtool Pro defrags as do a few other similar utilities. I remember getting Drive 10 for OSX back in the day. That had a defragger. To be honest, OSX/macOS defrags small fragmentations on the fly automatically. I remember reading that it was more important to leave at least 10% of your drive free so that macOS could shift files around as required rather than forcing through a full defrag Windows style.

Cheap way to defrag? Clone your drive and copy back. That cuts out a lot of any defragmentation.

Yeah, that's as I understand it.

There's some user over at the Apple community forums that has a lot of points and is considered to be an institution over there though that believes that you shouldn't ever have to touch your drive.

Apparently in his esteemed opinion Apple is so brilliant that not even repairing permissions should be something anyone should have a concern with. He was fairly strong in expressing that opinion to people he believed were undereducated on the matter.

 

[weckart]

Yeah, that's as I understand it.

There's some user over at the Apple community forums that has a lot of points and is considered to be an institution over there though that believes that you shouldn't ever have to touch your drive.

Oh, I remember him. He's not wrong though. Repairing permissions became such a Pavlovian dog response to any perceived issue with OSX much as zapping the PRAM was with its predecessor that I did wonder if people meting out advice really understood what repairing permissions actually did.

 

[z970]

Yeah, that's as I understand it.

There's some user over at the Apple community forums that has a lot of points and is considered to be an institution over there though that believes that you shouldn't ever have to touch your drive.

Apparently in his esteemed opinion Apple is so brilliant that not even repairing permissions should be something anyone should have a concern with. He was fairly strong in expressing that opinion to people he believed were undereducated on the matter.

Apple? Brilliance? 2017?

Ha. Ha. Ha.

Apple has descended to incompetence. One bad decision after the other.

 

[z970]

Written from the last version of OS X that still had a piece of Steve Jobs and actual respect for the user. Before everything turned ugly.

When all the third parties stop supporting 10.9, I'm migrating to Linux and never looking back.

 

[swamprock]

View attachment 740171

Written from the last version of OS X that still had a piece of Steve Jobs and actual respect for the user. Before Apple's products turned gay.

When all the third parties stop supporting 10.9, I'm migrating to Linux and never looking back.

I'm playing around with Elementary OS on my Blackbook right now. Other than MAJOR trackpad issues (libinput sucks, sucks, SUCKS. Switched back to synaptics and all is well now), it's quite a light, speedy distro. I don't know that I'll keep it, but it's pretty decent so far.

I'm finding that even an unsupported Mountain Lion installation is quite troublesome on this machine, and that I will have to switch completely to linux in the near future. I'll most likely fall back to Debian again, and rolling my own, as long as the Macbook suspend/sleep issues are (finally) fixed in the kernel.

(EDIT: and this thread swung wayyyy off topic...)

 

[z970]

I'm playing around with Elementary OS on my Blackbook right now. Other than MAJOR trackpad issues (libinput sucks, sucks, SUCKS. Switched back to synaptics and all is well now), it's quite a light, speedy distro. I don't know that I'll keep it, but it's pretty decent so far.

I'm finding that even an unsupported Mountain Lion installation is quite troublesome on this machine, and that I will have to switch completely to linux in the near future. I'll most likely fall back to Debian again, and rolling my own, as long as the Macbook suspend/sleep issues are (finally) fixed in the kernel.

(EDIT: and this thread swung wayyyy off topic...)

But that's the beauty of Linux, all the issues are fixed and patched much faster by a greater number of people than what Apple assigned the macOS team.

You know things are bad when the Linux community outnumbers the 2017 macOS team.

 

[CooperBox]

Apple has descended to incompetence. One bad decision after the other.

I totally agree with this comment.

I'm migrating to Linux and never looking back.

And I understand why.
I've yet to use Linux seriously on a Mac, but I can definitely see that happening in the short/medium term.
In fact I've used Linux (Mint 18 'Sonya') so many times recently on a 6 year old IBM T61 ThinkPad, whereby my i7 MBPR with OS Sierra has not been out of it's box for weeks.
And this is coming to you from my 500GHz G3 Pismo, still running like a champ - now that was a true Apple computer!

 

[z970]

I'm exporting all my photos off of El Capitan Photos to go to iPhoto in Mavericks, and however I try, the stupidly-built Photos can't simply move a perfectly functioning video to my desktop. Reminds me of Disk Utility, where it can't even erase a partition or format a drive.

More productivity-hindering incompetence and ineptitude from another application. I can't believe I would ever say this, but Apple makes bad products. I hate post-2014 Apple.
[doublepost=1512413180][/doublepost]

I totally agree with this comment.


And I understand why.
I've yet to use Linux seriously on a Mac, but I can definitely see that happening in the short/medium term.
In fact I've used Linux (Mint 18 'Sonya') so many times recently on a 6 year old IBM T61 ThinkPad, whereby my i7 MBPR with OS Sierra has not been out of it's box for weeks.
And this is coming to you from my 500GHz G3 Pismo, still running like a champ - now that was a true Apple computer!

Absolutely! The entire reason there is a PowerPC community to begin with is the fact that those were Apple's glory days! The pinnacle of innovation and expertise! Just absolute brilliance in every turn and corner, 2000's Apple. Never getting rid of my G5.

