From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.system

TidBITS#686/30-Jun-03

Before you spend hours optimizing your Mac's hard disk, read David
Shayer's article on why it's a waste of time.

Hmmm, mebbe your Mac doesn't go any faster, but what about disk life? If
the head's not thrashing back & forth between catalog and fragments,
will the disk last longer? I'd always believed a quiet disk was a happy
disk, but...

<subject line changed by popular request>
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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.system

On Wed, 2 Jul 2003 19:40:08 -0700, Wayne C. Morris wrote
(in message <wayne.morris-FB89C8.21400802072003@shawnews.wp.shawcable.net>):

Re: David Shayer's article on why it's a waste of time

Shayer's article is a waste of time. It's actually an elaborate April Fool's joke. Take the statment:

"Optimizers are slow. It takes many hours to optimize a disk.
Does it make sense to tie up your Mac for hours just
to make it respond a second faster when you're opening a
mailbox?"

This is a joke. A gag. Relax. Optimize your drive. If you edit video, you cannot afford not to optimize that drive.

Al Hatch

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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.system

In article <0001HW.BB2DE43000136E22F0080600@news.covad.net>, Al Hatch <Hatch@-REMOVETHIS-waywewill.com> wrote:

On Wed, 2 Jul 2003 19:40:08 -0700, Wayne C. Morris wrote
(in message <wayne.morris-FB89C8.21400802072003@shawnews.wp.shawcable.net>):

Re: David Shayer's article on why it's a waste of time

Shayer's article is a waste of time. It's actually an elaborate April Fool's joke. Take the statment:

"Optimizers are slow. It takes many hours to optimize a disk.
Does it make sense to tie up your Mac for hours just
to make it respond a second faster when you're opening a
mailbox?"

This is a joke. A gag. Relax. Optimize your drive. If you edit video, you cannot afford not to optimize that drive.

Al Hatch

Hard drive optimization ranks right up there with hard drive
partitioning among the "power user's" articles of faith. It's one of
those things you do because it makes you feel like you're doing
something (sorta like burning sage against the influence of evil
spirits or putting STP in your car).

On older hardware, optimization helped a lot. For example, when I
optimized the boot floppy on my Kaypro 2 -- placing the files on disk
in the exact order in which they were needed at boot time to both load
the system software and load the ram disk with apps -- the speed
increase was quite dramatic (3-4 times faster).

The real benefits are miniscule with today's hardware and software. But
it still has its psychological benefits.
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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.system

In article <0001HW.BB2DE43000136E22F0080600@news.covad.net>, Al Hatch <Hatch@-REMOVETHIS-waywewill.com> wrote:

"Optimizers are slow. It takes many hours to optimize a disk.
Does it make sense to tie up your Mac for hours just
to make it respond a second faster when you're opening a
mailbox?"

This is a joke. A gag. Relax. Optimize your drive. If you edit video, you cannot afford not to optimize that drive.

if you edit video you want a dedicated drive for video capture which is
wiped clean between projects.

and if you don't edit video, optimizing is a waste of time. david
shayer is right.
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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.system

In article <060720032120271887%nospam@nospam.invalid>,
nospam <nospam@nospam.invalid> wrote:

In article <0001HW.BB2DE43000136E22F0080600@news.covad.net>, Al Hatch <Hatch@-REMOVETHIS-waywewill.com> wrote:

"Optimizers are slow. It takes many hours to optimize a disk.
Does it make sense to tie up your Mac for hours just
to make it respond a second faster when you're opening a
mailbox?"

This is a joke. A gag. Relax. Optimize your drive. If you edit video, you cannot afford not to optimize that drive.

if you edit video you want a dedicated drive for video capture which is
wiped clean between projects.

and if you don't edit video, optimizing is a waste of time. david
shayer is right.

Well thanks for the reassurance, I edit video, and audio, and I like to optimize my disk (never mind the wool shirts, chopping wood, etc ;-)

In fact, recording mpeg-4 audio to disk from Apple's QuickTime
Broadcaster just will not work if the disk is not optimized first.

BTW 48 minutes for a 60G disk with 27G of "stuff" doesn't sound like
"many hours" to me....
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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.system

On Mon, 7 Jul 2003 9:58:04 -0500, Viktor Haag wrote
(in message <1zllva75ab.fsf@suldrun.rim.net>):

dennmac@InfoAveExtraneous.Net (Dennis McGee) writes:

In article <wayne.morris-FB89C8.21400802072003@shawnews.wp.shawcable.net>, >>

One of David Shayer's points was "Optimizers are slow. It
takes many hours to optimize a disk. Does it make sense to tie
up your Mac for hours just to make it respond a second faster
when you're opening a mailbox?"

"Many _hours_?" He must have several gigabytes full of mp3's or
something. It only takes me about 15 minutes to optimize my HD
(and that includes the boring time it takes to verify the disk
before the actual dismounting and optimizing begins). 'Course I
don't use OS X either -- maybe that adds a lot to his bloated
HD.

I did mine last week, and it took about three hours. I suspect
that anything you do that puts a great many files on your
computer will have a dramatic increase in time; for example,
having a Fink installation on your machine...

Question. What optimizers are you using?
Hud

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