defragging a macbook

[thezoostation]

Alright, I've got a macbook I got about 10 months ago and for the past couple months it's been really lagging. Sometimes the spinning beachball will go for 3 or 4 minutes just trying to open a browser or the calendar. I've taken it to the Apple store a couple times and they've tried for font conflicts, start-up issues, and have only found a problem with the amount of fragmentation. The last time I was there they recommended getting a defrag program and running it to clean things up. However, I hear all about how macs don't need defragmenting. On the other hand, Apple sells a defragmenting program in its stores. Anyone have any other suggestions on what might be causing the lagging?

 

[Vulcan]

Try Onyx (link)

 

[jav6454]

Alright, I've got a macbook I got about 10 months ago and for the past couple months it's been really lagging. Sometimes the spinning beachball will go for 3 or 4 minutes just trying to open a browser or the calendar. I've taken it to the Apple store a couple times and they've tried for font conflicts, start-up issues, and have only found a problem with the amount of fragmentation. The last time I was there they recommended getting a defrag program and running it to clean things up. However, I hear all about how macs don't need defragmenting. On the other hand, Apple sells a defragmenting program in its stores. Anyone have any other suggestions on what might be causing the lagging?

Yeah, Macs don't need defraging for files less than 20 MBs. However, if you are a power user, then many (if not the majority) of your files will be 20MBs or more. Therefore, it gets to a point where defraging must occur once or twice a year. Try Onyx

 

[dolphin842]

If you use a external hard drive and have a bootable backup, you can try booting from your external, then wiping and copying back to your internal drive. That should put all the bits back in order, or so the developer of SuperDuper claims.

 

[poolvibe]

Clean install may be needed. The other possibility is a Hard Drive on its last leg. Make sure you keep daily backups! It's giving you fair warning

 

[thezoostation]

Thanks for all the suggestions. I'm gonna try Onyx later today, see if that helps. I do have regular Time Capsule back ups so I should be ok as far as my files go. If it doesn't work, I'm sure I'll have more questions, heh.

 

[bed]

Mac's automatically do File degramenting all the time. What can get really fragmented is *free space*. If you've got between 10-20% of free disk space left, this could be fragmented all over the harddisk, and can cause delays with stuff. A wipe and reinstall will solve this, or an app like iDefrag (http://www.coriolis-systems.com/iDefrag.php) can fix this.

See http://www.macattorney.com/ts.html#6 for excellent advise.

 

[the Western zoo]

Kind of off topic, but here goes:
I'm contemplating buying a SSD for my MacBook, is there any way to turn the automatic defragmentation off in OS X?

 

[SHADO]

Thanks for all the suggestions. I'm gonna try Onyx later today, see if that helps. I do have regular Time Capsule back ups so I should be ok as far as my files go. If it doesn't work, I'm sure I'll have more questions, heh.

DiskWarrior and Drive Genius 2 also will do what you want. I use DiskWarrior once every 5 months or so just to make sure my comp is running as fast as it can.

 

[ayeying]

Kind of off topic, but here goes:
I'm contemplating buying a SSD for my MacBook, is there any way to turn the automatic defragmentation off in OS X?

No, but its not required. OSX is optimized for SSDs already. It'll use the SSD Properly. If you're gonna install windows, use Windows Vista instead of XP since XP has an issue with writing files properly without studdering/lagging.