Then Steve died and everything went to $*!t.

Depressing.

 

[weckart]

But that's the beauty of Linux, all the issues are fixed and patched much faster by a greater number of people than what Apple assigned the macOS team.

Nope. Patches are released and bugs are addressed as and when the mood takes the volunteer coders. That is one of the downsides of open source. Users still expect the same level of service they get from paid proprietary code but without the leverage to get things done. Sad but true, there is more interest in new and sexy features rather than fixing the established but mundane underpinnings. Coders are human after all and nobody rushes to do boring stuff.

 

[z970]

Nope. Patches are released and bugs are addressed as and when the mood takes the volunteer coders. That is one of the downsides of open source. Users still expect the same level of service they get from paid proprietary code but without the leverage to get things done. Sad but true, there is more interest in new and sexy features rather than fixing the established but mundane underpinnings. Coders are human after all and nobody rushes to do boring stuff.

I'll take quality patches dependent on developer mood over rushed patches that don't fix the problem any day.

 

[weckart]

I'll take quality patches dependent on developer mood over rushed patches that don't fix the problem any day.

Which is fine when the quality patches exist. Often they don’t or they end up introducing other problems in their wake.

Linux isn’t close to perfect and moving from macOS/Windows to Linux is just swapping one set of problems for another. I suppose that a change is as good as a rest and at least you’re not paying through the nose for it.

 

[z970]

Which is fine when the quality patches exist. Often they don’t or they end up introducing other problems in their wake.

Linux isn’t close to perfect and moving from macOS/Windows to Linux is just swapping one set of problems for another. I suppose that a change is as good as a rest and at least you’re not paying through the nose for it.

In the experiences I've had, I've never had a problem with Linux's quality of patches.

I'll take the other set of problems.

 

[swamprock]

I'm not a fan of having to compile updated apps that haven't been moved to the repos, as it can be a pain in the ass to find all of the dependancies. You get what you pay for, though...

 

[AphoticD]

As much as I love to tinker in Linux, I have tried to make it a primary OS for myself throughout the years but find it just too stifling and convoluted for getting actual work done.

I almost always find myself returning to Mac OS and Windows to buy commercial software (and shareware) to do the job, whatever job that has been (except for jobs involving network services like NAT or web serving).

It’s unfortunately the result of expectations. If users expect everything to be free then it is very difficult for a developer of commercial software to justify a quality (time consuming) port to the platform, so the platform is neglected in ways that Windows and Mac aren’t.

In this way, Linux has boxed itself into a corner for the average content creator / production user.

Being a devoted Linux User is like being the vegetarian at the BBQ. Sure you won’t starve but all the temptations can be too much to resist.

I guess the same could have been said about the Mac at one stage, although giants like Microsoft and Adobe have always supported the platform.

 

[z970]

As much as I love to tinker in Linux, I have tried to make it a primary OS for myself throughout the years but find it just too stifling and convoluted for getting actual work done.

I almost always find myself returning to Mac OS and Windows to buy commercial software (and shareware) to do the job, whatever job that has been (except for jobs involving network services like NAT or web serving).

It’s unfortunately the result of expectations. If users expect everything to be free then it is very difficult for a developer of commercial software to justify a quality (time consuming) port to the platform, so the platform is neglected in ways that Windows and Mac aren’t.

In this way, Linux has boxed itself into a corner for the average content creator / production user.

Being a devoted Linux User is like being the vegetarian at the BBQ. Sure you won’t starve but all the temptations can be too much to resist.

I guess the same could have been said about the Mac at one stage, although giants like Microsoft and Adobe have always supported the platform.

What distribution have you used, exactly?

And you do know the commercial software can be emulated by Wine, right?

 

[AphoticD]

What distribution have you used, exactly?

And you do know the commercial software can be emulated by Wine, right?

Many since Y2K and yes, but "Wine Is Not An Emulator"

 

[sawpits]

I'm exporting all my photos off of El Capitan Photos to go to iPhoto in Mavericks, and however I try, the stupidly-built Photos can't simply move a perfectly functioning video to my desktop. Reminds me of Disk Utility, where it can't even erase a partition or format a drive.

More productivity-hindering incompetence and ineptitude from another application. I can't believe I would ever say this, but Apple makes bad products. I hate post-2014 Apple.
[doublepost=1512413180][/doublepost]

Absolutely! The entire reason there is a PowerPC community to begin with is the fact that those were Apple's glory days! The pinnacle of innovation and expertise! Just absolute brilliance in every turn and corner, 2000's Apple. Never getting rid of my G5.

Then Steve died and everything went to $*!t.

Depressing.

It was Steve who screwed the PowerPC people.

 

[z970]

Many since Y2K and yes, but "Wine Is Not An Emulator"

You know what I mean.

Personally, I find Ubuntu, Ubuntu MATE, and Linux Mint to be the absolute best for ease of use.
[doublepost=1512455345][/doublepost]

It was Steve who screwed the PowerPC people.

I was talking about general Apple, not the PowerPC people, which I'm part of.