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Mac OS X 10.3 Defrags Automatically
EverLurking writes "There is a very interesting discussion over at Ars' Mac Forum about how Mac OS X 10.3 has implemented an on-the-fly defragmentation scheme for files on the hard drive. Apparently it uses a method known as 'Hot-File-Adaptive-Clustering' to consolidate fragmented files that are under 20 MB in size as they are accessed. Source code from the Davwin 7.0 Kernel is cited as proof that this is happening."
It'll survive, but I'm not sure I will when the next bill comes ;)
No kidding it slows down!
I don't want to start a holy war here, but what is the deal with you Hot-File-Adaptive-Clustering fanatics? I've been sitting here at my freelance gig in front of a Panther machine (OS 10.3) for about 22 minutes now while it attempts to defrag a 20 Meg file on my hard drive. 22 minutes. At home, on my B&W G3 running Jaguar, which by all standards should be a lot slower than Panther, the same operation would take about 2 minutes. If that.
In addition, during this defrag, 17 MB files will not copy. And everything else has ground to a halt. Even Expose is straining to keep up as I type this.
I won't bore you with the laundry list of other problems that I've encountered while working with auto-defrag on, but suffice it to say there have been many, not the least of which is I've never seen a Panther machine that has run faster than other apples, despite the OS's advancements. System 7 runs faster than Panther at times. From a productivity standpoint, I don't get how people can claim that Panther is a "superior" OS.
Panther addicts, flame me if you'd like, but I'd rather hear some intelligent reasons why anyone would choose to upgrade to Panther over other faster, cheaper, more stable OS's.
Etiquette is etiquette. He kills his mother but he can't wear grey trousers.