Comments on: Diskeeper Considering Linux, Mac OS X Defrag Software

By: Camping out with Windows 7 | K's Weblog

Camping out with Windows 7 | K's Weblog — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 06:39:31 +0000

[...] The first thing I tried to do was just clear some disk space and run the boot-camp wizard to set up a partition for Windows. Once again I ran into the problem of OS X not being able to reorganize the files on disk to create a contiguous partition. This doesn’t usually pose a problem with computers that have a disk defragmenting tool but of course OS X has some redimentary defrag technology built-in and thus the notion that “Mac’s don’t need to be defragged”. I call shenanigans. [...]

By: Hunter

Hunter — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 17:40:22 +0000

How is everyone checking the fragmentation percentage on their Mac and Linux systems?

By: The VAR Guy

The VAR Guy — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 15:41:28 +0000

Tom: The VAR Guy may seem like a cool dude but he’s actually, um, actually… you’re right.

Chuck: Looks like the percentages are in your favor for quite a while…

By: Chuck

Chuck — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 11:40:34 +0000

Interestingly enough, my ext4 FS on Jaunty (which I have been running since the release) is 0.1% fragmented on /, and 1.3% fragmented on /home, while /boot is 0.0% fragmented. Nice check though, but the need just hasn’t arisen yet (and with a 1.5TB drive – likely won’t be for a long while either).

Have a nice day.

By: Tom

Tom — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 04:15:54 +0000

The VAR Guy seems like a cool dude. Tom was talking to others in this thread who speak with authority.

By: The VAR Guy

The VAR Guy — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 21:45:01 +0000

Tom: The VAR Guy appreciates the additional perspective. Our resident blogger covered Windows NT and NTFS in the 1990s for a range of IT publications.

But The VAR Guy must concede: he has no idea how Mac OS X and Linux file systems fragment, etc.

So in this case, the readers dominate the discussion while The VAR Guy reads comments and sips latte in Starbucks.

Thanks for offering your perspectives. Our resident blogger does appreciate them.

By: Tom

Tom — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 21:26:09 +0000

Journaling has nothing to do with reducing fragmentation. It is a metadata integrity/safety measure.

The truth of the matter is that all file systems can and do suffer from fragmentation — the reason is simply due to physics and math. Different operating systems deal with this differently — Linux will do some intelligent pre-allocation where it can, Mac OS X does on-the-fly defragmentation of certain files (as long as they meet a few requirements), etc. NTFS is actually quite a powerful and advanced file system — the downside is that fragmentation is a bigger issue for NTFS than it is for other file systems. This does not mean that NTFS, or Windows, sucks.

A file system’s ability to decrease file and free space fragmentation is only one design criteria — there are many, many others to consider before you apply a term like “sucks” or “rocks” to it.

I wish people would stop talking with authority about topics they seem to know nothing about.

By: The VAR Guy

The VAR Guy — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 08:15:50 +0000

Aurin: The VAR Guy begins and ends each day feeling perplexed. But thanks for tutoring our resident blogger a bit on Linux and Mac file systems.

By: Aurin Aldur

Aurin Aldur — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 04:40:46 +0000

I am a little perplexed; – true Linux and Mac HFS+ both utilise journalling (non-fragmenting) file systems but as every unsuspecting user will still notice there is an ever increasing degree of disk thrashing that occurs on older Macs / Linux Workstations – this comes about as the files are gradually spread further across the platter (a natural effect from a journalling filesystem) – one of the most effective algorithms in Diskeeper is FFAST (a file access sequencing technology – I suggested to their support team many years ago) – now that takes the files you use most frequently and places them in the fastest region of the disk and others you almost never access and pops them in the slowest region and finally those that change the most in a third quick change zone – now once you do that the whole dynamic of disk access move to a whole new level – something even seasoned OSX Users will appreciate ! – I am looking forward to a whole new era of file performance heading our way – even the skeptics will concede !

By: The VAR Guy

The VAR Guy — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 17:16:44 +0000

Igor: Assuming your information is accurate, you’re officially smarter than The VAR Guy on the topic of defrag.

By: Igor Gavran

Igor Gavran — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 06:09:58 +0000

Every chunked FS (and most of them are this way) is fragmented, that is consequence of the fact that the files are split into smaller pieces, and that the fs ops are nondeterministic.

The disk defragmenter for ext3 and Mac HFS+? It is a white smoke compiled into binary for naive users. AFAIK, OSX defrags files smaller than 10MB on the fly, it is built into the system.

If you let defrag tool running all the time, the resources used by the tool itself is not worthy of the perfomance benefit. Not to mention that you can invest money into the hardware (larger hdd) that won’t be fragmented! Be smart!

By: jtsnow

jtsnow — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 23:01:10 +0000

Diskeeper has always been a quality product when it comes to fragmentation on Windows based operating systems. The affects of fragmentation are real, and all of my systems have benefited from having Diskeeper on them. I also use Mac and Linux based systems. If there are performance gains to be had, then I would willingly use Diskeeper on them.