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User profile for user: octafish
octafish Author
User level: Level 1
38 points

iDefrag on 1TB startup drive

My Mac Pro has been sluggish lately and I've tried a few things (with limited results) before finally buying iDefrag. I started a Full Defrag of my 1TB internal startup drive about 16 hours ago and it appears to be only about 45-50% done (according to the progress bar). I'm wondering if this is normal for such a large drive that showed considerable fragmentation. Also, the progress bar seems not to have moved at all for the last several hours although I'm not seeing any errors and the interface indicates that it's doing its thing. I do have a ticket in to support, but I'm curious if anyone here has any insight.

Mac Pro Nehalem Octocore 2009, Mac OS X (10.5.6), 2x 2.26 Ghz, 12GB RAM

Posted on Jan 30, 2011 3:01 PM

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10 replies
User profile for user: sarine-ImissLEOPARD_STEVE__
sarine-ImissLEOPARD_STEVE__
User level: Level 1
14 points

Feb 17, 2017 10:31 AM in response to Kappy

Hey Kappy , I hope you somehow get to read this cuz I'm in the middle of executing the method you suggested to octocore and I think I have a problem.


So I started by adding a partition to a 1TB external hard drive and it went thru the usual "check" and "verify" steps and the blue progress line was almost at the end when it began to "resize". Only thing is, it's now been "resizing" for almost 2 hours and though the blue line seems to be at the end, the "Done" button is greyed out and it feels like I'm hung.


Is there a way to check to make sure that something's actually happening becuz it seems to me like nothing is (I opened the activity monitor, but I don't really know how to read the numbers to tell what, if anything, is going on). And if nothing's happening, how do I get out of Disk Utility? Or am I totally screwed? Can I somehow pause? Thank you (and anyone who has serious knowledge!) for any help you can offer!

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User profile for user: Kappy
Kappy
User level: Level 10
361,741 points

Jan 30, 2011 3:09 PM in response to octafish

Defragging a large drive can take many, many hours. A much faster solution for next time:

1. Get a second 1 TB drive.
2. Partition using GUID partition scheme.
3. Format it Mac OS Extended, Journaled.
4. Use Disk Utility to Repair the disk you plan to defrag.
5. Use Disk Utility's Restore option to clone the drive you want to defragment to the second drive.
6. Erase the drive you just cloned.
7. Restore the clone to the original drive.

You now have a fully defragmented drive plus a cloned backup on another drive to provide data redundancy (i.e., backup.)

The above process will be faster than what you are now doing. Probably 6-7 hours or the time to fully backup a 1 TB drive twice. Of course if there's little data on the drive the process will go faster.

In general there's not much need to defrag modern hard drives. If your computer is running slowly it's unlikely defragging the hard drive will help.
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User profile for user: The hatter
The hatter
User level: Level 9
60,980 points

Jan 30, 2011 3:40 PM in response to octafish

Never defrag the system you are booted from, and +1 on clone + erase and restore (CCC, SuperDuper with their smart backup).

Keep drive 50-60% at max and that should reduce the need and keep free space from becoming highly fragmented.

Disk Warrior to rebuild the directory. A directory in tip top shape is an index to where everything is located.

I tried Drive10 yrs ago and never again, before that the only time I had a disaster was using Norton Speeddisk 3.x.

Always backup and run disk repairs before you do anything anyway.

Have a UPS that can handle your system for 10-20 minutes, 1500VA in other words.

Get a small fast drive for OS and applications, then move all the data to 2nd (and 3rd or 4th drive). An SSD of 60-80GB is excellent ($110-175).

SuperDuper + Disk Warrior and a good organization of drives and files and you should be fine.

Pick up a 2TB drive if you need more space. And they are somewhat faster, even the newest 1TB 64MB cache WD Black is a spunky 125MB/sec.

Two backup sets for every drive.

Could have saved you on iDefrag and put that toward things that would make a difference.

