Question:
Aug 05, 2019 Macs are known for being ahead of the curve when it comes to necessary functions like antivirus measures and file organization, so defragmentation is actually a process your Mac is already doing automatically.
- However, on Mac, I do not find a way to defragment the hard drive. What to do?” This is a common problem with all new Mac users. If you are also trying to find a way to defragment your Mac hard drive, know that Mac OS X versions later than 10.2 do not need defragmentation. Apple has embedded inbuilt safeguards that prevent fragmentation.
- This wikiHow teaches you how to defragment a hard drive, a process that rearranges and better utilizes the space on the drive to improve your PC's performance. Though defragmenting a hard drive is not typically advised for Mac users, you can see this wikiHow to learn how (and when) this might be necessary.
- May 02, 2015 One of the most recommended programs to use to defrag your Mac is called iDefrag, which is available for $30. Once you’ve purchased and installed iDefrag or a similar program, open the utility and follow the instructions for defragging your Mac.
Stephen writes: I have a 2011 Mac mini with a traditional hard drive that’s starting to slow down. I’d like to try defragmenting the drive. What’s the best option to do this in OS X?
Answer:
With that in mind, OS X includes an “always active” defragmenter. This process, called “hot file adaptive clustering,” automatically takes small, regularly used files and moves them to the portion of the drive that the system can access most quickly. The relocation of these files necessarily results in defragmentation, as they are stacked next to each other on the drive's 'hot zone.' This process happens regularly in the background with no user intervention required.
But Apple’s built-in OS X approach will only take you so far. For highly fragmented drives, which for most users is a drive that has been in regular use for longer than 18 months, a full defragmentation that addresses all data on the hard drive is likely to result in perceivable performance improvements. OS X does not include any built-in tools that allow a user to perform a full defragmentation, but there are several third party software applications on the market that handle this very task.
One of the best is Prosoft’s Drive Genius, which performs a variety of disk and system maintenance functions in addition to drive defragmentation. At US$99, it’s not cheap, but the TMO staff has found the software to be invaluable on a number of occasions. A cheaper option is iDefrag (US$30.95) which, as its name suggests, is a utility that focuses exclusively on disk defragmentation.
Each application will have its own method and instructions, but in every case a defragmentation means that data will be moving around on your hard drive, slightly increasing the risk of data loss or corruption. Therefore, make sure that you perform a full backup of your important data before performing a drive defragmentation (but you should have regular backups already, right?).
In the absence of specialized defragmentation software, users can still obtain the benefits of a defrag with a “nuke and pave” restore of their hard drive. Backing up your data to an external drive via a clone process, reformatting the Mac’s internal drive, and then cloning your data back to the original drive produces the same basic result as a full system defragmentation. This option may take longer than a defragmentation, but it’s a free alternative to expensive software.
A roughly annual defragmentation of a mechanical hard drive is, in general, a good idea and will often result in noticeable performance improvements. Just remember to back up your data first and, again, never perform a defrag on a solid state drive!
Featured image via Shutterstock.
Today, we are going to learn a new concept called Defraging A Mac. Well, but how to defrag a mac? Is there any process to do? Better if you don’t panic and rust to the steps given below. Before going to these steps, have a look at what exactly defrag mean. Then I am not going to stop you. This process how to defrag a mac is done if in case, your mac does not run efficiently.
To seed up the Operating system, may require defragging. Am I right? But usually, Apply never included the defragging software as windows include. But doing so, there are a lot of benefits. The Apple has embedded all its inbuilt safeguards which purely prevent the fragmentation. Free roms for mac. However, at the time of getting update/upgrade/any, you have to perform defragmentation once in a year.
About Defragmentation
Defrag Disk Mac
Well, how to defrag a mac? The mac defrag is actually a reverse process. All the files on respective hard disk will recognize in such a way, all the parts of the single large file will be stored side by side. In other words, you can say as defragmentation removes all the gaps between the recorded parts, collecting them into one unit. So, therefore, it allows to speed up the system removing additional and cache files successfully.
Why Do We, Defrag Mac?
