Need advice on a OSX defragmentation utility

[drmacintosh]

I am running Mac OSX v10.3.9 "Panther" on a Power Macintosh G4 (Gigabit Ethernet) 400 MHz. Booted from the newly updated version of Disk Warrior v3.0.3 that I made from the download according to Alsoft's instructions and in running I am being told that there is not enough contiguous free space to create a new fail safe optimized directory and that it will overwrite the current directory instead. I call Alsoft technical support with the answer that I would need a disk defragmentation utility to get 101mb of free contiguous space available to create this fail safe optimized directory. Does anyone know of a good defragmentation utility? What comes to mind is Speedisk from the discontinued Symantec Norton System Works v3.0 for Macintosh but Alsoft technical support advises against using this. How is Micromat's Tech Tool Pro v4.0 & it's defragmentation utility or does it even have one? I have never really used this utility. Are there any other utilities commercial, freeware &/or shareware that one might recommend. I am in the process of upgrading to "Tiger" v10.4x & would rather like to avoid in overwriting the current directory not getting a fail safe optimized directory created before doing so. Any help greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[fryke]

Couldn't you also just back some things up and remove them from the main drive to free up some space? Sounds like you're working in a tight environment, anyway... (I know you're not simply talking free space, here, but chances are that if you free up space, you'll also get contiguous space.)

[drmacintosh]

I have already removed some if not all of what I can to free up the space. Any other suggestions on a good defragmentation utility?

[bobw]

You have a problem if you only have that little free space. You should have at least 15% of free space on your drive.

As for fragmentation;

"Disk optimization is a process in which the physical locations of files on a volume are "streamlined." Files and metadata are re-arranged in order to improve data access times and minimize time moving a hard drive's head.

"Files can become "fragmented" over time as they are changed and saved and as the volume is filled, with different parts of a single file stored in different locations on a volume. The process of collecting file fragments and putting them "back together" is known as optimization. However, if a failure occurs during optimization, such as power loss, files could become damaged and need to be restored from a backup copy."

However:

"You probably won't need to optimize at all if you use Mac OS X. Here's why:

° Hard disk capacity is generally much greater now than a few years ago. With more free space available, the file system doesn't need to fill up every "nook and cranny." Mac OS Extended formatting (HFS Plus) avoids reusing space from deleted files as much as possible, to avoid prematurely filling small areas of recently-freed space.

° Mac OS X 10.2 and later includes delayed allocation for Mac OS X Extended-formatted volumes. This allows a number of small allocations to be combined into a single large allocation in one area of the disk.

° Fragmentation was often caused by continually appending data to existing files, especially with resource forks. With faster hard drives and better caching, as well as the new application packaging format, many applications simply rewrite the entire file each time. Mac OS X 10.3 Panther can also automatically defragment such slow-growing files. This process is sometimes known as "Hot-File-Adaptive-Clustering."

° Aggressive read-ahead and write-behind caching means that minor fragmentation has less effect on perceived system performance.

"For these reasons, there is little benefit to defragmenting.

"Mac OS X systems have hundreds of thousands of small files, most of which are rarely accessed. Optimizing them is a major effort for very little practical gain. There is also the a chance that one of the files placed in the "hot band" for rapid reads during system startup might be moved during defragmentation, which would actually decrease performance.

"If you think you might need to defragment, try restarting first."


You can check it out at:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=25668

[fryke]

You can certainly _try_ TTP4. Shouldn't do much harm. (Norton's speeddisk probably _would_...) - But I agree with bobw here: The problem lies somewhere else. I'd go for a complete backup and reinstallation here. Clean installing Tiger is better than upgrading from Panther, anyway. It's a good point to do a clean install, too. Make sure that you have at least 2 or 3 GB of harddrive space free after reinstalling. Better yet: Have 10 GB free.

[barhar]

Preferred you do:

For the sake of simplicity.

01. Purchase a new ATA 3.5" hard disk drive, hdd, less than 130 GB in size and at 7200 rpm (revolutions per minute).
02. Install the new hdd (with its jumpers set for 'slave') on top of the current drive.
03. Install 'Tiger' (MacOS X 10.4.x) onto the slave drive.

Once you have 'Tiger' installed, and the Mac booted with 'Tiger' - create a folder on the 'slave' hdd, and drag your excess files (and / or folders) from the original hdd to the newly created ('slave' hdd based) folder. You can then use 'TechTool Pro X' or equivalent applications ['iDefrag'] to optimize the original drive.

This way you can keep 'Panther' (and boot it when needed / desired) and then also have 'Tiger', ...

----- ----- -----

An alternative:

Before, or in place of, performing the above (suggestion) - you could also try freeing up some space by using utility applications as 'CockTail' (shareware), 'System Optimizer X' (shareware), 'ultimateTask' (freeware), etc. - before attempting to use 'DiskWarrior', in your current system setup.

[Mikuro]

Do not use Norton with OS X. It'll work (or at least it did back in Panther), but it's not well-suited for dealing with OS X.

Personally, I don't trust defragmenters anymore. They've caused me problems enough times that I absolutely will not try them without a full disk backup. And if I'm going to go to the trouble of making a complete backup, I might as well just reinitialize + restore, which effectively defragments the files and free space. It's safe, reliable, and heck, even faster than using defraggers (assuming you're making a backup anyway, which you definitely should).

[dmetzcher]

Originally Posted by Mikuro

Do not use Norton with OS X. It'll work (or at least it did back in Panther), but it's not well-suited for dealing with OS X.

Personally, I don't trust defragmenters anymore. They've caused me problems enough times that I absolutely will not try them without a full disk backup. And if I'm going to go to the trouble of making a complete backup, I might as well just reinitialize + restore, which effectively defragments the files and free space. It's safe, reliable, and heck, even faster than using defraggers (assuming you're making a backup anyway, which you definitely should).

When you say "reinitialize and restore", you are talking about doing a backup, wiping the boot disk, and then restoring to that boot disk from the backup that you made, correct?