# defragment?



## jonathanblain (Apr 20, 2010)

ok i dont know this is probably a stupid question, but i download a lot on my mac and delete a lot of large files and have had my mac for over a year. can i defragment a mac and how or should i just reformat and install?


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

Defrag

IDefrag will make your Mac sing


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## mtimour (Dec 20, 2007)

i was one click away from buying idefrag when I found this article => support.apple.com


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

Oh boy are we really going to go down this well trodden path again...? 

Search for defrag here... it has been discussed ad nauseam.


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

Sigh ....

That Apple article is flat out a crock ..you tell me what this drive which has been "maintained" by Apple's OS will be like compared to a defragged one










versus










and then there is optimization.

Why the hell would I tell you get a product that I have zero interest in if it did not work..

This likely what your drive looks like now...










and after....










It works......up to you 

or you can believe Apple and get sub- par ....up to 80% less performance from your drive


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## Guest (Dec 22, 2010)

I have to agree ... defragging == good thing. 

That Apple article is a) old, b) no longer updated, c) wrong. 

The answer is ALL of the above. If you have a lot of files and your disk sees a lot of action (downloading, deleting, etc) then defragging is a good thing and will _never_ hurt to do it.


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

OP just think about for a second.....pull all your files from your filing cabinet....toss the whole lot up in the air, kick them around and out of file folders and land where ever....

a) not a single one is fragmented.

b) now go find what you want....

That's your drive head on a badly fragmented drive....

I had an interesting one the other day ....client came in with a i7 iMac 8 gigs of RAM and that drive would only test at 30 megs per second as the test could not even find enough space to run in.
Cleaned up - 110 megs per second and much snappier.


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## eMacMan (Nov 27, 2006)

If you must defrag at least clone and test your cloned back-up before starting the process. Defragging can take awhile and a power interruption could prove at least slightly damaging.


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

Yup
I always clone first - defrag second.


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## Guest (Dec 23, 2010)

MacDoc said:


> Yup
> I always clone first - defrag second.


Thirded and passed!


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## Fuji (Feb 24, 2005)

mguertin said:


> Thirded and passed!


To sum up: this process is safety first, beer third.


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## Guest (Dec 23, 2010)

Any excuse to run a backup is a good excuse in my books. The more the merrier!


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## Joker Eh (Jan 22, 2008)

MacDoc said:


> Yup
> I always clone first - defrag second.


By Cloned do you mean Time Machine Backup?


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

No Carbon Copy Cloner - or similar. Sorry in a hurry


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## pm-r (May 17, 2009)

mguertin said:


> Any excuse to run a backup is a good excuse in my books. The more the merrier!


Agreed, but just don't do what I seem to have done, and maybe more than once with the Intel iMac I got last Christmas, and that I just discovered recently. 

That when I moved some of the backup volumes (from the G4 MDD Etc. and the backup drives) to another drive and to 'backup', that some already contained at least a backup of a backup, if not a backup of a backup backup!! ie: an ugly duplicated mess that I'm in the process of sorting out.

Also investigating some Duplicate app software to help check for duplicates among the various backup volumes, in case someone has a good suggestion.

File and folder name duplicates is all I need.


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## K2ACP (Sep 11, 2010)

There's SuperDuper! and Carbon Copy Cloner to make a HardDrive clone


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## pm-r (May 17, 2009)

K2ACP said:


> There's SuperDuper! and Carbon Copy Cloner to make a HardDrive clone


And even 'Disk Utility' to create an: image, sparse image, compressed or not, or other options to archive - but not readily bootable.

I'll stick with CCC which I've used for years, and from a developer who is/was an Apple engineer and follows Apple's backup guidelines which others often fail to do.


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## eMacMan (Nov 27, 2006)

pm-r said:


> And even 'Disk Utility' to create an: image, sparse image, compressed or not, or other options to archive - but not readily bootable.
> 
> I'll stick with CCC which I've used for years, and from a developer who is/was an Apple engineer and follows Apple's backup guidelines which others often fail to do.


Seen enough problems with DiskUtility over a long period of time that I would not use it to create a back-up of my system. Especially as CCC and SD will both perform the basic tasks of either creating bootable clones or even good disk images and at no charge.


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## pm-r (May 17, 2009)

eMacMan said:


> Seen enough problems with DiskUtility over a long period of time that I would not use it to create a back-up of my system. Especially as CCC and SD will both perform the basic tasks of either creating bootable clones or even good disk images and at no charge.


I'd agree the CCC and SD make backup options so much easier, and with more options available, but they all, including DU use rsync, so I can't see why Disk Utility would create problems - assuming on has the correct version installed for use on their OS.

But I do recall that there were some problems with the first Mac OS X versions when rsync was run with Apple's DU.


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## jamesB (Jan 28, 2007)

pm-r said:


> I'd agree the CCC and SD make backup options so much easier, and with more options available, but they all, including DU use rsync,


Tell me, is psync and rsync one and the same?

I keep reading everywhere that CarbonCopy use psync as it's base.


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## Guest (Dec 24, 2010)

jamesB said:


> Tell me, is psync and rsync one and the same?
> 
> I keep reading everywhere that CarbonCopy use psync as it's base.


