Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
How to run iDefrag on "Full"?
- Thread starter SDAVE
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Well you have to make a boot CD with iDefrag on it. I bought iDefrag from coriolis-systems and when you go to Download the software, you can also download the software (For free if you purchased iDefrag) to burn a boot CD; its called Coriolis CDMaker.
iDefrag will defrag any Hard drive, but you cannot be currently be useing it while its defragging.
iDefrag will defrag any Hard drive, but you cannot be currently be useing it while its defragging.
Slightly tangential here, but so you know (like anti-virus software, another Windows bad-habit) defrag tools aren't really necessary for HFS+ volumes..the OS defrags files under 20MB on the fly and generally, unlike past versions of Windows, does a much better job of keeping files contiguous.
From the source itself:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=25668
and a utility to quantify fragmentation:
http://www.kernelthread.com/mac/apme/fragmentation/
From the source itself:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=25668
and a utility to quantify fragmentation:
http://www.kernelthread.com/mac/apme/fragmentation/
This is correct; however, I noticed a great benifit from defraging my MBP hard drive after my initial OS Installation, and all my programs were installed. After that, there really is no need for it.
idefrag scrapes 10 sec off my boot time and apps are a lot more responsive on a fresh boot. i agree that OS X does a little defragmentation on small files but if your constantly doing video work or installing/uninstalling apps all the time its a good idea to defrag once in a while.
also you dont have to use boot cd maker. if you have a cloned system just boot into that and idefrag your main hard drive from there.
also you dont have to use boot cd maker. if you have a cloned system just boot into that and idefrag your main hard drive from there.
I wonder if it is really defragmenting your files, or if it is optimizing the drive. The way I understand it, Optimizing it will put all the files 'in order' so to speak.... so the largest blocks of data go on one end of the drive and the smallest go on the other (or, I suppose the smallest blocks would go toward the center of the drive and the smallest would go toward the edges).
iDefrag really speeds my system up
I just did a full de-fragmentation just now... (Including the B-Tree optimization, whatever it means).... A full 2 hours, totally worth it... My MBP now boots up faster, launching application from cold boot needs only a bounce..
Files in Mac OS X does not get fragmented... But their locations can be fragmented, so doing full de-fragmentation once in a while can really speed the things up... Comparing with other file system, Mac OS X's files are clustered, where other's are scattered...
Here is my illustration:
Mac OS X's: AAA----------BBBB-----------CCCCCCCCCCCC
Other's: AA------B--CC-BC-------CCCC-B-A-CC-C-B--CC
- denotes empty space
Mac (after de-fragmenting): AAABBBBCCCCCCCCCCCC
I just did a full de-fragmentation just now... (Including the B-Tree optimization, whatever it means).... A full 2 hours, totally worth it... My MBP now boots up faster, launching application from cold boot needs only a bounce..
Files in Mac OS X does not get fragmented... But their locations can be fragmented, so doing full de-fragmentation once in a while can really speed the things up... Comparing with other file system, Mac OS X's files are clustered, where other's are scattered...
Here is my illustration:
Mac OS X's: AAA----------BBBB-----------CCCCCCCCCCCC
Other's: AA------B--CC-BC-------CCCC-B-A-CC-C-B--CC
- denotes empty space
Mac (after de-fragmenting): AAABBBBCCCCCCCCCCCC
A much safer way to achieve the same results (without trusting a 3rd party app to root through all your files) is to simply clone your HD to external backup using SuperDuper or CCC. Then boot to the clone, erase the internal drive, and clone back to the internal HD.
In the end you'll have a defragmented system drive and an external backup... but you had one of those already, right?
In the end you'll have a defragmented system drive and an external backup... but you had one of those already, right?
Why is it that whenever someone asks anything related to disk defragmentation software, their original question seems to get ignored and instead they get lectured on the demerits/merits of defragmentation?
Also I have the same question.. Has anybody managed to create a boot disk for iDefrag on the unibody Macbooks?
Tried to create a boot disk using the CDMaker tool. Didn't work. Used a modified .DMG. Didn't work. Coriolis say that the tool seems to be working on "most" new machines.
Also I have the same question.. Has anybody managed to create a boot disk for iDefrag on the unibody Macbooks?
Tried to create a boot disk using the CDMaker tool. Didn't work. Used a modified .DMG. Didn't work. Coriolis say that the tool seems to be working on "most" new machines.
For all but a few specific cases, Apple explicitly recommends against defragging. It also explains why. The members of this forum are Mac users who want to help other Mac users. One of the ways that we help is to try to prevent user mistakes. In the vast majority of cases, defragging by the user is a mistake.
use an HD
It was useless running off a DVD. I made an image on an xternal HD and booted off that. Was planning to partition my internal HD so i decided to defrag. I run iDefrag's "Compact" algorithm (from several on offer) which is not a full defrag, but is recommneded by Coriolis as a preparation for partitioning.
