Of all the Macs I've owned over the years I have never defragged and have not run into any issues because of it, on my windows machine however that is a different story. Defrag on a Mac that does some major video editing may be necessary from time to time, but for the average user it's not worth the expense or effort.
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Proof that We Really Do Need to Defragment
- Thread starter Daveway
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bousozoku said:He's right, concerning minor fragmentation...1 to 5 % but as it increases and the files are over the 20 MB that Panther and Tiger automatically de-fragment on opening, the effect on system performance is seen.EricBrian said:
As far as startup performance, directory optimisation is usually done along with de-fragmentation, so startup performance is generally enhanced, but with Tiger, it's so fast that who can tell?
Thanks for the clarification bousozoku. As you say, in Tiger everything is handled so fast, who cares!
Daveway said:
Where is the proof? I am still not convinced that this is worth my time.
Do you have numbers backing this up cause "seem" is not good enough for something that took 3 hours to accomplish.
OUCH!!!
Is this a case of not needing to defrag or rather the task is just broken up and hidden amongst other tasks and therefore not too noticeable ?. Call me cynical but maybe the reason it only happens with 25 meg or less files is so it goes unnoticed to the user ? Larger files would create an obvious slowdown. Either way if its still there and just wrapped in with other tasks its not really being avoided is it ? Its just disguised but ultimately it would still be slowing things down.. This is like paying your bills by the month instead of one yearly bill.
I dont really have a problem with defrag anyway.. I just set it going as i go to bed and the next day i wake up and its done.
I dont really have a problem with defrag anyway.. I just set it going as i go to bed and the next day i wake up and its done.
EricBrian said:I just bought a defragger and tested...
Before defrag, start up time: 42 secs.
After defrag, start up time: 56 secs.
I just did it too. I gained 6 second on boot. Never defragging again.
EDIT:
From Apple's webstite.
They acknowledge it may help:
They also acknowledge it may hurt.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=25668
It may help. It may hurt. It's probably not needed.
My conclusion. It hurt me, I'm not doing it again.
EricBrian said:I just bought a defragger and tested...
Before defrag, start up time: 42 secs.
After defrag, start up time: 56 secs.
So, it takes you 14 seconds longer to reboot, and you reboot what once a month maybe?
Woah! That's 2.8 minutes of productivity lost every year!
Then again, maybe it has sped things up when accessing other files - and it's just the reboot that slowed down?
I think all this proves the oposite of the thread title - that we really do not need to defragment when all is said and done.
EricBrian said:LOL.
I reboot every day except on weekends.
Perhaps, it would matter more if we were Windows users and had to re-boot quite often. I believe I spend more time using the computer than re-booting.
bousozoku said:
Yeah, I think this is the key. It definitely isn't useless, but does not need to have as much focus as it does in the Windows world, where it's just one of those standard maintenance tasks no one even thinks twice about, just like Scandisk.
~Shard~ said:I think all this proves the oposite of the thread title - that we really do not need to defragment when all is said and done.
Yeah, I haven't defragged my Mac since I bought it. It may or may not help, and given that, I figure it's not worth the time. I'd rather do something that's guaranteed to speed up my Mac.
To me it feels like Mac users bag PC's based on info from the Windows 98 days. And why does everything have to constantly be compared to Windows anyway ? It seems like an insecurity when things have to constantly be justified like that.
If there is a power outage halfway through writing a file on a Mac, what happens to the dead file ? If you tell me there is no such thing as scan disk or no way of recognising that the file is useless and just taking up space than i dont see that as any sort of benefit, more like a flaw. Why would you want some half written file on your drive to just sit there ? Are you expected to recover this and manually delete it yourself ?
Scan disk polices that situation and also ensures no bad sectors develop on a hard disk which is purely a hardware thing not an OS thing. Since Macs use the same IDE drives they are vunerable to this also, so some sort of checking facilty is a good idea.
If you are implying scan disk is some sort of mechanism to recover from OS crashes which are the fault of a dodgey OS than fair enough but i have not had an XP crash for as long as i can remember. In fact check out this screenshot, its from my net connection a couple of weeks back. Almost 2 weeks online no dropouts or crashes etc.. That is what my PC always gets hence i struggle to understand all the bagging..
If there is a power outage halfway through writing a file on a Mac, what happens to the dead file ? If you tell me there is no such thing as scan disk or no way of recognising that the file is useless and just taking up space than i dont see that as any sort of benefit, more like a flaw. Why would you want some half written file on your drive to just sit there ? Are you expected to recover this and manually delete it yourself ?
Scan disk polices that situation and also ensures no bad sectors develop on a hard disk which is purely a hardware thing not an OS thing. Since Macs use the same IDE drives they are vunerable to this also, so some sort of checking facilty is a good idea.
If you are implying scan disk is some sort of mechanism to recover from OS crashes which are the fault of a dodgey OS than fair enough but i have not had an XP crash for as long as i can remember. In fact check out this screenshot, its from my net connection a couple of weeks back. Almost 2 weeks online no dropouts or crashes etc.. That is what my PC always gets hence i struggle to understand all the bagging..
khisayruou said:
I made it very clear in my post that I WAS NOT trying to convince anyone but simply making a SUGGESTION.
Daveway said:I made it very clear in my post that I WAS NOT trying to convince anyone but simply making a SUGGESTION.
Yes, a suggestion which spawned some very excellent discussion. However, as you indicate, some people seem to be getting a bit carried away...
How about something less risky, albeit more time consuming. Do a complete reinstall once a year and you'll be just as happy as if you took the risk of using a piece of software that does something that may not even be necessary.
Whether or not defragmenting your Mac is necessary is one point I guess, but my main concern with all this is the crappy software out there that claims to do it efficiently and effectively without any underlying effects to your overall system.
Whether or not defragmenting your Mac is necessary is one point I guess, but my main concern with all this is the crappy software out there that claims to do it efficiently and effectively without any underlying effects to your overall system.