Defraggers that DON'T need boot?
- Thread starter cellfish
- Start date
DeltaMac
Tech
Maybe someone can correct me if I'm wrong, A complete Defrag must be from a different startup volume than the one you defrag, You can do partials (which are much faster) A complete defrag includes all system files, I think you cant defrag those when that volume is booted. Remember, a defrag is , in effect, unscrambling your drive. Most of that long time is probably to protect the integrity of your data. Someone could probably write a very fast, unstable defrag routine. That's what everyone needs, software that crashes when you're trying to move data around on your Drive!
I understand DiskWarrior/PlusOptimizer, TechTool Pro and maybe Norton's Utilities(in the future) are working on versions which can be run from an OSX system...but they're not here yet. That's maybe one of the biggest reasons to partition a hard drive and have one partition with OS9.x and all these utilities that can then be used on an OSX partition...it's needed somewhere for Classic anyway.
I forgot to mention that Drive 10(by Micromat) can be installed on and run from an OSX volume. It can be used to rebuild directories and optimize HD's.
Matt
I forgot to mention that Drive 10(by Micromat) can be installed on and run from an OSX volume. It can be used to rebuild directories and optimize HD's.
Matt
edX
mac shaman
to my knowledge, there is no way to use a drive and defrag it at the same time. a disk must be 'unmounted' to do any extensive repairs or defragging. face it, you either need to have a boot disk with the app or a second drive. with my second and third drives, this is never an issue.
kendall
Registered
defragging also depends on your filesystem. defragging is instilled in Windows users because basically FAT32 sucks. Mac OS on the other hand runs on HFS+. while defragging wouldn't hurt, its not a necessity because HFS+ doesn't fragment like other file systems. the same goes for ext3 and Linux.
like someone mentioned earlier, the reason you can defrag while Windows is running is because system files are not accessed. for some reason this must not be possible with an HFS+ partition.
also, if you have a huge HD with massive fragmentation, its going to take a long time to defrag. your best bet is to defrag regularly to cut down on the time.
like someone mentioned earlier, the reason you can defrag while Windows is running is because system files are not accessed. for some reason this must not be possible with an HFS+ partition.
also, if you have a huge HD with massive fragmentation, its going to take a long time to defrag. your best bet is to defrag regularly to cut down on the time.
edX
mac shaman
well, my understanding is that one of the main reasons for defragging is to get your system all in one place. updates and certain activities tend to scatter parts of it around. having all of one app and all of a file together are also important. i'm not sure where you get that defragging on hfs+ isn't a neccessity. new files will be written to the nearest open spaces before later ones so anytime you delete files neat the beginning of the drive you leave room for fragmenting. at least that's the way i understand it. and i certainly have seen the evidence of fragmenting as well as the gains after a defrag.
gatorparrots
~departed~
kendall-- Ever compare a before and after partition map in a disk defragmentation tool? HFS+ certainly gets fragmented.
If your OS is small (like OS9 was) and you tend to write files in larger contiguous chunks (like media files -- audio, video, images), you might not tend to see much fragmentation of your filesystem. For those uses of an operating system, defragmentation is not so necessary on a regular basis.
'Heavier' OSes that tend to do a lot of file write operations (for software updates and virtual memory, especially). This is true of Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP, and OS X. With all of these OSes, you can reasonably expect to see a 10-20% speed gain for disk access operations with regular defragmentation routines.
Slower drives in desktops but especially the slower laptop drives therefore receive the greatest benefit from defragmentation.
If your OS is small (like OS9 was) and you tend to write files in larger contiguous chunks (like media files -- audio, video, images), you might not tend to see much fragmentation of your filesystem. For those uses of an operating system, defragmentation is not so necessary on a regular basis.
'Heavier' OSes that tend to do a lot of file write operations (for software updates and virtual memory, especially). This is true of Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP, and OS X. With all of these OSes, you can reasonably expect to see a 10-20% speed gain for disk access operations with regular defragmentation routines.
Slower drives in desktops but especially the slower laptop drives therefore receive the greatest benefit from defragmentation.
edX
mac shaman
yea - the defragging debate has been waging ever since the linux switchers got excited about os x. they are used to not having to defrag and many of them assume that since the core is unix, that there is also no need with os x. But the filesystem remains apple's and the same problems with needing to defrag that we've always had come with the territory. of course, you could run on UFS, but most reports are that an occasional defrag is worth not dealing with the overall slowness of osx on ufs.
frankly, i've gotten to the point that i recommend it and let it drop. i take care of my own and know i'm in good hands. you don't hear me whining about how slow my imac 400 is. for others, it's their computer. what should i care what kind of self inflicted pain they want to put up with to be right?
frankly, i've gotten to the point that i recommend it and let it drop. i take care of my own and know i'm in good hands. you don't hear me whining about how slow my imac 400 is.
for others, it's their computer. what should i care what kind of self inflicted pain they want to put up with to be right?