Best way to defragment my hard drive?... XD

I use my mac to run ProTools and Logic. Because I have so many audio files on my hard drive and make edits all the time I need a way to defrag it. OSX takes care of most of the problems for the average user... too bad I don't fall into that category XD... DON'T TELL ME IT TAKES CARE OF ITSELF! An external drive with a is normally my way to solve this problem but i'm in a situation where that resource isn't available to me. All thoughts are appreciated. If theres a free way to do it I'd be smitten THANKS Y'ALL

How To Defragment A Hard Drive
This is the fastest and safest method for defragmenting a drive. Plus, it does not require third-party software, but it does require a spare hard drive.
1. Get an empty external hard drive and clone your internal drive to the external one.
2. Boot from the external hard drive.
3. Erase the internal hard drive.
4. Restore the external clone to the internal hard drive.
Clone the internal drive to the external drive
1. Open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder.
2. Select the destination volume from the left side list.
3. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
4. Check the box labeled Erase destination.
5. Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
6. Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to the Source entry field.
7. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Destination means the external backup drive. Source means the internal startup drive.
Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager appears. Select the icon for the external drive and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
After startup do the following:
Erase internal hard drive
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select your internal hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed. Do not quit Disk Utility.
Restore the clone to the internal hard drive
1. Select the destination volume from the left side list.
2. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
3. Check the box labeled Erase destination.
4. Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
5. Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to the Source entry field.
6. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Destination means the internal hard drive. Source means the external startup drive.
Note that the Source and Destination drives are swapped for this last procedure.

Similar Messages

I just bought a new Mac and I want to transfer some data (not all) from my old Mac. Basically, I want to move my itunes library, iphoto library, and a few documents. I have not even turned on my new Mac yet. Is the best way by an external hard drive?

I just bought a new Mac and I want to transfer some data (not all) from my old Mac. Basically, I want to move my itunes library, iphoto library, and a few documents. I have not even turned on my new Mac yet. Is the best way by an external hard drive?

If both have Firewire ports then you can accomplish your goal by using Target Disk Mode. If this is not possible then you can do using an external drive or if you have a local network connect both to your network and use filesharing between the two computers.
File Sharing on Macs
Mac 101- File Sharing

What is the best way to install & clone hard drives on macbooks? does apple do that?

It is time for a new hard drive for my macbook - just doiubles the memory, but am still getting the spinning beach ball. The genius bar told me I need a new hard drive, but that I could buy it and out it in myself. But, I just heard that the best way to replace the hard drive is to clone it... and that is beyond my abilities.
Does apple do that??? suggestions? thanks!

Please note that "cloning" a hard drive is not the same as replacing it. You clone the drive to preserve its contents (usually on the drive that will be the replacement). You still have to get into the MB, physically, take out the old drive and install the new one. There are plenty of web sites that tell you how to do this replacement. This is one I like: http://www.macinstruct.com/node/130
The details do vary depending on the vintage of your MB, so if that link is not for your model, try searching the web for instructions specific to your need. Or post back here with details about your Mac.
If Apple did agree to do this for you it would probably cost almost as much as a new MB. (And if you do buy a new MB, my local Mac store will do the data transfer as a bonus!)

Best way to back up hard drive?

Hi. I have finally got round to downloading OS X Yosemite and looking to upgrade from Mavericks. What I would like to know is, what is the best way for me to back up my current hard drive to an external HD?
The external HD I will be using is a '1TB Seagate Backup Plus Portable Drive' which I partitioned into two separate HD's when I bought it. One is 320gb (same capacity as my current internal HD) and the other is used to copy general files, documents, music etc. I like to take on the go.
I have also never used Time Machine before, are there any advantages/disadvantages to using it? Any help/advice would be greatly appreciated, thanks.

You don't have sufficient space in the small partition to use Time Machine. I suggest you use other software like:
Suggested Backup Software
1. Carbon Copy Cloner
2. Get Backup
3. Deja Vu
4. SuperDuper!
5. Synk Pro
6. Tri-Backup
Others may be found at MacUpdate.
Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on backup and restore. Also read How to Back Up and Restore Your Files.
You can start by simply cloning your current startup drive to the backup partition on the backup drive:
Clone Yosemite, Mavericks, Lion/Mountain Lion using Restore Option of Disk Utility
Boot to the Recovery HD:
Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
     1. Select Disk Utility from the main menu then press the Continue
         button.
     2. Select the destination volume from the left side list.
     3. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
     4. Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it
         to the Destination entry field.
     5. Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to
         the Source entry field.
     6. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Destination means the small partition on the external backup drive. Source means the internal startup drive.
Maintain this clone by using one of the six utilities listed above. You may get free trials of all to find the one your prefer. My personal favorities are Carbon Copy Cloner, SuperDuper!, and Deja Vu.

