Underwhelmed By Performance

[pm-r]

Even then, it should not be that much slower on what is generally a random read test.

I've never encountered a normal running Mac to experience really lousy performance even when the boot drive was almost virtually full.

Some well known Mac support sites also mention this and almost put it in the myth category section.

 

[pigoo3]

...even when the boot drive was almost virtually full.

Depends on how "virtually full" is defined.

We usually recommend a certain % of storage space be free as a broad stroke piece of advice to users with issues. But since we're getting a bit more technical in this thread…"virtually full" is probably better defined in terms of gigabytes.

A storage device definitely needs a certain minimum # of gigs be free for the swap file to be written to. If a storage device is 100% full (or not enough gigs free for the swap file)…then the computer will "lock up". We've definitely had users in this category. After they freed up some space…the computer would operate.

Of course those of us knowledgeable of how our computers work rarely ever let our storage get this full so that performance is impaired.

- Nick

 

[pm-r]

How's this…???
Virtually: "almost or very nearly, so that any slight difference is not important"
virtually adverb - Definition, pictures, pronunciation and usage notes | Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary at OxfordLearnersDictionaries.com

In other words, pretty darn full and not much room for anything else.

I did a very unscientific test several years on a small bootable partition when the almost full drive = poor performance saying seemed to be everywhere. And just using normal email and browser and a few other apps, there was no appreciable slowdown noticeable with only a few GB of free space left available.

As I recalled, it finally got bad when there were only a few MBs of free space left. That was probably using Mac OS X SL 10.6.x on an older Intel iMac. Maybe things are different these days.

BTW: I am definitely not suggesting one disregards free drive space, but I am saying there's probably something else causing any severe slowdowns.

 

[pigoo3]

How's this…???
Virtually: "almost or very nearly, so that any slight difference is not important"
virtually adverb - Definition, pictures, pronunciation and usage notes | Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary at OxfordLearnersDictionaries.com

In other words, pretty darn full and not much room for anything else.

I know that there's some joking going on in there…so ok.

In my earlier post…my main point was…words like:

- virtually
- almost
- very nearly
- etc.

…are not very specific. If we're going to talk specifics…we need to use numbers. That's why I mentioned instead of using these words (virtually, almost, very nearly, etc.)…we should be talking numbers…like gigabytes or maybe even megabytes as you did mention.

I know that many times we say don't let the storage get more than 80% full. But of course if we say 80% full on a small 80gig drive…that's not going to be the same as a 1 terabyte drive (free space available). On an 80gig drive…this would mean 16gig free. On a 1 terabyte drive…this would mean 200gig free.

I'm going to say that for a computer to run efficiently…we should shoot for not letting the amount of free space get less that 15-20gig. Is this the absolute minimum. Probably not…maybe just a good rule of thumb. We could test & test & test…to see what the absolute minimum would be.

But also…the amount of free space available can also depend on what is being done on the computer.

- The amount of free space available for email & internet surfing tasks maybe one thing. The amount of free space needed for Photoshop work or video editing may be very different.
- Also. Someone with 4gig of ram may need more free storage space…than someone with 16gig of ram.

I think that there are many factors that play into how much free space is needed to avoid sluggishness. And this is where the more general/broad advice of "don't let the storage get more than 80% full"…is a good general rule that can safely cover most users situations.

- Nick

 

[MacInWin]

Another factor is how many applications are "open" at one time. If you routinely close each application completely, your need for scratch, swap and cache space is going to be a lot lower than someone who launches everything, closes nothing. And if those applications have open files, that can affect the size of scratch space. Image editing, for example, using Photoshop, with the history roll back feature, can eat up space pretty quickly!

 

[Dysfunction]

I've never encountered a normal running Mac to experience really lousy performance even when the boot drive was almost virtually full.

Some well known Mac support sites also mention this and almost put it in the myth category section.

I totally understand, I guess my point is simply that I'd say you should talk to Apple. Something is not right with that drive.