Newbie Mac User needs to understand OS X disk activity

[ilogic]

When I first bought my mac it was quiet and when i turned it on I heard no disk activity, now every time i turn it on I hear it... I've tried iDefrag but it only does an "online" defragment.

I also did a clean install with Leopard... I'm sure I haven't tried everything but just wondering if there is any tip or advice or How-To I can follow to get my hard drive optimized.

 

[FJ218700]

what type of Mac?

the internal(s) should only be loud if you're running a G4 tower

 

[Nugget]

iDefrag can create a bootable DVD which will allow you to do a full defrag on your system volume. It might not be necessary, though.

Another diagnostic you can do is to open up a Terminal window and run the command "sudo fs_usage" -- that will show you in real-time what application is causing the disk activity.

 

[ilogic]

I have an iMac G5 Core Duo..

the disk activity happens when i turn medium sized programs on.. typically not small ones.. it will happen when i turn on safari, mail, pages, iphoto, itunes, etc...

i'm looking into how to create the iDefrag boot disk now...

 

[FJ218700]

I have an iMac G5 Core Duo..

the disk activity happens when i turn medium sized programs on.. typically not small ones.. it will happen when i turn on safari, mail, pages, iphoto, itunes, etc...

i'm looking into how to create the iDefrag boot disk now...

I thought those were flash-based