Best way to free up hard drive and still access pics

My 7 years worth of pics have filled up my hard drive. What is the best way to use TC (if it can be used for that) to free up my hard drive and still access the pics? If i also used an external HD plugged into the TC would that show up in my finder? Thanks in advance

The TC is a lousy place to locate your photos.. the simple reason is there is no backup.. The whole reason for the TC is a backup.. if you move the picture to the TC there is no automatic backup without setting up software and another device as backup location. So you may as well either.
1. Put a bigger hard disk in the Mac
2. Plug in a USB or Firewire drive into your Mac
3. Get a proper NAS which does auto backup
4. USB drive connected to the TC will work but is by far the slowest option. The data rate is half that of the same drive connected directly to your computer.
5. Get a computer as a server into which you can place or attach a heap of hard drives.

What is the best way to wipe my hard drive for a clean install?

I've been having a lot of insane issues with my iMac like my Dock icons not staying, email messages showing in Mail but when I click on them I can't see any text, Spotlight finding emails and files that don't show on my hard drive, etc.
I've decided that I just want to wipe the whole thing clean and start from scratch. What is the best way that I can do this to make sure that absolutely no data is left on the drive and I am totally starting from scratch?

Hi David Hamilton1;
I guess that all depends on how critical your data is in relation to how much time you want to spend doing the erasure. Those higher level erasure options can take a significant amount of time to complete. Personally I don't have anything on my Mac that I think is worth more time then a simple erasure even if that does leave it some what recoverable. To me it seems some people are going overboard on this issue.
Allan

What is the best way to cleanup my hard drive?

I have a 2013 Pro with the 256gig SSD. I have installed and uninstalled and moved files everywhere since I got the notebook. I am now starting to focus on my music production and was cleaning up my files and organizing folders for everything. However, I noticed there are just tons of random files everywhere in the "All Files" section in finder. They range from .txt files to other things with random names. Im not too keen on re-storing the entire computer to factory state, so I was wondering what the best way is to just cleanup and organize the entire hard drive if that is at all possible?

Freeing Up Space on The Hard Drive
1. See Lion/Mountain Lion/Mavericks' Storage Display.
2. You can remove data from your Home folder except for the /Home/Library/ folder.
3. Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on freeing up space on your hard drive.
4. Also see Freeing space on your Mac OS X startup disk.
5. See Where did my Disk Space go?.
6. See The Storage Display.
You must Empty the Trash in order to recover the space they occupied on the hard drive.
You should consider replacing the drive with a larger one. Check out OWC for drives, tutorials, and toolkits.
Try using OmniDiskSweeper 1.8 or GrandPerspective to search your drive for large files and where they are located.

Best way of connecting multiple hard-drives to imac?

Hi - can anyone suggest the best way/alternative way to connecting 2 LACIE d2 extreme hard-drives to my imac G5.
Dilema - I don't have enough native firewire ports to have both drives direct to the imac. I don't have any firewire 800 sockets on the imac and I don't have enough native usb ports (although I don't really want to use USB anyway!).
Although I have both USB and Firewire hubs - I am not keen at putting harddrives through hubs.
However, what I was thinking (and this is the question really - has anybody done this?) - is it ok/stable to connect one drive to the other with firewire 800 cable and take the output of these two via firewire 400 to the imac? Is this an exceptable solution or are there any obvious alternatives I am missing?
Has anybody done this? Does it work fine/fast enough for video/audio projects?

