Page file defrag - Vista

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by DaiNasty

I'm struggling to imagine how you could avoid a degree of fragmentation as file sizes change over time.

I believe that OSX does a fairly good job of defragmenting itself. Not through a separate program (as Windows does, even if it can and does schedule it), but in the OS. Basically it does some limited defragmenting after any major app install.

That's not to say that OSX doesn't run better after a manual defragmentation.

And here is Apples explanation: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1375

[Dai]

Interesting.

"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."

That makes sense in a way, given how big and cheap storage has become. If they get the coding right to ignore small blanks until a suitable file will fit that could certainly improve layout.

[TJS]

Originally Posted by DaiNasty

Interesting.

"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."

That makes sense in a way, given how big and cheap storage has become. If they get the coding right to ignore small blanks until a suitable file will fit that could certainly improve layout.

Thats the point i was trying to make (if a bit indirectly) It seems unusual that Microsoft is still using a file system that tries to cram everything into the smallest space possible when hard-drive are so large now-a-days.

My macbook is now on the better side of 2 years old and still starts up in well under a minute, its never had any 'maintenance' or been reinstalled; the only thing i've ever really done with it is updates and I upgraded to snow leopard (update not fresh install) about a year back i'll record a video of the reboot in a minute

---------- Post added at 23:23 ---------- Previous post was at 23:12 ----------

Video as promised

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ju7jzHCbqTg

system:
Model Name: MacBook
Model Identifier: MacBook5,2
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2.13 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 3 MB
Memory: 2 GB
Bus Speed: 1.07 GHz

Harddrive:
Capacity: 160.04 GB (160,041,885,696 bytes)
Model: FUJITSU MHZ2160BH FFS G1
Revision: 00810091

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by DaiNasty

Interesting.

"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."

That makes sense in a way, given how big and cheap storage has become. If they get the coding right to ignore small blanks until a suitable file will fit that could certainly improve layout.

Unlike Apple, Microsoft don't seem to readily admit to any strategy used in NTFS to minimise fragmentation. In fact they don't seem to readily admit anything about how NTFS works. However, from what I can gather the strategy used is that NTFS reserves around 15% space either side of the file, so the file can grow. Fine idea in theory, and as long as you leave a lot of free space on the drive. Not so good if you need to fill up the drive.

---------- Post added 28-06-2011 at 00:00 ---------- Previous post was 27-06-2011 at 23:51 ----------

Having said all that about Mac's performing better when defragmented, the only time I have actually HAD to defragment my Mac HDD is when the drive was nearly full, and after deleting a load of stuff, I still didn't have a large area of free space on the drive to install Windows on, so I needed to defrag the drive.

[jonbxx]

I've mentioned this one before but, due to bitter experience, I'll say it again...

Be VERY careful about defragging encrypted hard drives. The windows defragger is usually OK but some of the tools which defrag systems files can kill your hard drive. The only hope of getting your data back would be to send it off to a forensics company as, of course, an encrypted disk is not supposed to be read easily. We were quoted prices starting at £2000 four years ago for this service.

I know it's not common to have encrypted hard drives but it's worth remembering