A full slow (not quick) format of writing zeros would take about 4 hrs, and help insure good working order, cloning 700GB shouldn't take more than 3-4 hrs for full "round trip" the first time. Smart Update of your backup then only take 15-20 minutes usually when done daily or weekly. And 15 minutes to boot from another drive to run Disk Warrior as part of regular maintenance and backup routine.
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User profile for user: octafish
octafish Author
User level: Level 1
38 points

Jan 30, 2011 9:44 PM in response to The hatter

Thanks for the help and suggestions. iDefrag reboots into some kind of "exclusive access" mode so technically you're not really defragging the startup volume at that point.

So anyway, here I am at about the 24 hour mark. The progress bar hasn't budged in about 12 hours. I got a brief email reply from iDefrag support telling me that I could turn off the "write verify" option and that would speed things up. It didn't. Nothing has changed. While waiting around I drove down to Best Buy and bought a new 2TB drive. I'd like to try the suggestion of cloning, erasing and restoring, but before I can do that I need to "gracefully" exit from iDefrag. I have another email into their support staff (based in the UK, I'm in the US) They do have a stop and pause function, but I'm reluctant to do anything without advice from their support people. On the other hand I DO need access to my machine again! The iDefrag documentation claims that:

"If iDefrag has done any damage, it should be restricted to individual files; it isn’t able to (for instance) write one file over the top of another by accident (there are special checks in the code that prevent such mistakes), and will generally stop quickly if it detects that something is wrong."

But still I'm gun-shy about trying to stop the process until I get some kind of official OK from their support people.
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User profile for user: octafish
octafish Author
User level: Level 1
38 points

Jan 30, 2011 10:37 PM in response to octafish

OK, I got a reply back from support that it should be safe to stop the process. I did so and I'm back in my system without a hitch. At first glance data seems intact and all seems ok. Things do seem even more sluggish though right now. Apps are taking longer to open, spinning beach balls etc. But now I have a brand new My Book Studio LX 2 TB FireWire 800 Desktop External Hard Drive:

http://www.amazon.com/Studio-FireWire-Desktop-External-WDBACH0020HAL-NESN/dp/B00 3IT6XDI

I also have the 1TB internal Mac HD (my system disk) as well as a 1TB Maxtor (2 partitions), 750GB Maxtor (3 partitions) and a 250GB LaCie - All external drives avg. about 60-75% full and are connected to each other and to my Mac via Firewire.

So any suggestions on how to make the best use of these resources? Seems like I could use Disk Utility to clone to the 2TB drive, then wipe the internal HD clean, restore to that and use the 2TB as a backup with either Time Machine or SuperDuper or CCC.

Any advantage to using Disk Utility Restore over CCC or SuperDuper to clone with or vice versa?

I'm open to any and all suggestions on how to make the best use of what I've got to have the fastest, most stable system with a solid backup scheme in place. I use Mozy Home to back up critical files offline as well. Thanks again for your help 🙂
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User profile for user: Kappy
Kappy
User level: Level 10
361,741 points

Jan 31, 2011 10:44 AM in response to octafish

For straight cloning I prefer Disk Utility. It's slower than CCC or SuperDuper!, but that's because it is verifying the copy which makes the processor slower. CCC and SD do not do the verification so they are faster. SD does not do block copies which both DU and CCC will do. DU is strictly a cloning tool. CCC is a true backup utility with far more features. More like SD. SD must be purchased to use any other feature than full disk cloning. Apple made DU, so I'm comfortable that it should clone a disk properly which it does.
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User profile for user: The hatter
The hatter
User level: Level 9
60,980 points

Jan 31, 2011 12:29 PM in response to octafish

Mac Pro, if needed buy some spare drive sleds, clone the system, repair the new drive, pull the old system drive and put it on a shelf for safe keeping.

No need to clone + erase + restore (unless you want to).

Just need 2 or 3 drives to use.

And if you are wise and don't keep all your files on boot drive, it doesn't have to be 2TB or take so long. A 150GB WD 10K VR $109 is fine, or $200 for 300GB. Given the cost, partition and just use 500GB of the 2TB ($170 for WD Black)
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iDefrag on 1TB startup drive

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