Took about 2 hours for 150GB HD. System was noticeably faster afterwards, but DO backup just before defragging as apparently the risk of data loss is considerable. iDefrag seems a very solid app though.
It was useless running off a DVD. I made an image on an xternal HD and booted off that. Was planning to partition my internal HD so i decided to defrag. I run iDefrag's "Compact" algorithm (from several on offer) which is not a full defrag, but is recommneded by Coriolis as a preparation for partitioning.
Took about 2 hours for 150GB HD. System was noticeably faster afterwards, but DO backup just before defragging as apparently the risk of data loss is considerable. iDefrag seems a very solid app though.
New poster here, need some help as well.
I was trying to run boot camp on my iMac (white) and my MacBook (aluminum) and I wanted 60 GiB on each drive for Windows. Didn't want to work. I iDefragged the iMac drive and it automagically allowed to to partition 60 Gigglebytes for doze. Tried the same thing on my MacBook, won't let me use the same boot cd to do the same thing.... what gives?
edit: coloco, just read that post, do you have an aluminum macbook as well? running off an external did it for you?
I was trying to run boot camp on my iMac (white) and my MacBook (aluminum) and I wanted 60 GiB on each drive for Windows. Didn't want to work. I iDefragged the iMac drive and it automagically allowed to to partition 60 Gigglebytes for doze. Tried the same thing on my MacBook, won't let me use the same boot cd to do the same thing.... what gives?
edit: coloco, just read that post, do you have an aluminum macbook as well? running off an external did it for you?
OP: do you have any sort of external hard drive? If you have Macbook, then a USB will do it too. Clone your drive to that new one or install OS X on it from an install disk. There is no need to update that copy of OS X. Boot into that drive, and run iDefrag from it.
HFS+ does not defrag every file below 20MB (if you read the apple KB linked above) it says that defragging every one of the hundreds of thousands of files would be a useless exercise. When you let iDefrag examine your drive, and click on the 3rd tab (can't remember what its called) it gives you a big list of files that are fragmented. Sort by size, and what do you get? Thousands of files <20MB.
iDefrag seems pretty safe to me. The default method of defrag is to: read -> copy -> check the copy -> delete original. What can go wrong here?
And as a final note: I'm not totally sure of the long term benefits of iDefrag. It should seem that putting all related files together would make stuff quite a lot faster, but it doesn't, just a little bit, plus some placebo effect.
HFS+ does not defrag every file below 20MB (if you read the apple KB linked above) it says that defragging every one of the hundreds of thousands of files would be a useless exercise. When you let iDefrag examine your drive, and click on the 3rd tab (can't remember what its called) it gives you a big list of files that are fragmented. Sort by size, and what do you get? Thousands of files <20MB.
iDefrag seems pretty safe to me. The default method of defrag is to: read -> copy -> check the copy -> delete original. What can go wrong here?
And as a final note: I'm not totally sure of the long term benefits of iDefrag. It should seem that putting all related files together would make stuff quite a lot faster, but it doesn't, just a little bit, plus some placebo effect.
Hi, i want to create a partition for windows thorough boot camp assistant but as soon as it start it says could not move some files bla bla, whats the prob, will a defragmentation help? the compact one? or a full one? and is it better through a bootable CD?
Thanx
"It asks me to restart from a DVD or something, how do I do it? I want to defrag the whole drive, it is really slow."
You can't do full defrags on the boot volume. You have to "attack" the target drive after booting from _another_ drive.
My suggestions:
- First, you need a good "clone" of your internal drive. You absolutely MUST have a bootable backup, if anything goes wrong with the defrag.
- If you don't already have an external drive to "clone to", I'd suggest one of these: http://www.amazon.com/Syba-Connecla...?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1253062702&sr=1-22
- Then, get a 3.5" "bare SATA drive" from a place like newegg.com
- Use "CarbonCopyCloner" to clone the contents of your internal drive to the drive/docking station
- Reboot from the drive/docking station and use "iDefrag" to defragment your internal drive.
Easy and works beautifully for me.
You can't do full defrags on the boot volume. You have to "attack" the target drive after booting from _another_ drive.
My suggestions:
- First, you need a good "clone" of your internal drive. You absolutely MUST have a bootable backup, if anything goes wrong with the defrag.
