Mac Disk Defrag Tool: Is It Possible For Mac?
April 18, 2011
Defragmentation and disk optimization in Mac OS X is still a continuing debate among the Mac users. Even Apple states that their Mac won’t need to defrag their Mac OS X however offer instructions on how to defrag Mac just in case users might need it. If your looking for Mac disk defrag tool that is right for the Mac, you can easily select from the wide variety of defragging tools that will optimize and boost the system’s performance in the process.
There are two main scenarios why fragmentation occurs and this can be due to large files that are created more often and the disk space is already low in memory. If this happens there are some simple remedies that you can do about it.
For large files that are filling up the hard drive it is necessary to create a backup copy of all these important files. Then re-install the Mac operating system and then restore back all your old files. This can be tedious at all but quite effective too. Other options include running a utility such as SuperDuper that will create a clone of the startup drive and then format the drive with the use of Disk Utility and retrieve back the files in the system.
But other remedies that you can do is defragment Mac hard drive and before you go on defragging your Mac you need to understand first the difference between disk defragmentation and disk optimization.
Fragmentation is a process where different parts of files are split and stored into multiple locations in the hard drive. The hard drive on the other hand has to look for different locations when accessing these files thus taking the access time quite longer. But with Mac OS X’s HFS+ files system, it safeguards the files from getting fragmented. The file system will prevent using the recently freed space from files that have been deleted whenever possible and look for other greater space in the hard disk that free and available. And one more thing, Mac OS X will group together these smaller portions of space into larger portions automatically with the process known as Hot-File-Adaptive-Clustering. These simple routines in Mac already perform defragging process in a way.
On the other hand disk optimization is a different process from defragmentation with a different end as well. Defragmentation gathers all the files into one location in the hard disk whereas optimization deals with organization of all related files into one location for accessing it altogether easily for improved system performance. But when a tool known as iDefrag that is already a disk optimization and defragmenter at once, then it is now easily to arrange all files together and store in into one location for increased performance. The said application also shows the amount of fragmented files in the system and help you decide what to do about it. It even uses different defragging algorithms for quicker and effective defragging process.
Although some Mac users are still reluctant to defrag their Mac, there is no really harm in doing it. Because over time you cannot prevent the hard disk from getting fragmented and it is important to choose the right Mac disk defrag software that is capable of optimizing and defragging the Mac system at once and iDefrag can offer it to you all in all.
