Defrag ?!

AdmiralAK

AdmiralAK

Simply Daemonic
Hello to all,
My main HD partition (MacOS 9) is SEVERLY fragmented. I tried norton utils but OS X has installed several invisible files at the root of my OS 9 parition and it refuses to defrag the HD.

It starts up and then a few seconds later it stops, remounts the drive and says something about that it cannot find the extent.

Is there an OS X tool or app to defrag HDs ?


Admiral
 
Well, there is a way to defrag your drive - pick up the latest version of Norton Utilities. Its compatible with OS X and won't destroy your X install, like previous versions of Norton did to me (on 2 occasions before I realized what had happened). BTW, defragging REALLY helps OS X performance. I've always hoped that Apple would eventually write and bundle a defrag util like Windows users have. But then I guess Norton would have next to NO Mac business. anyway, answer to your problem = update to Norton Utils 6.

thedbp
 
As basic and necessary a tool as defragging is, you'd sure think Apple would include one.

Has anyone ever seen a defrag tool for unix computers?

'course even if Apple included one, it would probably have the stupid requirement of You Must Boot From Another Disk. How annoying.

-Rob
 
I borrowed a friends norton 6 CD. I did a "test" run on my OS X partition and it said it has some sort of problem. I am a bit reluctant to Doctor + Defrag BOTH my X and OS 9 partitions ebcause I have important data on em....

I htink I will wait for OS X 10.1, burn CDs with ALL my data (hmmm probably arou 5 CDs) erase both of em, and install OS X on hte larger parition (which is now an OS 9 partition) and put OS 9 on the smaller one (which is now OS X) and then move my data back in from the CDs.

Good idea ?


Admiral
 
So, isn't this just a HFS+ problem? As far as I know Linux' ext2 doesn't need defragmentation (although rumors say that there is a 'defrag' the use of which is not recommended) and that probably goes for UFS also. For OS X then, the solution might be to use UFS partitions instead of HFS+. OS 9, though, I guess we're stuck with HFS+ and might need tools.

If Norton or another tool is run under OS X, it should be a simple thing (in theory) to umount the OS 9 partition and defrag it without having to reboot.

/stone
 
Fragmentation exists in all file systems no matter what OS/file system you use.

If you have a computer that the data on the HD is never moved, (from it's physical location) and the HD is never used as a scratch disk, then no fragmentation (theoretically) occurs, but once you start moving apps around (on your HD, and not from dir to dir), once you use your disk as a scratch disk (like if you have photoshop for instance) and once you add/delete software...after a little while your fragmentation will be moderate to severe depnding how much writing/deleting you are doing.


Admiral
PS: this wouls probably be explained better using an animation :p can anyone make one ?? lol :p
 
There are some CLI defrag apps for UNIX, but they all exercise extreme caution: which doesn't really help me promote them.

There are some file systems that CAN get defragmented, but it is very unusual and the files are all kept tight anyway. REISER (I think I spelled that correctly) is such a beast. Now I know it is possible to recompile the Darwin kernel to support this (sort of) if such a problem is really that bad.

I just run Norton System Works (which is pretty much Norton Utilities 6.0) on both my OS X and OS 9 disks. Just make sure that on the OS X disk that Norton Disk Doctor doesn't automatically fix all file names that start with a period. Other than that I do notice that it can fix it all wonderfully.

I have been noticing some problems with damages parts of the actual HFS+ partitions every so often, and only on the OS X disk.

-Jim
 
The Unix Filesystem (UFS) was not designed to be defraged. It is optimised for speed. Apple should really provide some sort of tool for at least defraging HFS+.

Aren't there problems when accessing UFS mounts from OS 9??
 
Update to my defrag deal...
erased both partitions, moved X to my main, made small aprtition an apps aprtition, now trying to get everything to work again :p
 
G4Mystic400, you can use ReiserFS with Darwin? I wonder if it would have performance as good as I've read about. Have you read about Reiser on Darwin anywhere?

UFS optimized for speed and not being defragged? I must be missing something in my understanding of hard drives, never mind the fact that the OS X implementation of UFS is, by all reports, doggedly slow.

-Rob
 
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