No they are different projects. CCC uses rsync for sure (for the incremental backups as of v 3.x). I think there might still be an option to use psync (or to force it to use psync). psync and rsync are radically different pieces of software. rsync is a stand-alone application that is very mature, works over a number of protocols (including ssh). psync is a perl script that relies on the perl MacOSX::File add-on. Just to confuse matters more Apple now also includes a command line tool called ditto that does much the same type of thing (copying files while preserving resource forks).

I personally prefer SuperDuper but CCC works well for the most part too. I had issues with older CCC versions but 3.x seems much better than 2.x and back were.


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## fjnmusic (Oct 29, 2006)

MacDoc said:


> Yup
> I always clone first - defrag second.


It's like the Viking motto...remember: pillage, then burn.


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## Joker Eh (Jan 22, 2008)

ok being a newbie mac user what is the difference between Time Machine and Carbon Copy Cloner? And why would I switch from using Time Machine to CCC?


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## SINC (Feb 16, 2001)

Joker Eh said:


> ok being a newbie mac user what is the difference between Time Machine and Carbon Copy Cloner? And why would I switch from using Time Machine to CCC?


Two very different programs. Time Machine does hourly backups of your system allowing you to return to a previous date and restore items you may have trashed as an example.

CCC on the other hand is a cloning program that clones your entire HD and makes a bootable copy.

By way of example, I use a 1 TB external drive on my MBP with a 500 GB HD. The external is partitioned into two equal parts, one for a CCC clone and one for Time Machine.

The advantage is that if the HD in my MBP fails for any reason, I can boot from the clone and carry on using the machine until I can get the HD replaced. You cannot boot from Time Machine, only restore.

Using both gives you that added protection. FWIW, I clone my system daily with CCC as well as run TM daily.


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## SINC (Feb 16, 2001)

I have had this current MPB for 13 months now and never defragged, so I ran a full defrag overnight and here is the difference. The 500 GB HD took some 14 hours to defrag.


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## eMacMan (Nov 27, 2006)

SINC said:


> I have had this current MPB for 13 months now and never defragged, so I ran a full defrag overnight and here is the difference. The 500 GB HD took some 14 hours to defrag.


Don obviously the graphics are mainly to impress the guy that spent 14 hours waiting for his HD to defrag. 

What was the result as far as day to day use goes?


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## eMacMan (Nov 27, 2006)

SINC said:


> Two very different programs. Time Machine does hourly backups of your system allowing you to return to a previous date and restore items you may have trashed as an example.
> 
> CCC on the other hand is a cloning program that clones your entire HD and makes a bootable copy.
> 
> ...


Two big advantages of a clone. First is you can keep on going booted from the clone even if the main HD is toast. 

The other is recovery time. I have an older OS and can restore my OS in less than half an hour from a clone. Even quicker if I take the extra time to make a disk image when I back up.

You can do a full restore from TimeMachine but expect it to be more time consuming than a clone. Especially as you will have to boot from the install disk to do the restore.


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## SINC (Feb 16, 2001)

eMacMan said:


> What was the result as far as day to day use goes?


Didn't think to mention that, sorry. It is far faster than it was. Lag time on some repetitive tasks in RapidWeaver used to be an issue, but no longer. Biggest difference is that apps open about twice as fast as before.


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## pm-r (May 17, 2009)

SINC said:


> Two very different programs. Time Machine does hourly backups of your system allowing you to return to a previous date and restore items you may have trashed as an example.
> 
> CCC on the other hand is a cloning program that clones your entire HD and makes a bootable copy.
> 
> ...



Be mindful for if and when that day comes and you boot or use the clone that CCC and TM will need to be re-configured as both use the Universally Unique Identifier (UUID) of the drive (not sure about SD), and if not done so will probably not do their expected backup job.


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## Guest (Dec 24, 2010)

pm-r said:


> Be mindful for if and when that day comes and you boot or use the clone that CCC and TM will need to be re-configured as both use the Universally Unique Identifier (UUID) of the drive (not sure about SD), and if not done so will probably not do their expected backup job.


SuperDuper handles UUID changes very well (one of the reasons I use it). TIme Machine does not at all (and is a HUGE issue in my eyes), CCC is so/so with it.


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## pm-r (May 17, 2009)

mguertin said:


> SuperDuper handles UUID changes very well (one of the reasons I use it). TIme Machine does not at all (and is a HUGE issue in my eyes), CCC is so/so with it.


Hmmm...

"By default, CCC uses the name and Universally Unique Identifier (UUID) of your source and target to identify those volumes. By verifying both of these identifiers, there is less risk in, for example, backing up to a volume that has the same name as your usual target but is not actually the target. While beneficial, this behavior can sometimes have the wrong result. ..."
Carbon Copy Cloner Documentation

"...it's the UUID (Universally Unique Identifier) that OSX and Time Machine use to keep track of volumes."
Apple - Support - Discussions - "The identity of the backup disk has ...

Re TM: "Another possibility is that both disks have the same UUID. I always thought that was impossible, but a few months ago a fellow had four WD drives he'd bought at the same time, and three all had the same UUID!"
Apple - Support - Discussions - Time Machine Question using external HDD ...

"Odd, but yes, they did have the same UUID. ..."
Apple - Support - Discussions - Mac confuses two identical external ...

Maybe add this to the other reasons I stopped using TM. Never a problem with CCC here.


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