Size matters?

M

metiure

Registered
Partition size, as a matter of fact...
Well, it's simple: I did a clone of my 10.2.6 system to another partition with Carbon Copy Cloner, and restarted from the new cloned system.
The speed difference was amazing, couldn't believe it! Everything takes about 50% less time to launch, open, close, etc. Rebooting itself, from the chime to the desktop, takes about 40 sec. Almost Classic, actually!

I don't understand. Not that i'm not happy. But what happened to my system with the cloning procedure in order to produce such an amazing speed difference? I mean, it's the exact same system (a clone, actually...), with the same set of extensions and prefpanes, so why does it behaves so differently?

The only explanation I think of is partition size. The original system is on a 25 Gb size partition, the new cloned one is on a 5 Gb. Does OSX run better in a smaller partition, let's say less than 8 Gb?

I am thinking about cloning back the system to the original big partition, but i'm not sure it's not a risky situation.

vic
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G3 500 - 384 Mb - 30 Gb - X 10.2.6
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Actually, it's more likely a fragmentation problem. After using the system for a while, deleting/adding stuff, your drive tends to get pretty fragmented (the files aren't written in a contiguous block on the hard drive, but parts are here or there in separate blocks). That causes the read/write head to have to move around to get to your data - which takes a little bit longer to access everything.

Copying everything to a new partition would have copied all the files contiguously, so there would be no fragmentation and things would load a bit faster.
 
No way. My big partition has been degragmented on a regular basis. It's not a defrag issue. Actually nothing i can think of, besides the partition size hypothesis.

vic
 
I've been doing some benchmarks and i get troubling results:

-startup (from chime to Desktop):
1:Older (big) partition: 2'05''
2:Cloned system: 42''

-PS7:
1:41''
2:30''

-Office X. Hard to say, but launching Entourage fron cloned system takes too times less. Word opens in 2-3 sec. I never got those values launching Office X from my original system.

-Safari opens any site almost intantly from the cloned system. The effect in surfing is amazing. Now i believe safari is the fastest browser.

Some other issues:
-Free memory at startup. I use the freeware MenuMeters prefpane to display the free/used memory. In my original system, after booting, MenuMeters showed a 170/214 memory ratio (max is 384). But with the cloned system, i get now 128/256. That means 50 Mb more free memory! And i have exactly the same system, a cloned one. There must be something here.

-Pageouts and used memory. In the old system, a typical session launching some apps, like Entourage and Safari, early leads to use all free RAM, and get some pageouts. Now, with the clone, it hardly raises to 290 Mb used memory, which means MenuMeters always shows about 90 Mb unused. And no pageout.

In the meantime, i'll start from my second, cloned system. It's worth it! But i'd like to understand.

Vic
 
yea I boot around 40 sec if there is nothing to repair. My X partition is only 7.6 gigs, of which 2 is free. Not sure about that memory, my memory always drops low use after a restart. I launch entourage, has no real effect on my memory, until i open big apps like PS, Ill, FCP or AE.
 
i know that there's an app on Windows, that put the blocks from your harddrive into contiguous ("defrag"?). Is there an app like this for Mac OS X?
 
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