- If you don't already have an external drive to "clone to", I'd suggest one of these: http://www.amazon.com/Syba-Connecla...?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1253062702&sr=1-22
- Then, get a 3.5" "bare SATA drive" from a place like newegg.com
- Use "CarbonCopyCloner" to clone the contents of your internal drive to the drive/docking station
- Reboot from the drive/docking station and use "iDefrag" to defragment your internal drive.
Easy and works beautifully for me.
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
Simpler solution
I have a cool solution.
If way your HD is 200GB and you are using 150GB. Use Disk Utility to partition another patition of 50GB. So now you have 150GB + 50GB = 200GB.
That means no more space left in your partition of 150GB. Then, remove the 50GB partition you created and add it back to the 150GB partition. All the free space will be added back towards the end of the 150GB. A quick way to defragment i just did it and my bootcamp is working now
I have a cool solution.
If way your HD is 200GB and you are using 150GB. Use Disk Utility to partition another patition of 50GB. So now you have 150GB + 50GB = 200GB.
That means no more space left in your partition of 150GB. Then, remove the 50GB partition you created and add it back to the 150GB partition. All the free space will be added back towards the end of the 150GB. A quick way to defragment i just did it and my bootcamp is working now
"It asks me to restart from a DVD or something, how do I do it? I want to defrag the whole drive, it is really slow."
You can't do a "full defrag" on a volume that you're booted up from. It's like asking a brain surgeon to do surgery on himself.
You have to boot from _another_ volume that has iDefrag on it, and then "aim" iDefrag at your "target volume", and let iDefrag do its thing.
If you don't already have a _bootable_ backup volume, I'd STRONGLY suggest that you consider creating one. It's not hard, nor is it expensive.
What you might consider is one of these gadgets:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?field-keywords=usb+sata+dock&url=search-alias=aps&x=0&y=0
(many items shown, they all work the same, just pick one you like that is cheap)
.... and then, get a "bare hard drive" from the vendor of your choice (I like newegg.com, or you can check dealmac.com for deals).
Put the drive into the dock, connect it to the Mac, boot up, initialize the docked drive.
Then, use the FREE "CarbonCopyCloner" from:
http://bombich.com/
... to create a "clone" of your current internal hard drive (which probably already has iDefrag on it).
Now, re-boot from the docked drive:
- Press the restart button
- As soon as you hear the startup sound, hold down the Option key and KEEP HOLDING IT DOWN
- The startup manager will appear
- Select the docked drive, hit the enter key, and the Mac will boot from the dock.
When you get to the finder, you are now booted from the docked drive.
STRONG SUGGESTION: Change the desktop picture of the docked drive so that you can easily distinguish it from your _main_ drive (and keep from getting confused).
Launch iDefrag, aim it at your main drive, and go.
Works great for me.
One last thing:
IGNORE the comments saying that you "don't need a defragger with OS X". Your Mac _will_ run better after a defrag!
You can't do a "full defrag" on a volume that you're booted up from. It's like asking a brain surgeon to do surgery on himself.
You have to boot from _another_ volume that has iDefrag on it, and then "aim" iDefrag at your "target volume", and let iDefrag do its thing.
If you don't already have a _bootable_ backup volume, I'd STRONGLY suggest that you consider creating one. It's not hard, nor is it expensive.
What you might consider is one of these gadgets:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?field-keywords=usb+sata+dock&url=search-alias=aps&x=0&y=0
(many items shown, they all work the same, just pick one you like that is cheap)
.... and then, get a "bare hard drive" from the vendor of your choice (I like newegg.com, or you can check dealmac.com for deals).
Put the drive into the dock, connect it to the Mac, boot up, initialize the docked drive.
Then, use the FREE "CarbonCopyCloner" from:
http://bombich.com/
... to create a "clone" of your current internal hard drive (which probably already has iDefrag on it).
Now, re-boot from the docked drive:
- Press the restart button
- As soon as you hear the startup sound, hold down the Option key and KEEP HOLDING IT DOWN
- The startup manager will appear
- Select the docked drive, hit the enter key, and the Mac will boot from the dock.
When you get to the finder, you are now booted from the docked drive.
STRONG SUGGESTION: Change the desktop picture of the docked drive so that you can easily distinguish it from your _main_ drive (and keep from getting confused).
Launch iDefrag, aim it at your main drive, and go.
Works great for me.
One last thing:
IGNORE the comments saying that you "don't need a defragger with OS X". Your Mac _will_ run better after a defrag!
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
[doublepost=1452099406][/doublepost]What you say is partly true, but the fact is that running iDefrag DOES do some good, and is worth running. By the way, all these years later, do you regret your choice of photo? I expect you felt young and rebellious at the time, and thought telling the world to Eff off was brave, dynamic, and attractive. I expect now you realise it just makes you look a prat. Maybe time to change it?