The maximum load of the Mac drive.

Searching through the Mac web side I have the impression that how fuller the drive become the drive become fragmented .
if so how high can the maximum load capacity be .
I mean in percentage .
For instance mine is now used for 85% .
Is that to high ?
On the other hand if I still about 34 GB free
Does anyone know it ?

dobby

I don't think there is a magical number but 10-15% free space is a good buffer. If you notice things getting considerably slower and you have less that 10% of your disk free, I would suggest freeing up space as your first course of action.

Also depends on the types of programs you are using. For most people, the 10% rule applies (i.e. never go under that much free)

But if you are using Final Cut, Motion, etc.. or trying to multitask with some of the Adobe Suite of products like having Photoshop, Bridge, and Illustrator open at once swapping files, I would stick to 15-20% minimum.

In fact, i am trying to save EVERYTHING on a secondary drive now. My computer tech friends tell me to only put my OS and all applications on one drive and keep all the files associated with applications on another drive. That way you drive never gets fragmented and always has lots of free space.

whitakt1 said:

In fact, i am trying to save EVERYTHING on a secondary drive now. My computer tech friends tell me to only put my OS and all applications on one drive and keep all the files associated with applications on another drive. That way you drive never gets fragmented and always has lots of free space.

Click to expand...

That would be true of a Windows machine. Journaled file systems really don't require that level of maintenance. Keep the drive within 20% of capacity, regardless of the applications you use and it should be fine.

About disk optimization with Mac OS X