should i defrag my macbook air with a boot volume like this?

[john-]

hey guys,

i've recently bought drive genius because - from what i can tell - my macbook air has significantly slowed down. and apparently my boot volume is a mess. please have a look:

http://imgur.com/sRgi3.png

you can only see part of the entire drive, but it's almost everywhere like this.

would you suggest defragmenting? and if so, how could i go about that since i do not have an external drive?

thank you for your help!

 

[DoFoT9]

i would guess that 5% of mac users defrag their computers.

if yuo want your computer to run faster, delete some stuff off of the hard drive. >15GB is needed for it to run optimally (for virtual memory etc). you can defrag if you want, it will make it slightly faster, but not HEAPS.

OSX defrags files under 20MB on a daily basis. the rest arent really worth moving. your decision!

 

[stridemat]

Leave you Macbook Air on over night and OSX should run it's system maintenance scripts and defrag files smaller than 20MB.

 

[DoFoT9]

Leave you Macbook Air on over night and OSX should run it's system maintenance scripts and defrag files smaller than 20MB.

it should do that anyway first thing in the morning :-S

 

[stridemat]

it should do that anyway first thing in the morning :-S

I was always under the impression that it did system maintenance when it was not being used at night, but I guess it would make sense for these to run in the morning if you have had your computer off.

 

[DoFoT9]

I was always under the impression that it did system maintenance when it was not being used at night, but I guess it would make sense for these to run in the morning if you have had your computer off.

never checked it to be honest. i always have my computers left on most of the night, so it executes then.

 

[Fishrrman]

iDefrag will clean that right up.

I've always defragmented and optimized my Macs, and will continue to do so.

Something about doing so just seems logical to me, regardless of "what Apple says" about it.

 

[DoFoT9]

Something about doing so just seems logical to me, regardless of "what Apple says" about it.

faie enough. i just dont see it as a big enough issue to worry about doing.

 

[john-]

iDefrag will clean that right up.

I've always defragmented and optimized my Macs, and will continue to do so.

Something about doing so just seems logical to me, regardless of "what Apple says" about it.

can you tell me if i can defragment my boot volume without a lot of hassle using idefrag?

 

[ayeying]

it should do that anyway first thing in the morning :-S

The defrag system for OSX is not in the OS, it's in the file system. The HFS automatically defrags files under 20MB. It's done on the fly.

 

[DoFoT9]

The defrag system for OSX is not in the OS, it's in the file system. The HFS automatically defrags files under 20MB. It's done on the fly.

interesting. i find that a stupid way to do it. it means that data will be stored all over the place, quicker then usual.

 

[ayeying]

interesting. i find that a stupid way to do it. it means that data will be stored all over the place, quicker then usual.

Depends. The file system does keep a "Catalog" of all the files on the system, so technically it shouldn't slow down even with fragged files all over the place, but like the entire drive, even the Catalog can be fragged.

IMO, It's usually good to defrag once a year for an average user, 1-3 months if you're the type of person who stores then deletes A LOT (5000+ files) all the time.

 

[Fishrrman]

"can you tell me if i can defragment my boot volume without a lot of hassle using idefrag?"

Yes, but you have to boot from another volume, and have iDefrag available on that volume in order to "aim it" at your original boot volume.

An external drive with a "cloned backup" from either SuperDuper or CarbonCopyCloner will do this just fine.

 

[DoFoT9]

Depends. The file system does keep a "Catalog" of all the files on the system, so technically it shouldn't slow down even with fragged files all over the place, but like the entire drive, even the Catalog can be fragged.

thats true. but fragged files cause the slow down in the first place no matter what - because they are fragged! seek + latency lol.

IMO, It's usually good to defrag once a year for an average user, 1-3 months if you're the type of person who stores then deletes A LOT (5000+ files) all the time.

im the second one, i never defrag and my computer is super fast still. ive added 300GB to my brand new i7 imac in 3 months (transferred ALOT more then that on and off of it).