I was disappointed at the lack of a second Firewire 400 port for chaining Fire wire devices on the LACIE drive when I got it, not that its a huge deal I guess.
So basically you want to try
[Drive 2] <<FW 800--Cable--FW 800>> [Drive 1] <<FW 800--cable--FW 400 >> [iMac FW 400 port]
or
[Drive 2] <<FW 800--Cable--FW 800>> [Drive 1] <<FW 400--cable--FW 400 >>[iMac FW 400 port]
I have no idea if this would work or not, cant wait to see if you can pull it off or not. For the first example it would depend on whether the FW 800 bus in the drive fell back to 400 speeds properly.
For the second example it would depend on whether the FW 800 and FW 400 connections in the drive were bridged or not if not then it would only see the first drive.
Hopefully someone has some first hand info out there. Good luck
--Spire

Best way to reformat/erase hard drive

Situation:
2007 iMac intel core duo was running Leopard
Last BU was Nov 30, 2011 on external Time Machine
Also have Carbonite BU.. last one dated April 2011 ( bought it, but turned it off because it seemed like overkill, especially when one of them was slowing      down bandwidth - or so I thought.)
Upgraded to Snow Leopard   Dec 1, 2011
started freezing every 15 - 20 minutes (mouse worked, computer unresponsive) Hard resets necessary to restart
Unplugged BU drive, Scanner and laser printer
Backed up to external hard drive. I didn't know I should have partitioned my external hd... so I don't know if it's all scrambled.
Bought Disk Warrior - it fixed several permissions, did repairs and all ok there..
Freezing started again next day...
partitioned hard drive into 2 parts - defunct Snow leopard has the majority of space (thought this freezing would have been be resolved by now)
reinstalled Tiger to Leopard since Leopard was a CPU drop in CD on Partition#2   Only gave it a little room
waiting on patch for snow leopard or some answers.... can't wait any longer
There isn't enough free space on Leopard (#2) to add what I need to add to get up and going
wanting to erase both partitions and start fresh.
I also have a MacB Pro that I can put files on.. but here is my dilema.. The Carbonite files are old, but in tact. The external HD (Maxtor 750) MIGHT be scrambled because I didn't know to partition it.
All I ever wanted to do was have my calendar and my contacts sync... This has cost me a fortune in time..
2 mac computers (iMac, MBP)
2 ipad 2s
2 iphone 4s
iMad
What is the best way to reformat the HD?
What would you do?
Do you think the external BU drive is one big mess with SL and Leopard both on there? I unplugged it from all computers so it didn't mess anything up..
At this point, I am so frustrated I don't care if I ever get any files back on the imac.. I do need to see if I can save my years and years of my business Quickbook files from the snow leopard side...if not. Good lesson learned. (Actually BAD lesson..)
thank you,
Helen

I would back-up everything on another external HD with a full version of SuperDuper! or Carbon Copy Cloner. I personally prefer SuperDuper!. I have several complete backups done on more than one external HD. These days Extra HD prices are quite cheap compared to loosing all your material and time. Then, if you really want to start fresh, Disk Utility works fine for me every time. I do go into the Options and zero out the drive completely. However, before "wiping out" your drive, I assume that you are fully upgraded in Leopard including all firmware and security updates. I actually go read about any update before I install it to make sure I really need it.
Over the year I only had one internal HD fail on me but I backed up everything beforehand and my other ones are also backed up. In my opinion there is no such thing as overkill since my time and documents are precious. In the past I made one big mistake not backing up anything and lost between 3 and 5 years of stuff. It will not happen again. Back-up, back-up and back-up.
I'm currently runing Tiger, Leopard, Snow Leopard and Lion on different drives for different uses and different Macs. Tiger has always seemed to be the most stable for now but I'm slowly adjusting to Snow Leopard and Lion will most likely follow.
I'm not sure how to solve you "sync" issue since I'm in the process of trying to figure out the same thing trying to backup all content from Entourage 2008 within an old G4 PPC.
Anyway, there must be a solution somewhere online for you and I hope you find it. It may help me too! ;-)

What's the best way to erase a hard drive?

I just switched all my "stuff" to my new Macbook and I want to erase everything off my old G4. Never done it before. Nervous. What's the best way?

Boot to an Install CD.
Run Disk Utility (X) or Drive Setup (9).
Initialize the hard drive with the Write Zeroes or Zero all data option.
It takes a long time, do not plan on doing anything for a few hours.
-- your disk is now completely blank --
Install any version of Mac OS, such as the one on the Installer CD. This allows the new recipient to see that your Mac still works, so it should not be immediately crushed.
Unless you have nuclear secrets on it, there is no need for 7x or 35x overwriting. After the Write Zeroes pass, your data is only recoverable to those who wish to disassemble it in a clean room with expensive special equipment.
For the extremely paranoid, there is always the "Hammer method":
Remove the hard drive.
Beat it to death with a hammer.
Remove the platters and use them to make a wind chime.
(Once opened, a Hard drive has a short time before the heads will crash and ruin some of the data, and possibly the heads themselves.)
Deleting all the files, which takes only a minute or two, only clears the Directory. It does not write over the data blocks. Simple programs like Norton Utilities can get the files back.

