Disk Defragmentation on X?
- Thread starter Clarus
- Start date
Koelling
I Think Different
I had an idea but haven't had too much time to search for information about it. Is there any Unix defrag software? It would need some serious porting and hacking to get it to work with the different file structure but that would be a cheep way for Apple to bundle something with the system. Anyone know if there is something that could be ported or is already being ported for Mac OS X?
ulrik
Registered
IIRC, the guys from Micromat (Drive 10) told Ed that they are working on a defrag tool.
I still wish OS X would offer the Linux file system, or at least something similar, which doesn't defragment. You would loose Classic compatibility, though. I find it a little emberassing to offer an OS without the ability to optimise the disk fragmentation. On the PC side, this has been a standard utility bundled with the OS since Win 3.0. Hopefully, either Apple or Micromat soon release something...I really don't wanna use anything that comes from Norton.
I still wish OS X would offer the Linux file system, or at least something similar, which doesn't defragment. You would loose Classic compatibility, though. I find it a little emberassing to offer an OS without the ability to optimise the disk fragmentation. On the PC side, this has been a standard utility bundled with the OS since Win 3.0. Hopefully, either Apple or Micromat soon release something...I really don't wanna use anything that comes from Norton.
nkuvu
Gone
For what it's worth, the defrag tools that Microsoft bundles with the OS are garbage. Even after running the MS defragmenter, with a commercial tool (like DisKeeper) you can find a lot of file and directory fragmentation that can be cleaned up.
In addition, I've had multiple crashes due to MS defragmenters. In one instance, I got to completely re-install the OS because the defragmenter locked everything up. I waited for a day and a half to make sure, then rebooted. Apparently the defragmenter was in the process of moving a system file, so the whole thing trashed my OS...
I'm not trying to compare with anything on the Mac side -- I've heard that there are plenty o' problems with the optimizers. Just a "Don't feel too bad about not having a defrag tool" kind of statement.
In addition, I've had multiple crashes due to MS defragmenters. In one instance, I got to completely re-install the OS because the defragmenter locked everything up. I waited for a day and a half to make sure, then rebooted. Apparently the defragmenter was in the process of moving a system file, so the whole thing trashed my OS...
I'm not trying to compare with anything on the Mac side -- I've heard that there are plenty o' problems with the optimizers. Just a "Don't feel too bad about not having a defrag tool" kind of statement.
ulrik
Registered
Hmmm...I still think it is a must for any OS to have a defrag tool bundled. Just my opinion. Let's say I would feel more "complete" if Apple would bundle one.
Concerning the MS defrag tools, I agree when it comes to the Win 95/98/Me defrag tool, but the harddisk administration tool from Win2K rocked! It is very similar to the OS X disk utility, also with built in software RAID, with active directory support etc., and it defrags well, IMHO. Never had a problem with it. Then again I have to admit that I don't have that much experience with the non-NT line of Windows-OSes. I had to use them from time to time on the machines of others, but I still only use NT based Windows OSes, if I have to. I still prefer anything Linux / Unix.
Which reminds me, the Silicon Graphics Indigo I got from eBay should arrive soon
Nothing wild, a 33 Mhz SGI MIPS processor with 64 MB RAM, 1,2 Gig harddrive. Just wanna play around with SGI since I never had such a thing in my fingers
ulrik
Registered
Not when it comes to servers where you have plenty of read/write action going on (for example intranet file servers or - even more important - webservers with databases). On such servers, every splitsecond counts because when databases get large, the disks very soon turn to be the bottleneck in the system, and in such a case, fragmentation REALLY hurts the perormance.
ulrik
Registered
I never knew that it defrags that bad. I always did a write/read/search benchmark before and afterwards and was quite impressed by the difference. Definitely better than anything I have seen from Norton. But I will try DiskKeeper as soon as I have to defrag a Win2K box again, thanx for the hint
I personally don't think that apple should bundle it with the OS. If they want to produce one, that works, but lets not become a Microsoft here. By adding every single tool you would ever need into the OS, you stifle the after market developement of utiliites... Now I have no idea how good the Filesystem is for Mac OSX is, but since its created on an open source platform, Perhaps someone will make a free defrag tool simply because they deem its needed.
scruffy
Notorious Olive Counter
I think serious databases (read - expensive ones) usually just bypass the file system altogether, and just write straight to their own disk or partition. File systems have to optimize for about a zillion different purposes, so they never are ideal for any one particular one, they just manage to be more or less OK for almost all of them.
Incidentally, most Linux filesystems get fragmented just like any other, they are just designed to deal with it reasonably well.
ulrik
Registered
Well, yeah, but you can get the speed of a less expensive database - or even free database - if you administrate it well. I started my career in a database project, writing a crossplatform, ODBC compliant database core, that's what I did for three years before I was pushed towards the webdesign / graphical branche (from which I more or less escaped again into the logical worlds of database / general programming) and we did run heavy benchmarks to find out about what makes a database core fast and what not, and as it is with filesystems it is with databases. No database is perfect. Some can handle large record sets with many columns easily, others are great at dealing with millions of small record sets. If you take a close look at what's goin on when your run for example an Oracle DB, you will see that the core continuesly optimizes the connected databases, taking up a great amount of CPU time, while for example a MySQL core does virtually nothing when no queries are running, and thus, when you care about it and design the database well, can even match the performance of a badly designed Oracle DB, while only taking up a small amount of CPU time. Professional, enterprise-strength databases require a beast of a machine to run well, and also have their weaknesses. Basically, when you can't afford an expensive core which basically has it's own OS running around it (with native disk drivers, native memory management etc. etc.) you can still use a free core and max out it's performance by administrating it: choosing a design which is tooled towards the strenghts of the chosen core and - to finally come to the point - beside from other things: defragging the disk can also help in such a case.
Wow...that was a long post, considering the fact that 75% of it are off-topic...
edX
mac shaman
i second that. and i will cling to my continued assertion that defragmenting is one of the most important maintainence tasks you can do on your mac. it will keep it zippy, cures all sorts of odd behaviors and preserves the life of your disc. only an idiot would ignore the benifits just because they have never really had to before switching to a mac.
it's not like something you do everyday or even every week, but once every month for power users and every 2-3 monts for average users is a good idea. Ever hear of tuning a car by ear? well i defrag by ear. when my drive starts making those noises, i know it is time to do it. In fact i expect i will do it when i have time in the next couple of days because it seems to be getting scratchy again.