Internet Access w/ Acquisition & Defrag Help

[asherman13]

I'm on my parents' iMac 1Ghz G4 with 256MB RAM. Recently, when I'm running Acquisition and my downloads are >100Kbps, I cannot seem to access the 'net using Safari. It tells me that I'm not connected to the Internet, even though I KNOW I am, and/or that it can't find the server. When I quit Acquisition, everything is normal again.

Also, for some reason the iMac has been running slowly lately. I've been downloading a lot of TV Shows to convert, etc. and put on my 5G iPod. I know that Mac OS X 10.4.4 (that's what this one's running, haven't updated yet) automatically defragments your HDD with files under 20MB, but lots of these files have been +20MB, around 100MB or so. I've been encoding, Lostifying, and copying these files into iTunes, then deleting all the copies I don't need, via Empty Trash (not secure). Should/Can I defragment this computer's HDD, and how?

 

[ChrisA]

Defragmenting a disk made sense back in the days oif single task oprating systems and FAT file systems but not with OSX. A modern system will run many tasks at once and each will have multiple files open. With only 256MB you can be prety sure each of those tasks spend time reading pages off it's one binary image file. Keeping files in long contigous hunks save you nothing when control over the disk is bouncing around between a dozen threads. Plus OS is smartter. It will re-order disk I/O so as to minimize disk head travel

If you are concerned about performance look at the Activity Monitor.
It will show you the bottle neck. It yuor case it's almost certainly a lack or RAM. Spend the $30 or so it takes to double your RAM to 512

If you need more disk performance add a secnd drive and keep half you files on the new drive. I effectivly doubles youe disk bandwidh

I'm on my parents' iMac 1Ghz G4 with 256MB RAM. Recently, when I'm running Acquisition and my downloads are >100Kbps, I cannot seem to access the 'net using Safari. It tells me that I'm not connected to the Internet, even though I KNOW I am, and/or that it can't find the server. When I quit Acquisition, everything is normal again.

Also, for some reason the iMac has been running slowly lately. I've been downloading a lot of TV Shows to convert, etc. and put on my 5G iPod. I know that Mac OS X 10.4.4 (that's what this one's running, haven't updated yet) automatically defragments your HDD with files under 20MB, but lots of these files have been +20MB, around 100MB or so. I've been encoding, Lostifying, and copying these files into iTunes, then deleting all the copies I don't need, via Empty Trash (not secure). Should/Can I defragment this computer's HDD, and how?

 

[asherman13]

Defragmenting a disk made sense back in the days oif single task oprating systems and FAT file systems but not with OSX. A modern system will run many tasks at once and each will have multiple files open. With only 256MB you can be prety sure each of those tasks spend time reading pages off it's one binary image file. Keeping files in long contigous hunks save you nothing when control over the disk is bouncing around between a dozen threads. Plus OS is smartter. It will re-order disk I/O so as to minimize disk head travel

If you are concerned about performance look at the Activity Monitor.
It will show you the bottle neck. It yuor case it's almost certainly a lack or RAM. Spend the $30 or so it takes to double your RAM to 512

If you need more disk performance add a secnd drive and keep half you files on the new drive. I effectivly doubles youe disk bandwidh

Ok...not sure I understood the technical parts of it, but whatever. The RAM upgrade part makes enough sense to me.

Any answers to the 'net problem?