What is the best way to manage my hard drive?

Background - I have a 13" MacBook Pro with 250GB hard drive and recently I have had to delete or migrate files to external HDs to gain space. I spent last night doing just that. I also have two EHDs - a 2TB My Passport and a 3TB Seagate GoFlex Home WiFi capable. I do my backups to the SeaGate using Time Machine. My issue is that I currently only have about 38 GB available on the hard drive after making the moves last night.
I'll call this what it is - an ugly baby. In order to make room, I moved files to one or both EHDs so now I have multiple copies of my stuff but no organization. So a couple of questions...
1. How can I effectively and efficiently get my internal hard drive down to only about 100GB be used? What I would like to do is reduce the files and folders on my mac to the pictures and basic document files in my documents folder. I think I can do this by moving all music to an EHD which would free up more than 100GB on my macbook. I just am not sure how to do this and not affect my iPhone's iTunes etc.
2. I want to back up my info to a cloud, specifically pictures and important docs... I would be introducing a third way to get disorganized. What do I need to do to stay ahead of the curve.
Thanks in advance...

Upgrade your MBP's internal boot drive to something larger, 250GB just doesn't cut it.
A 2010 machine, I wouldn't bother with the expense of a SSD, a 7,200 750GB or 1TB should do nicely and you can install it yourself or have a local geek do it.
You might as well max the RAM too, if your in AppleCare it won't violate it as long as nothing is broken.
Carbon Copy Cloner is the preferred method to clone your entire OS X + Recovery HD partition (no BootCamp, use WinClone 3 for that) to a external GUID OS X ext J drive, hold the option key and boot from the clone, then reverse clone onto the new internal drive.
OtherWorld computing, MacMall and Crucial.com are recommended for compatibility, videos and what not.
Install/upgrade RAM or storage drive in Mac's
don't forget to clean the cooling fins behind the fans, they get clogged with dust and overheat the machine.

Best way to repartition external hard drive to give Time Machine more space

I have my external 2 TB hard drive segmented into 2 equal 1 TB partitions. The first partition is my time machine back-ups. The second is media files.
I also have approx 500GB of storage left on my 1 TB internal Mac HD. I keep receiving an error message that Time Machine cannot complete because it needs more file size. I have 185 GB available and it needs 225 GB.
I realize TM needs additional space to process back-ups; but what is my best option for re-partitioning my external HD since my first partition is used for TM? Or can I make TM work without repartitioning? Any suggestions?

Debonya1 wrote:
I have my external 2 TB hard drive segmented into 2 equal 1 TB partitions. The first partition is my time machine back-ups. The second is media files.
I also have approx 500GB of storage left on my 1 TB internal Mac HD. I keep receiving an error message that Time Machine cannot complete because it needs more file size. I have 185 GB available and it needs 225 GB.
See the pink box in #C4 of [Time Machine - Troubleshooting|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/Troubleshooting.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).
It sounds like there ought to be room on the TM partition, though. Are you sure there's nothing else there, besides the backups for that Mac? See #A1 in Troubleshooting for a handy widget that will display the backup messages from your logs. Navigate to the first time it failed, copy and post them here.
Repartitioning will be tricky. How much stuff is on the second partition? It's possible you can split it, copy the data from it to the new partition, then delete the second one and expand the TM partition into the empty space. See #4 in [Formatting, Partitioning, Verifying, and Repairing Disks|http://web.me.com/pondini/AppleTips/DU.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of the +Using Snow Leopard+ forum).

Best way to access external hard drives wirelessly using AX?

I have an iBook G4 with an airport card and an iMac G3 with a D-link USB wireless adapter. Both work very well with my AX in networking, printing, using airtunes and accessing the internet. I can even see my external hard drive when it's plugged into either machine and mount that drive to the other computer over the network--however the file transfer is extremely slow of course.
Here's what I'd like to do: I plan on getting another external hard drive and would like to be able to connect both computers to either drive wirelessly with good file transfer/access. From what I understand both Linksys and D-link make network storage devices that allow you to do this, but I'm wondering if I then also need a wireless bridge for the iMac?
Can someone give me a run down as to how this all works and what the easiest way to go about doing this is?
Thanks!

