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QotD: Fragmentation

Question: Do you defragment your hard disk(s)? Regularly? Ever?

My Answer: Never. Though erasing, installing a new OS, and drag-copying my old files back over is a pretty effective way of doing so. Then today I read this:

While we're talking about the not so well known/hidden new Panther
features: while digging through the kernel sources i've found a quite
amusing new feature built into HFS+. Namely automatic file
defragmentation.

Everytime an application opens a file for reading, HFS+ checks if the
file is fragmented and is less than 20MB in size. If so, it copies the
file's contents to a continuous region on the disk and frees up the
previously allocated blocks.

Even less reason to defrag, I guess. Some of my Windows-using friends defragmented every day!

You are encouraged to answer the Question of the Day for yourself in the comments or on your blog.

7 Responses to "QotD: Fragmentation"

  1. I'd like to see a link to that and some more technical detail. While I think it would be a great idea, I'd like to know more about how it's implemented.

  2. Some people call me the Space Cowboy...

    Maurice, the eMac formerly known as Wintermute, is now safely converted to OS 10.3. Not to praise Apple twice in a row, but Panther is great. Most important on my list of new features is Exposé, but that's just the...

  3. Defragment?

    I have never defragmented my iMac's hard drive in the nearly two years that I've had it. No performance degradation, no disk errors. If it ain't broke . . ....

  4. I'd like to see a link to that and some more technical detail

    I realize it's not exactly what you're looking for, but here's the post in question.

    - Scott

  5. I defrag every 3-6 months although sometimes I slack and avoid it for a year or so. I do it more on Macs than PCs, not out of necessity, but because I care about my Macs more... heh.

  6. Here's a link that discusses it more.

  7. Panther Bits

    While waiting for my own copy of Panther, I am, of course, reading reports on Panther carefully. Beyond the usually flashy stuff with little substance that comes out on mainstream