My experience defragging my Macbook Pro (OSX).
The irony of a mac not being able to defrag, is that macs are mostly used, AND MARKTED for editing media of larger files for the creative individual. This is a problem for people who come from having a knowledgable Windows OS background that have converted to mac for this reason, (take time away from PC gaming to focus on my creative work).
Unfortunately for people like that, me included, you don’t realize that you still need window’s untill its too late (bored of working all the time, video games were the source of creative inspiration). You learn that Apple is just better at hiding their OS flaws than Windows (No Reg-Edit), and when you come across these flaws and realize you actually need a non virtualized Windows because not all software works on in OSX (video games), and there is software necessary to make your job easier that “just works” better on Windows (winamp and steam / xfire). But by the time you realize this its too late to do anything about it, because you’re hard drive will be fragmented beyond any point to partition an appropriate amount of space for a Windows operating system to run any of that necessary software.
I did some research and on the Apple site under the topic, “About optimization and fragmentation” it said, “You probably won’t need to optimize at all if you use Mac OS X.” and below read, “If your disks are almost full, and you often modify or create large files (such as editing video, but see the Tip below if you use iMovie and Mac OS X 10.3), there’s a chance the disks could be fragmented. In this case, you might benefit from defragmentation, which can be performed with some third-party disk utilities.”
It’s Apple Trickery I say. “Come edit media with us because we run the software so much better!” Which is the case for the most part untill you realize what I’m talking about. You just want to run ALL of your important software (Team Fortress 2, Left 4 Dead 2, Counter-Strike, Jedi Knight Dark Forces 2) on one device, regardless of operating system, for the ease of your job (being creative). Oh and by the way, “This article has been archived and is no longer updated by Apple.”
So then I went out to look for a “third-party disk utility” to take care of my fragmented hard drive, and came across the highly recommended piece of software called iDefrag by Coriolis Systems (Oops did I just link to the torrent by accident?). Oh goody, theres a trial! YAY! AND IT only works for hard-drives up to 100mb. What the fuck? $29.95 for the full version. FUCK THAT, what are my alternatives?
I did some more googling and came across multiple resources that all pointed to the need to create a disk image of my hard drive, reformat the entire drive, reinstall the operating system and restore the disk image. By the way, Apple calls this, “Optimizing.” So I tried just that.
Insert the OSX install disc, and hold C. Boot from disk and ran Disk Utility. After a few failed attempts at actually creating the image, I repaired the disk and its permissions, and then it failed to create disk image again, and again.
I purchased iDefrag in hopes that it can solve my Mac defrag woes, so I can solve this issue. Theres an online defragging feature that defrags all the files that are not PGP Immovable, which I’m guessing are core files that are in use. I ran that over-night but it was not able to free enough consistant space for a size appropriate for the software I need to run Windows on. It comes with Coriolis CDMaker (Damn! Google sure likes to return me torrent results first) which is supposed to burn bootable cd/dvd’s to run iDefrag so you can do a full defrag. I wasted 3 dvd’s on this software, and begining to think I’ve wasted $29.95. I submitted a bug report to them and the confirmed to me what I already thought I was experiencing, it was my optical drive that was being funky.
So with all this, I thought I’d make a youtube video about this predicament but first look on youtube to make sure there isn’t already any solutions. Then I run into these assholes who run a youtube show called, “Ask The Techies” They spend a good 25 seconds out of the entire 9 minute and 13 second video actually talking defragging, and the majority of that portion of time was spent plugging a piece of software tripple what I invested into iDefrag. The rest of the video was discussing how OSX apps are installed, and the lack of a clean uninstall function.
The title of this video is called, “How to defrag a Mac hard drive and delete applications.” (More like how to lie to the Internet) Why is the larger portion of the title of the video longer than what the majority of the video talks about? These Assholes know SEO! We’ll put the terms, “How to defrag a Mac hard drive” in our video title and get alot of viewers because Mac’s don’t come with a defragging function.
Now, here I am. Stuck with using SuperDuper! to make an image of my hard drive, and backing up every little thing I can, because I’m afraid that Apple is going to give me ANOTHER middle finger and tell me I can’t load up the disk image super duper built for me.
So I successfully made the image and erased the disk and installed OSX again and restored the image. Everything seems to be fine and I was able to partition enough for my hard drive to install xp and all my apps but was unable to install ANY operating system because my optical drive is broken, (which I read is a common problem amongst these older Macbook Pros). Oh yea I forgot to mention how my Mac is undergoing the other common problem of a faulty keyboard and track pad connection that causes it to go out at random. Oh and sometimes my left fan will click at low rpms and both of them will, when plugged in, whirr at up to 6000 RPM.