Typically, at the first stage when you buy the Mac OS X, the system might be very fast. But day to day, when you go on add the files and keep on storing, the drive gets full even with the temporary cache files. this, in turn, slows the system. New data is generally written on outside the hard drive, slowly working its way till you add the other data too.
![Defragment For Mac Defragment For Mac](/uploads/1/3/3/2/133279015/166243804.jpg)
By the continuous storage, it never gets lost, all the holes start developing numerous reads and writes. So simply by defragging the drive moves all files back in a specific order and fills the respective holes that have been encountered at the time of its usage.
How to Defrag a Mac in Simple Methods
Here I am going to explain the whole process how to defrag a mac in two different methods. Simply follow all the instructions given here and speed up your OS without any fail.
- how to defrag a mac in simple steps.
- Defragment a mac through third-party tools.
How to Defrag a Mac in Simple Steps
So in order to defragment mac, follow these instructions carefully and do step by step. If any single step goes wrong, the disk and system might get damaged. So take an appropriate care by doing the boot-up process.
- The first step, make your boot drive lighter by reducing all the files like games, movies, songs, and other confidential files without any fail. You need to reduce at least 50%, this is why as the first half of the drive will be fast than the second large number of sectors available there.
- This might not necessarily bring up free space to 50%. But make a note of doing so increases its performance drastically. And if in case, the boot drive is filled to completely 80%, will never work. But yes, can reduce the files through Activity Monitor. Also, reboot the drive after completing the whole process.
- In this step, you need to arrange black fresh external drive and clone of the whole Mac OS X. And in order to clone, can use the Mac backup software called Carbon Copy Cleaner.
- Simply press and hold alt key/option to start rebooting process. Finally, you are ready to clone through startup manager. Wait for sometime verifying clone works or not. If any problem can report undoubtedly.
- While doing this, erase the internal boot partition with the help of disk utility if boot camp partition is ready. This set all the bits to “0”.
- If you suppose, found bad sectors, map it off. Doing this worthwhile because takes a while to read from bad sectors. Make sure, as you have not moved the hard drive while the process going on.
- Once you are done, clone the external partition to the internal. Execute Disk Utility and Repair Permissions on both partitions will be used to clean all the cache and rebuild them respectively.
What Exactly Disk Defragmenter Mac Does After Performing Above Steps:
Well, as a result, now the user is capable to solve the following lists in a single batch.
- Issues related to Bad Sectors.
- Problems due to caches.
- Defragmentation issues.
- Boot camp partition problem
Defragment Mac Hard Drive
We feel great having such a bootable backup. If you find the speed is reducing after updates/ upgrades/ reinstalling the respective software, can perform clone or reverse it for solving this particular issue.
For instance, if you perform these steps and face the same, then this might cause due to the following reasons.
- Insufficient space in RAM.
- Hard drive failure.
- Your OS X version not updated for a long time.
And this is all to remove the fragmentation from the respective Mac hard drive.
How to Defragment a Mac Using Third-party tools
Dragon professional individual for mac. Usually, the Mac Os does not provide the tool as windows offer. The only thing they recommend is to take a complete backup of all your files, format the hard drive and reinstall OS to recover all files as I said above in simple steps. If it still needs the optimization, you have a chance to use third-party utilities designed to defragment mac hard disk. There are several apps, can have a look at the following.
![Defragment software for mac Defragment software for mac](/uploads/1/3/3/2/133279015/656967208.jpg)
- iDefrag: most powerful app.
- Drive Genius: This is also powerful program, allows to perform the full range of all the preventive actions working with HD partitions and then restore the complete data.
- TechTool Pro 5: This is one of the universal tool meant for mac performance optimization, has an option to defrag mac through this tool in a perfect way.
Make a note as all these are the third party tools and therefore, we usually not get the support from Apple team. And never use these on mac with SSD. Otherwise, it might damage the disk and also the system. So better to take an appropriate care and preventive measures.
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As a result, I hope you are clear of all the concept how to defrag a mac. And now ready to start the process on your Mac. If you get any doubts, can simply contact us by dropping a comment in the below box. So that we reach you in short and guide you. Like the article, share with friends and also on the social networking sites without any fail. Thank you. Stay back to PhoneGnome for more interesting tutorials.