Is there a defrag program for macs

Was just wondering if mac made any kind of defrag program for OSX. I can't imagine that with all the deleting, restarting, moving of files etc that there isn't any fragments that occur on the hard drive.

However i was not able to find a program that does this for macs. The disk utility doesn't seem to have a option that does this.


Any thoughts?

Im not sure of any free ones but there is iDefrag and the one that I use is called Techtool Pro which is pretty much a all in one troubleshooting hardware testing thingy and it can do defrags and system checks and all that

OS X doesn't need to be defragged. OS X does it on the fly so the end, user under most circumstances won't need to be worried about constantly defragging their HD. However if you are going to be working with very big files (e.g videos) then you may want to consider third party software which does a disk defrag.

check out this link to download an application which does disk defragmenting:

http://www.coriolis-systems.com/iDefrag.php

no need to defrag for most users.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1375

Mac OS X automatically defrags.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1375
Having said that, there is a big difference between defragging and optimizing. Optimization of disk performance is different from defragmentation in that optimization moves frequently used files to sections of the hard drive that can be accessed faster than other parts. Again, it probably isn't necessary but you would need a third party program like halo200 mentions.

In my experience, iDefrag makes a difference especially if you have got your hard drive 90% full, on something like a PPC G4. Otherwise no need to defrag.

You'll find that you won't need to defrag quite as often in OS X as in Windows because it does defrag files up to a certain size automatically. Despite many naysayers, there are times when you will see benefits from doing a full defrag/optimization. Just to illustrate... my most recent experience was with my 6-year-old Powerbook. It's not used much these days and has been long neglected, save an occasional run of Onxy's tools on it. Recently, I found it was taking 10-20 minutes just to boot up. Running all the usual maintenance utilities didn't do the trick. Then I mounted it as a firewire device to my Mac Pro, ran iDefrag's full Optimization option from the Mac Pro, and when it was all said and done, my Powerbook was booting up normally again.

EDIT: Here's a link to an old post of mine with links to a couple technical articles about the subject of defragging on OS X.

goobimama said:

In my experience, iDefrag makes a difference especially if you have got your hard drive 90% full, on something like a PPC G4. Otherwise no need to defrag.

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Mac OS X doees not run reliably when the install disk is 90% full. If your disk is that full, you need to do something about it.

Sherman Homan said:

Mac OS X automatically defrags.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1375
Having said that, there is a big difference between defragging and optimizing. Optimization of disk performance is different from defragmentation in that optimization moves frequently used files to sections of the hard drive that can be accessed faster than other parts. Again, it probably isn't necessary but you would need a third party program like halo200 mentions.

Click to expand...

Well the main use for this machine( other then play ) is that i am a DJ so going to be filled with music files. That being said there will be tons and tons of music on this machine. Im not necessarily editing files and such but there will be a large volume of stuff that will need to be accessed quickly and frequently. The computer acts like one big CD for me so i am pulling files from the HD to my DJ software all the time. From what it sounds like i could benefit from whatever this "optimization" entails, could you or someone else point me in the right direction of a program that does such a task?

Music files are small enough to be automatically defragged. And if you think about it, in your situation optimizing won't do anything! Read through some of the links above, I definitely wouldn't run a defrag/optimizer without a good understanding of what happens, and what might go wrong.

Sherman Homan said:

Music files are small enough to be automatically defragged. And if you think about it, in your situation optimizing won't do anything! Read through some of the links above, I definitely wouldn't run a defrag/optimizer without a good understanding of what happens, and what might go wrong.

Click to expand...

Thanks all for taking the time to respond. After reading the articles i understand what your talking about. I think because i used a PC for over 10 years and never a mac im just used to doing more the he maintenance "manually". But its sure nice to have an OS that takes care of that stuff for you!