Disk optimization tool for Mac
One of the things that I like about Windows is that there is a basic defrag tool built in with dozens of 3rd party products available. With the Mac, I thought there were none until I came across iDefrag.
I got a copy and immediately put it through it's paces. To nobody's surprise, all of my hard drives had some (or much) deframentation and as a result, slower disk performance. If you're regularly doing editing on the Mac, you'll want to consider optimizing your drives every so often to squeeze all of the speed possible from it. Enter Coriolis Systems.
Let me put it this way, iDefrag just plain works and as a person who likes to be neat and tidy (though it rarely happens), iDefrag is a great tool to have. I wish the demo version would allow you to defrag something more usable, but at $30.00, you might as well just buy it and be done with it.
Comments
Please note that Coriolis has NOT qualified iDefrag for use with Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard). They are working with Apple to resolve the issue(s) and will release a free update at some point in the future.
Posted by: Caleb Clauset | November 2, 2007 12:39 PM
I thought that since Panther or so, Mac OS X defragged itself in the background so tools like this are no longer needed.
Is this not the case?
[DR - supposedly. There are some differences of opinion amongst some of my colleagues and who I talk to. Supposedly OS X does not need to be defragged. Yet, when I analyzed the hard drive, the picture said differently.
My personal opinion is that unless Mac OS X shows me a clean drive image with no defragmentation, that their claim is somewhat suspect. That being said, I don't recommend defragging 'casually' anytime. It's something that should be done once in a while. Hopefully, I'll learn more about what is going on underneath about this solution and Mac OS X's claims - if I do, I'll be sure to post. Thanks for the comment.
-D]
Posted by: David Chartier | November 14, 2007 01:26 AM
OSX defrags smaller files in the background, allegedly smaller than 20 MB. Apple actually advises user-initiated defragmenting in its tech docs.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1375
[DR - thanks.]
Posted by: Jim | September 7, 2008 08:44 AM