Women in Technology

Article:		12 Steps to Improving Your Mac's Performance
Subject:		From the Author
Date:		2004-07-20 13:41:35
From:		JoliBallew
While highly technical Mac users may not agree with some of my suggestions, I do believe that most Mac users will certainly benefit from them, especially the novices that will be purchasing the book. It makes perfect sense to make sure you're getting updates, that your computer is secure, that your files are organized, and that you have a backup strategy. It's also true that the computer will perform better, folders, files, and programs will open faster, and you'll be able to work smarter and faster if your computer isn't gunked up with unnecessary programs, fonts, and other data. You shouldn't have to wade through stuff you don't need to find what you do, and neither should your computer. I believe this is good advice for anyone, and I believe (and through my experiences and others') that it works. About fragmentation, Apple has this to say about it: "If your disks are almost full, and you often modify or create large files (such as editing video, but see the Tip below if you use iMovie and Mac OS X Panther), there's a chance they could be fragmented. In this case, you might benefit from defragmentation, which might be performed with third-party disk utilities." I'll agree with some of the commenters that perhaps I stretched that a bit, by encouraging all users to defragment their drives, and perhaps defragmenting is not the best advice for everyone and every situation. I do appreciate those of you who have brought this to my attention though, and I will certainly put some more research into it. As we all know by now, though, fragmentation is a volatile subject, and a source of contention even at sites I trust the most, like Experts Exchange, and everyone has an opinion.

Showing messages 1 through 2 of 2.

• From the Author
  2007-05-23 08:30:51  Ruchaz [View]
  
  
  I m really intrested with your web site,bcse i found on it many important information .so I 'd like to ask u if you can provide me other information about what causes the low performance of a computer with the time it is in use while when it was new it run quikly.I m a student and I have a project on this.I will be happy to receive from u.

• Re: From the Author
  2004-07-23 02:55:16  Joerg_W [View]
  
  
  About fragmentation, Apple has this to say about it: ...
  
  Yes, but before saying that about it, the very Knowledge Base Article you quote also says things like these:
  
  - "You probably won't need to optimize at all if you use Mac OS X."
  
  - "Optimizing them is a major effort for very little practical gain."
  
  - "There is also a chance that one of the files placed in the "hot band" for rapid reads during system startup might be moved during defragmentation, which would actually decrease performance."