I used to swear by DiskWarrior, but I've stopped using it, for 2
reasons:
- the automatic unix utilities seem to do a good job. The little
widget called 'maintidget' (among others) shows you their status, and
you can run them manually if required.
- my purchased copy of Diskwarrior tended to stop working with each
OS upgrade, and they wanted me to purchase a new (~$100) license each
time.
My 2c
Rob
Chris Burton wrote:
Hi Pete
Many thanks for your really informative description of this issue, I
appreciate it. I will have a look at that little app you mention. I
wasnt aware that Disk Warrior was around, and you reminded me of it, as
I did use that back in the OS9 days. Im still running 10.5 on my work
macs but are considering updating to SL. Are there 2 corresponding
versions of DW for these two operating systems?
Many thanks and best regards
chris
On 01/02/2010, at 8:11 AM, Peter Hinchliffe wrote:
On 29/01/2010, at 11:10 AM, Chris Burton wrote:
Hi Everyone
I have been pondering the above question for some weeks now, after my
HD became almost full (10gb free), and I decided to backup everything
to an external 1TB drive, and then remove about 30gb on the Mac to have
some space available.
I remember a fair while ago some muggers saying that it is not
necessary to defrag as the OS somehow maintains the drive. Others have
said that there are programs that do defrag the drive and it does make
a difference.
On some of my previous macs of the PowerPC models (G5 and laptops), I
used to run Techtools Pro to periodically clean up the drive, and it
seemed to work ok.
I am not so sure with the Intel machines I use. Do I need to do
anything? Are there any little apps that can show what the drive looks
like?
Any feedback on this is most welcome.
I am using a Macbook Pro 2.2ghz Intel Dual Core with 3gb Ram and a
250gb HD. OSX 10.5.8
Mac OS X always tries to writes new material to the HS in contiguous
areas of up to 20Mb, thereby keeping fragmentation to a minimum. It
seems the jury is still out regarding the question of fragmentation.
The current feeling seems to be that nowadays hard drives are so
massive (500Gb becoming the norm, and 1Tb are now common) that the time
taken in defragmenting vs any benefits achieved makes it an almost
pointless exercise. Years ago, when the average HD size was less than
100 Mb (and files sizes were comparatively much smaller) file
fragmentation was a real problem, and regular defragmentation had a
real performance benefit. These days it's just time out of your life
you'll never get back.
Perhaps of greater value are tools such as Disk Warrior which optimise
the disk catalog rather than the files themselves. If you want a tool
to show you what the drive "looks like", try the free utility Grand
Perspective (available from www.versiontracker.com). This gives you a
graphical representation of your disk's file structure, showing you
what is taking the most space, making the task of cleaning up your
drive a little easier.
--
Peter Hinchliffe Apwin Computer Services
FileMaker Pro Solutions Developer
Perth, Western Australia
Phone (618) 9332 6482 Mob 0403 064 948
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Mac because I prefer it -- Windows because I have to.
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