chuq@Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach) (12/02/89)
>Does anyone know of a commercial or shareware disk defragmenter for Macs?
DiskExpress is one. There's a new INIT based version called DiskExpress II.
SUM II from Symantec has "HD Tuneup". Considering all the other good stuff
you get with SUM II, it's a really good deal. I also prefer HD Tuneup to
DiskExpress. It seems faster and more robust (DE has crashed on me a couple
of times while doing 'fast' degragmenting, eating the files it was working
on. Fortunately, I'm paranoid about backups...)
--
Chuq Von Rospach <+> chuq@apple.com <+> [This is myself speaking]
When it comes to matters ourside your specialties, you are consistently and
brilliantly stupid [....] with respect to matters you haven't studied and
have had no experience basing your opinions on casual gossip [....] and
plain misinformation -- unsuspected because you haven't attempted to verify it.
-- Robert Heinlein to J.W. Campbell, Jr. 1941chuq@Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach) (12/02/89)
danno@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Dieter) writes: >HD Tuneup is NOT a disk defragmentor; it is a FILE defragmentor. When you >are done, your free space is still defragmented, and likely even more so >than when you started. DiskExpress completely defragments the files and >the free space (I'm not sure what it does in Quick Optimize; why would >anyone bother?). Quick Optimized is a file degragmentor, just like the first version of HD Tuneup was. What Dieter says was true for SUM Version 1. With SUM II, however, HD Tuneup was enhanced for both file and disk optimization. Functionally it's now the same as DiskExpress, and I much prefer the user interface. -- Chuq Von Rospach <+> chuq@apple.com <+> [This is myself speaking] When it comes to matters ourside your specialties, you are consistently and brilliantly stupid [....] with respect to matters you haven't studied and have had no experience basing your opinions on casual gossip [....] and plain misinformation -- unsuspected because you haven't attempted to verify it. -- Robert Heinlein to J.W. Campbell, Jr. 1941
drew@cup.portal.com (Andrew E Wade) (12/03/89)
Yes: SUM, Symantec Utilities for the Macintosh, includes a program called TuneUp, which includes capability to both defragment files and pack files in the disk contiguously (similar to Norton on PC...). Unfortunately, on some machines, I can't get the latter capability to work -- get error "D1", whatever that means. -Drew
name@portia.Stanford.EDU (tony cooper) (12/04/89)
SUM II TuneUp has limitations that DiskExpress does not have. I quote from the manual p6-3: "Normally, SUM TuneUp cannot defragment every file on your hard disk". Not only is this true, the optimize volume usually cannot defragment the free space fully either. I was once in the situation where I wanted 700K of contiguous free space where I had 5000K of total free space. TuneUp could not defragment all files nor could it defragment enough free space to give me 700K of contiguous free space. The reason for this deficiency is that TuneUp cannot defragment files (consider the free space as a single file) that are larger than the largest piece of contiguous free space. This is because (think about it - you have to work it out for yourself) files larger than the largest free chunk cannot be defragmented unless some other file has its fragmentation INCREASED (albeit temporarily). This is risky. TuneUp does not do it, DiskExpress does do it. Hence DE can defragment all files of any size and free space of any size. TuneUp reaches stalemate normally before it finishes defragmentation. So DE does more than TuneUp at increased risk. But DE does have the quick optimize option that lets it work in the same way as TuneUp and with the same safety. So DE is more powerful and versatile (and expensive) than TuneUp. It was worth it for me because it gave me the contiguous space that I wanted, whereas TuneUp would not. Tony Cooper name@portia.stanford.edu
malczews@aludra.usc.edu (Frank Malczewski) (12/04/89)
I too would recommend Disk Express, in general, as doing quite a thorough job of defragmenting disks. However, it has managed to crash on occaision while defragging one of my partitions (using Unimac software). That sub- sequently became the incentive towards purchasing a tape backup system, which I can use as a roundabout way of defragmenting files: backup to tape, erase disk (or partition), restore from tape. Always backup before defragmenting; a system crash may mean a lot of work if you don't backup everything as a general rule. -- -- Frank Malczewski (malczews@girtab.usc.edu)
chuq@Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach) (12/04/89)
>Yes: SUM, Symantec Utilities for the Macintosh, >Unfortunately, on some machines, I can't get the latter capability to >work -- get error "D1", whatever that means. I think that means there's some directory damage on the disk. Run Disk First Aid on it before you try to tune it up. -- Chuq Von Rospach <+> chuq@apple.com <+> [This is myself speaking] When it comes to matters ourside your specialties, you are consistently and brilliantly stupid [....] with respect to matters you haven't studied and have had no experience basing your opinions on casual gossip [....] and plain misinformation -- unsuspected because you haven't attempted to verify it. -- Robert Heinlein to J.W. Campbell, Jr. 1941
dvb@inmet.inmet.com (12/04/89)
> /* Written 12:37 pm Dec 2, 1989 by drew@cup.portal.com in inmet:comp. > Yes: SUM, Symantec Utilities for the Macintosh, includes a program > called TuneUp, which includes capability to both defragment files and > pack files in the disk contiguously (similar to Norton on PC...). > Unfortunately, on some machines, I can't get the latter capability to > work -- get error "D1", whatever that means. > -Drew I have talked to Symantec about the D1 and they seemed very familiar. (Meaning I didn't even need to finish describing the problem) Anyway, the D1 seems to be a "bad block"-type error--he recommended Disk First Aid straight off the Apple disks. And sure enough, DFA found a problem, fixed it and TuneUp-Optimize worked perfectly. FYI-TuneUp from SUM has two types of tuning up: Defragmenting all fragmented files and "optimizing" up the volume which involves making all space used/unused contiguous. (This is where a D1 can come from) And a note the person who asked if DFA ever did anything--it sure did here... dvb@inmet.inmet.com -- No connection with SUM, but I like the stuff...