In theory, any operating system installed on a partition formatted HFS + (which is the case of Mac OS X) tends to fragment. This is an inescapable rule! Mac OS X thus not immune to this rule. Therefore, as you use OS X for its daily work, the system and the files it contains is fragmented and, gradually OS X becomes more heavy.
Well, that's the theory! But just think that Apple precise HERE few interesting elements:
- Nowadays hard disks are much larger than in the past. Thus the HFS + avoids whenever possible the reuse of space previously used by deleted files.
- MAC OS X 10.2 and later include an allocation system to bring together in one place the disc a number of small allocations. When you install Mac OS X, many files are placed in a special area ( "hot band") can be read quickly and defragmentation could move those files, which could slow down the boot.
- PANTHER, TIGER and LEOPARD can automatically defrag some files (the files small and medium size) in a process called "Hot-File-Adaptive-Clustering."
Also according to Apple, there would therefore be of little interest to defragment your hard drive! However, if you feel the need to defragment, APPLE suggests at first simply restarting your Mac! As against, if your hard drive is copiously filled and / or if you regularly create or edit large files (video etc ... - which is increasingly common nowadays -) in this case APPLE states still it may be necessary to defragment your hard drive with appropriate software.
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