how to do a disk defragment on a mac book
How do i do a disk defragment on my mac book pro
MacBook Pro
Ok, cheers for that buddy. I got his humour 😁 lol
You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!
When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.
When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.
Question marked as
Top-ranking reply
It's just not necessary or done on a Mac. Some people do it (and you can find apps that help you out), but most old grizzled Mac users never do it. Don't bother, it won't do much.
Mac OS X's formatting system is quite advanced and doesn't use every nook and cranny of your hard drive. The only time when it "might" matter is when or if your hard drive is near full, and OS X is trying to find those nooks and crannies.
- 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.
Message was edited by: OrangeMarlin
82 replies
If you have a hard drive and it is not HFS+ formated, then the best way to do it is using Drive Genius 3 to defragment the hard drive. If you are only using the drive on a mac only, consider formating it to HFS+. This will ensure all the data is defragmented. Even if you occasionally you it with Windows, then use Macdrive on Windows to read/write on a HFS+ drive
Appleknower wrote:
If you have a hard drive and it is not HFS+ formated, then the best way to do it is using Drive Genius 3
Drive Genius 3 will not defragment drives that are not HFS+, so that won't work at all.
Did you try this before recommending others to waste time and money?
I beg to differ with you I think the general consensus is that a Mac is a computer.
lweileman wrote:
How do i do a disk defragment on my mac book pro
The more important question is "why do you want to defragment?" For example, if you are having a performance problem on a Mac, defragmenting is probably not one of the top 10 things that will solve the problem, unlike a PC.
hi guy's, i'm having a discussion on an dutch forum with a guy who claims he is a Apple Certified Technician and am looking for the truth about this issue.
He claims: OS X needs 10 to 15 percent free disk space, otherwise auto-defragment won't work.
googling for more info in this i found sources like
macrumors guide saying: having at least 10 GB of free space (after a restart) would help for normal usage.
Another source (about Mac's) writes: you should have at least 15 percent free as bare minimum.
I can bring my question down to: is it gigabyte or percent ?
it means a Hugh difference.
Keeping 15 percent free at least on a 3TB drive means 450 GB.
Another way to put my question is:
How much free space does OS X need to do his automatic disk defragment?
It's 15 percent until you reach 10G, then it's enough.
This means you don't now the answer i assume...
I hope somebody has the anwer.
You assume incorrectly. That answer is as credible as any you are likely to find. Ask your Apple Certified Technician for documentation to support his claim of any particular minimum percentage. Please post the reference in a reply.
Keeping 15 percent free at least on a 3TB drive means 450 GB.
That illustrates the reason that 10 GB is approximately correct... "for normal usage".
thx for making this clear!
may i conclude 'for normal usage' includes OS X's auto-disk defragment?
bonimac wrote:
This means you don't now the answer i assume...
I hope somebody has the anwer.
I gave you a useable answer but all you have is attitude I'm out.
sorry Csound1, but i could'n do anything with your answer. Can you translate it please.
Sounds to me like: it's 15 euro's until you reach 10 dollars, then it's enough.
double post deleted. Don't know how to delete post totaly.
bonimac wrote:
sorry Csound1, but i could'n do anything with your answer. Can you translate it please.
Sounds to me like: it's 15 euro's until you reach 10 dollars, then it's enough.
15 percent free, once that 15 percent equals 10G (or more) you have enough free space for the OS to do it's job, more may be better, less will be worse.
how to do a disk defragment on a mac book