What is hard drive fragmentation and how do u fix it?

[G4LAPPY]

i have over the last couple of months deleted gigabytes of files at a time after ripping dvds and copying them, this seems to have left my memory very full and i have been told my memory may be fragmented, i do not really understand this term fully but would like to know what to do to sort out this problem, preferably in some easy to understand steps lol as i am not very technically minded

thankyou in advance

also will this help free up some memory for me?

 

[Jasonbot]

Memory gets cleared when you restart so it doesnt get fragmented. Hard drives in OS X dont fragment. basically fragmentation is when files are just randomly dumped anywhere on disk. In windows defragmeantation just cleans this up so that files are placed together for fast access, not a problem for OS X, just chill!

 

[savanahrose]

That is really nice to know. No more defragging? Is that what i understood?

 

[iJaz]

That is really nice to know. No more defragging? Is that what i understood?

That's correct, no need for defragging in Mac OS X!

 

[apfhex]

Hard drives in OS X dont fragment. basically fragmentation is when files are just randomly dumped anywhere on disk. In windows defragmeantation just cleans this up so that files are placed together for fast access, not a problem for OS X, just chill!

OS X does automatically defragment smaller files (under 20MB I think) but saying hard drives in OS X don't fragment is outright wrong. However...

no need for defragging

...is probably the Right Answer for the majority of users. Chances are if you don't know what fragmentation is, you don't need to defragment.

iJaz: memory is not the same as disk space on your hard drive. You were talking about disk space.

 

[gnasher729]

i have over the last couple of months deleted gigabytes of files at a time after ripping dvds and copying them, this seems to have left my memory very full and i have been told my memory may be fragmented, i do not really understand this term fully but would like to know what to do to sort out this problem, preferably in some easy to understand steps lol as i am not very technically minded

thankyou in advance

also will this help free up some memory for me?

First, most people prefer "you" instead of "u". Using "u" was clever twenty years ago, the joke has worn thin by now. And if you want any help about something, it is a really good idea to write down what you want to know as clearly as possible.

If you delete files on a Macintosh, they are not deleted immedately, but moved into the Trash. As long as they are in the trash, you can put them back where they came from, but they also take up space on the harddisk. Click on the trash icon in the Dock to open the Trash and see what's in it. Click on the trash icon and hold the mouse down until a menu appears, use "Empty Trash" from the menu to remove those files permanently and freeing up the space for these files permanently. Once you've done that, the files are gone, and there is no way to get them back.

Memory on a disk can get "fragmented" which is not good for some reasons, which is why MacOS X fixes the problem automatically, so there is no need to worry about it at all as long as you are using a Macintosh.

 

[iJaz]

iJaz: memory is not the same as disk space on your hard drive. You were talking about disk space.

Ok, now I see that the title of the thread asked one thing, the text in the first post another.