defrag the system drive

Agreed, I think after my recent horrors with my drives, backup - erase - restore is the best option. I don't use iDefrag now at all. It seems there's no need. I recently bought Personal Backup X4 and use that to backup VERY regularly now. Once bitten......
 
Natobasso, iDefrag is the only defragmentation app that is aware of the "hot band" on HFS + drives that is mentioned toward the end of the tech note you linked to.

And from what I've seen when running iDefrag on my own hard drives, there's room for improvement. I just ran iDefrag to check my system drive. Lots of fragmentation indicated.

Your referenced tech note also mentions some usage patterns where fragmentation is more likely to occur, such as when manipulating large video files. Or when the drive is close to being full (say, less than 10% free).

So, Apple doesn't exactly say it's not necessary. Just that gains are smaller with modern drives. I remember some people talking about defragging their drives every week. This never was necessary or beneficial. Once every few months perhaps.

Doug
 
dk,

I have never ever defragged since OS X came out and apple has stated this is the beauty of the operating system that you do not have to defrag your drive because of the way it handles files. I've not seen that it treats small or large files any differently.

I just repair permissions and disk once a month or so and restart every once in a while and that's it. To me, defragging is a thing of the past. If you want to do it, go right ahead. :)
 
except that the author of the article states:
"Note that I do not intend to make any claims regarding the fragmentation-resistance of HFS+. I have sampled too few a volume to generalize my "results". This discussion is more illustrative than empirical, wherein I am only suggesting a tool/method that you could use to gauge your own volumes' situation."
 
SGilbert said:
In my experience, if DW can't fix it (it's REALLY bad), you need to do an "Archive & install" from your Original system disk.
Click to expand...

The post quoted above is the most applicable solution to your problem,

but you should use erase and install with the Zero out Data option

selected from the Security Options tab - instead of archive and install.

Zeroing out the drive will map out any bad sectors - If your drive is

corrupted so bad that DW cannot fix it, archive and install may not

get rid of all the corrupted data.



Also - i see from your post that you backup regularly, so you should
be good to go with erase and install.
 
dr fletch said:
Agreed, I think after my recent horrors with my drives, backup - erase - restore is the best option. I don't use iDefrag now at all. It seems there's no need. I recently bought Personal Backup X4 and use that to backup VERY regularly now. Once bitten......
Click to expand...


Also make extra backups when doing dangerous things like defragging or cleaning up the drive. These are the most vulnerable moments to lose data.

I would not suggest to erase your drive for the sake of making it defragmented. Smarter OS handing and faster drives will reduce the profit to a minimal. The moment you start restoring, defragging will start again, so the result of a couple of hours of work is less defragmention, not NO defragmentation.


Good luck, Kees
 
Did you try that yet? I think you can register without purchasing, just to download a demo. You may find that the download will be limited without purchasing, perhaps only for one try, or some limited number.
 
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