Defrag in OS X?

[Javintosh]

I've lost 2 (3rd party) hard drives. I had my OS on both of those drives. I can tell you from experience that dragging the system back is a great feature.

That said, since the /Library and ~/Library folders contain all 3rd party stuff (except for kernel extensions). I think that things are not as dire as they seem. My nightly backup (HD to HD) includes my users folder and the /Library folder. I figure this would get me 90% back to my current System folder if there is a problem.

I also do miss the ability to drag my system folder to another HD and boot from it. I plan on setting up an ATAPI RAID (in addition to my current system folder), once I get this drive formatted, i won't be able to drag the System folder to that drive like I would under OS9.

now that I think about it, that *is* going to be a pain!

[strobe]

UNIX does have inherent limitations because it is designed to support legacy crap. For example it must have a filesystem. The claim that everything can just be emulated is wrong. You bring up the example of MAE but the fact remains that there is no way to emulate FileIDs on UFS without breaking their intended behavior. UFS simply lacks something equivalent. The closest you can get are file descriptors, but file descriptors can only be had by opening a file plus you cannot convert a file descriptor to a file path. The only way to emulate FileIDs would be to break the coorelation between MacOS file paths and UNIX file paths.

You can bore me to death about the differences between UNIX and the crappy programs which run on UNIX. I'm running Carbon apps on UNIX so clearly this distinction isn't relevant. UNIX follows the everything-is-a-file-at-a-static-path methodology and that is not only where all the problems begin, but also a problem in itself.

Case insensitivity is not bad. System.txt is only the same as system.txt if you are attempting to open a file by its name. If you are searching for a file you can do a case sensitive or insensitive search. HFS+ is case preserving. The whole problem to begin with is you're trying to open the file by name or path! Again, this all boils down to the UNIX methodology which sucks ass.

Finally Apple doesn't have to kiss your UNIX ass. How many losers are talking about some arcane UNIX tool anyway? Did you know that HFS and HFS+ actually had a backup date file attribute? Why support some arcane UNIX tool to backup files when you could implement a backup function which could be applied to any file or folder?

Frankly backing up was a lot easier wen I could make a bootable backup by drag+drop Now thanks to UNIX that's impossible. Way to go UNIX, take away the easy method and instead insist on some kind of arcane "dump" command. Ugh.

[strobe]

Originally posted by Scottish
I have two issues with this: 1) I don't use OS9, and neither will any new Mac user after the first of the year. 2) I'd prefer to just backup my files that don't affect the system (music, documents, etc.) and give my hard drive an entirely clean slate. Half the time the problems are located in the System folder.

Scottish

Well allow me to tell you something from my experience:

Nothing beats a bootable backup!

The reason is I don't have to reinstall the friggin OS which takes loads of time I don't have because in the real world people have DEADLINES and they want to get back to WORK. I don't want to know what broke, I just want to get back to work before the sun sets!

Perhaps half the time the problem exists in the System Folder like a corrupt preference file (probably the most common) but that just proves my point. You make your backup of a WORKING system and then when things go wrong you just boot your backup and continue to work. A bootable backup trumps everything else because it's self-sufficient. I usually had several bootable backups in case either:

a) Hard drive failure

b) filesystem corruption

c) file corruption (like preference file)

d) Meteor strikes the building.

In case of D I always have bootable backups in other buildings which I can put in any Mac and get back to work.

Mac OS X however makes this process a friggin pain in the ASS! I have to use some kind of synchronization app like Synk X. Furthermore Mac OS X is more prone to breaking just by moving or renaming a file/folder/volume. Arg!

I mean in MacOS you could even have multiple System Folders in case one died or one was less compatible. Like it or not some things broke when Apple released 10.2. Now to have both 10.1 and 10.2 installed you have to use two partitions. Talk about retrogression.

[strobe]

Originally posted by Javintosh
I've lost 2 (3rd party) hard drives. I had my OS on both of those drives. I can tell you from experience that dragging the system back is a great feature.

That said, since the /Library and ~/Library folders contain all 3rd party stuff (except for kernel extensions). I think that things are not as dire as they seem. My nightly backup (HD to HD) includes my users folder and the /Library folder. I figure this would get me 90% back to my current System folder if there is a problem.

I also do miss the ability to drag my system folder to another HD and boot from it. I plan on setting up an ATAPI RAID (in addition to my current system folder), once I get this drive formatted, i won't be able to drag the System folder to that drive like I would under OS9.

now that I think about it, that *is* going to be a pain!

Exactly, it is a pain. Nothing beats a bootable backup.

90% doesn't get you to 100% any time soon. The time you spend reinstalling Mac OS X (booting on a CD is a pain, damn that takes a long time) and then updating it (downloading, installing, optimizing, rebooting) is time I would rather avoid, especially since shít happens at the worst times. Even with MacOS I would often just mount the restore disk image and drag that system folder to my drive just to get it booting and working.

It comes down to how easy is it to copy one working system fron one disk to another. What beats drag+drop? It certainly isn't some arcane UNIX tool like 'dump'.

[Javintosh]

Actually, its more than that. Before OSX, if I was going to do a major OS upgrade and was worried about compatibility (hardware ans software) I would drag and drop a copy of the system folder to the desktop, separate the system and finder files and do the install. If there was a problem, I would drop the updated system folder into the garbage and put the old system folder back.

I was always confident that I could easily backup from any upgrade.

[hypocampers]

Strobe - I think you lost your plot again and need to read some more. I will say you are nicer than the strobe that lost this argument a year or so ago.

You were initially talking twaddle about the filesystem, you got it wrong now your blaming UNIX, go in a straight line.

"dump" keeps backup dates, NetBackup and Legato keep backup dates, you can "dump" a file or folder without any problem at all, you need to read more in detail and rant less. "A little knowledge is dangerous thing" dissinformation makess for poor quality conversation, keep you comments current and correct.

I suggest you go and have a look at what MAE is doing before bleating on about it, it also ran faster on a Sparc 20 than on the Mac at the time.

The people who know out here about UNIX, know that what yor saying is just plain ranting and not of much use, Apple think your argument is incorrect obviously! i.e. its a UNIX you know.

HFS+ works yes, but Apple want to be compatible with other OS especially, dare I say it, MicroSoft, UNIX and Linux (i.e. this bulletin board) etc. We also want/need a backup that works from UNIX as it should! by default.

Its so simple it's probably difficult for some people, don't get lost in poor second rate terminology, and get your nose in a book.

This bulletin board is Red Hat Linux, bet they don't suffer from the tripe were in. Well I know they don't, I use it as well.

"fsck" is what the original argument was about and should be made to work, it would tell you how fragmented your disk is like EVERY other UNIX, it doesn't.

Anyway I am here to help and ask questions of my own , not to teach one clot what UNIX is and what UNIX is not, I got better things to do.

[strobe]

1) I don't give a poop about arcane UNIX tools like "dump".

2) The fact remains that UFS has no equivalent to FileIDs and there is no way to emulate FileIDs on UFS unless you break the correlation between Mac and UNIX file paths. It's just that simple. If you reference a file by its ID then change that file's path on the UNIX-side, how the hell can the Mac path change accordingly?! Answer: it can't, it's impossible.

3) The UNIX methodology is everything-is-a-file-at-a-static-path. You don't seem to want to deal with this, instead pretending that UNIX can be anything and the only real limitations are the sucky apps which run on top. UNIX has limitations, legacy IMPOSES limitations. So you can stick that in a book and slam it.

[OdinsDream]

Does the OSX system have "fsck" like in the linux world?