# Solved: Defragging MacBook Pro



## paul5 (May 19, 2005)

Is it necessary to defrag my MacBook Pro V. 10.6.8? In fact, should any Mac machine be defragged? If so, how is it accomplished please?

Sorry, Search seems to address defragging PC's only.

Thank You-Paul


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## Headrush (Feb 9, 2005)

For the most part the OS actively manages fragmentation better and you probably don't have to worry about it.


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## paul5 (May 19, 2005)

I'll continue to Verify and Repair via Disk Utility and assume Repair will take care of any problems. 

Thanks much for the fast reply.


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## tompatrick (Apr 19, 2010)

Lots of debate has been done as far as defraging a Mac is concerned. Apple doesn't fully recommend to defrag but neither denies. It says if your mac uses heavy & bulky applications like a video editing software or graphics editor then a hard drive might develop slacks and get fragmented. However, the files under 20mb are be default defragmented by the Mac itself. But again files larger than 20mb may or may not becomes fragmented. For your knowledge, there are only 2 apps that exist for defragmnetation - Stellar Drive Defrag and iDefrag. Both the tools can display block structure of the drive with fragmented & non fragmented areas.


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## paul5 (May 19, 2005)

I appreciate the valuable information. I do have some Photoshop files that might exceed the 20mb size. None have been a problem. I did secure trash about 50 GB of image files today. Helped with gaining space. I'll hold off on a defrag for the time being. Again, thanks much.


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## paul5 (May 19, 2005)

Not surprisingly opinions differ. But it seems the safe thing to do is not to mass delete the cache folders/files. I'll just continue to delete the Adobe files and a few others I know are not application files. Your assistance is much appreciated.


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## Headrush (Feb 9, 2005)

paul5 said:


> Not surprisingly opinions differ. But it seems the safe thing to do is not to mass delete the cache folders/files. I'll just continue to delete the Adobe files and a few others I know are not application files. Your assistance is much appreciated.


You never stated if you actually had an issue that you thought you needed to defrag to fix.

Unless you are running out of hard drive space, deleting files will likely slow your system. 
Remember the slowest operation a computer does is writing to media.


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## paul5 (May 19, 2005)

Sorry. My wish is to gain more disk space and to maximize system efficiency. Just not sure the best way to do so. I have gained a good bit of disk apace by securely trashing large Photoshop files. I do check for potential disk problems via Disk Utility. I confess to not really knowing what writing to media is. 

Thank You.


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## Headrush (Feb 9, 2005)

If you select Get Info, on your hard drive, what is shown for available space or used space, and what is the total size?


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## paul5 (May 19, 2005)

I have 240 now as opposed to 170 before I trashed securely, hundreds of mostly very large photo files (10-30MB each). Disk size is 500


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## Headrush (Feb 9, 2005)

paul5 said:


> I have 240 now as opposed to 170 before I trashed securely, hundreds of mostly very large photo files (10-30MB each). Disk size is 500


Even with only 170GB of 500GB free, you probably won't notice any better efficiency.

I usually don't bother with hard drive cleaning until I reach only about 100GB left of free space.


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## paul5 (May 19, 2005)

Thank you for all the helpful advise.


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