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Defrag on a Mac
- Thread starter Pjoseph
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Please search the forums. It is in the rules to do this. You don't need to defrag. There is no point.
iDefrag
Theoretically, you do not need to do it, as the HFS+ file system is supposed to be pretty good at keeping itself de-fragmented. The only time I ever use this is to free up a contiguous block of free space to install Windows with Boot Camp.
And as Tallest said, try the search first. This answer is everywhere, and you will generally get a quicker (and less sarcastic) response from Google than you will from us
[EDIT] no, it will not free up total disk space. it frees up contiguous blocks for the above mentioned, but remember, defraging is just moving files so they are closer together and less scattered, aka "fragmented". It is not a magical wave of the wand or anything... [/EDIT]
Theoretically, you do not need to do it, as the HFS+ file system is supposed to be pretty good at keeping itself de-fragmented. The only time I ever use this is to free up a contiguous block of free space to install Windows with Boot Camp.
And as Tallest said, try the search first. This answer is everywhere, and you will generally get a quicker (and less sarcastic) response from Google than you will from us
[EDIT] no, it will not free up total disk space. it frees up contiguous blocks for the above mentioned, but remember, defraging is just moving files so they are closer together and less scattered, aka "fragmented". It is not a magical wave of the wand or anything... [/EDIT]
Yup....I tried iDefrag for bootcamp installation before, but I think it's too slow.
Therefore I used this method:
1. Insert Leopard DVD and restart.
2. Use my Time Machine backup to restore the whole system
That's it. Must faster and effective.
Not sure how that is faster in any way. Depending on the size of your drive, Time Machine can take a bloody long time due to the inherent bottleneck of USB. A typical (simple) defrag for me takes maybe 20 minutes. Time Machine for me takes upwards of an hour...
In my case, I didn't have much space left, a simple defrag couldn't help.
ah. That makes sense, lol