Do Macs need to be defragged?

Question

If not, why does software like idefrag for mac exist?

Answer 1

You need to periodically defrag Macs hard drive to clean up your computer. Defragging remarkably enhances the file access time and improves the life of the hard drive and makes it faster.

Answer 2

Do Macs Need Defragging

Answer 3

Fragmentation is independent of operating systems. Fragmentation refers to the inefficient use of storage space, often as a trade off for performance and/or convenience. Some file systems do a better job of managing this, reducing the frequency of needing to run tools specifically designed to reorganize files. Most operating systems include some sort of utility to "defrag" the file system.



As to why third party options exist, likely that company feels it can do a better job of the default one for the Mac operating system. I've worked with Veritas file systems for Windows and Solaris operating systems in the past because they offered features needed for a project I was working on. I've also seen where Oracle offers a raw file system (without the overhead of the operating system, and I believe based on the Veritas file system) as an alternative for improved storage over NTFS and UFS. Sun (now Oracle) creates ZFS to address short comings of UFS and other file systems. Linux has several file system options as well and most people know about Microsoft's file systems (FAT and NTFS). I believe all had some form of defragmentation utility.

Answer 4

Operating systems do not need defragging themselves. It is the filesystem that is formatted onto them that determines if defragging is useful (defragging is never necessary, it simply helps)



NTFS (windows) does need defragging whereas ext* (linux, possibly mac) does not. I don't have a mac so I cannot be sure but as long as it's not ntfs defragging will produce negligible results.



Tools exist because some people like that negligible boost depending on their hardware it may make a difference

Answer 5

The HFS+ filesystem has an automatic facility which defrags files (those which meet a few requirements) on-the-fly and without notifying the user of the process.