These will allow you to do what you want to do.
Wireless-G Media Storage Link Router with SpeedBooster
All-in-one Internet-sharing Router, Access Point, and Network Storage Link! this is an all-in-one device.
Buffalo Technology Link Station though this will also need an ethernet wireless bridge as well as would this Netgear Storage Device.
This D-Link wireless storage device seems to meet your needs specifically. With this device you still need a wireless router such as the AX.

Best way to add external hard drives

Hi all! I have a fairly old iMac (2008). It only has 3 USB ports on the back. One is being used by my keyboard/mouse. One is plugged directly into an external hard drive. And the third is everything else... my digital camera cable, my printer, etc. I recently bought another external hard drive. I have found that when I use it through my hub, it's extremely slow. So... is that just a hub drawback? Or is there a better hub out there? I guess my question is... is there a way to expand the number of USB ports I have without having it be super slow? Thanks.
Julie

Disk drives should not be used in hubs. If you want to connect more than one then buy drives that can be properly daisy-chained and have separate power units because USB ports may not have sufficient power for more than one or two drives.

Best ways to use new hard drives?

I got some really useful answers on this forum when I was trying to recover from a hard disk crash. Thanks to all who helped. Now, I have a few more questions.
On the recommendation of the service technician at the Apple
store, I went on line and bought a Seagate 250 GB
internal drive, and installed it in my G4, only to
discover that it can only recognize 128 GB. Oh, well, it was pretty cheap.
Once I got the system rebuilt and running OK, I went
to work on the CD burner. It turned out to be broken,
and the manufacturer, La Cie, recommended I just
purchase an internal CD/DVD burner, and install it in
the old case. After thinking about that for awhile, I
thought, why don't I just buy another internal hard
drive, and install that in the CD case? that way ,
I'd have an external firewire drive to use for backup, instead of burning CDs. which is a pain. So, I found a 160 GB Seagate drive, even
cheaper than the 250, and bought that. I should have
checked to see whether the old hard drive would fit in
the CD case, but, of course, I didn't. Turns out the
3.5 inch internal hard drive is much smaller than the
CD drive, I think the electronics would work OK, but
I don't have a good way to secure the disk drive in
the larger case. So, now I have 2 internal hard
drives in my Mac, one a 250 GB which my Mac thinks is
128 GB, and the other a 160 GB, which the Mac also
thinks is 128 GB!
My questions:
1. Would the electronics in the CD/DVD case work with the ATA drive?
2. Anyone know of a good work-around to secure the drive in the larger case?
3. If I keep both drives in the Mac. Can I make the slave drive bootable? How?
4. If I should get a good answer to #1 and #2, or choose to buy a new hard drive enclosure, how do I go about cloning the contents of the master drive to the slave, so that I can use the larger drive as my external drive without having to repeat the painful process of building my system from scratch?
5. I think I remember seeing reference to a software solution to the 128 GB limit. Is that correct? What are the drawbacks? do I have to reformat the drives?
Thanks.
Powermac G4 Mac OS X (10.3.9) 1.4 GHz, 896MB SDRam

Hi, Dave!
I don't know for sure whether the drive will work in the FW case that held the optival drive. Why don't you temporarily connect it and check?
If you install the drive internally and put an operating system on it, it will boot regardless of whether it's configured as Master or as Slave. You could have an operating system on both drives if you cared to. You'd be able to boot from either of them (which is determined by - and may be changed in - the Startup Disk pane of System Preferences from a booted system, the menubar of the install disk, or the Startup Manager (invoked when the option key is held down at startup).
You can use the Restore option in Disk Utility to clone your startup volume to a volume on another drive. Better yet, try SuperDuper or CarbonCopyCloner, which are faster. Cloning will make a bootable duplicate of the startup volume you can use just like the original, without having to reinstall anything.
The software solution you're referring to is Intech's ATA Hi-Cap Support Driver. Read the info at the site; there are some restrictions on how you need to set up the drives for it to work properly. If you instead buy an ATA-133 PCI controller card ($60-$80), you won't have the restrictions and will have a faster drive bus to operate with, taking advantage of the speed of the ATA-100 or ATA-133 drives you have, while allowing you to use the native logic board bus to add an additional (<120GB) drive.
In any event, in order to realize the full capacity of the drives, you'll need to reformat them from the 128GB they're currently formatted to.
Gary

Best way to defragment my hard drive?... XD

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