External hard drive FW800 diagnostics

I've got a Lacie d2 Big Disk Extreme 500gb external hard drive hooked up to my Power Mac g5 dual 2.7. I've erased the contents and reinitialized it back to zero. My question is: does anyone know of a good diagnostic application, besides Disk Utility, Disk Warrior, TechTools and Apple Hardware test, that I can use to run the drive through a series of diagnostic tests. I guess I need something along the lines of tech tools(I'll never use another Micromat product again after it made my internal HD go down) that can check the disk speed and other specs. The drive had crapped out before and I used Disk Warrior to recover files before I erased and reinitialized and everything appears to be OK but there I want a program that will run it through a series of tests to be sure because my warranty is about to run out.
Thanks
g5 dual 2.7 Mac OS X (10.4.4) 4.5 GB RAM, ATI Radeon 9650

I've lost over 5 of these drives over the last 2 years. One of them with no warning whatsoever. They are really, really scarey. Everyone I know who had used them has eventually thrown them in the trash.
-s

Similar Messages

Can a computer crash disable (break) an external hard drive?

Can a computer crash disable (break) an external hard drive (FW800)?
My mac pro started to see programs crash. First one, that wouldn't 'force quit', then a minute later a second. This had happened before last year, so i started quitting apps to restart. At the end, half of them i succeeded to quit and about 4 wouldn't quit. The finder was frozen/crashed, no dock or apple menu or any menu for that matter. The mouse moved. i could shortcut 'force quit' and 'return' on default OKs.
So i powerbuttoned down. On rebooting, the volumes on the Mercury Elite* unit in question didn't mount. I looked for them with disk utility but nothing. So i then examined the unit. A soft clicking noise was emanating and the power adapter was HOT!
The two drives are now in the mac pro internally and are working fine. But before i took them out, i tested the pins on the power adapter with a voltmeter, according to the schematic on the adapter itself and i got 5,5v on the one side and 13 odd v on the other. Apparently what's supposed to be coming out. (5v and 12v)
Can a powerbutton shutdown shoot electricity through the FireWIre bus? Any ideas?
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/MEFW924AL2K/

Can a computer crash disable (break) an external hard drive (FW800)?
No, but it could damage files or the directory structure, so the drive wouldn't mount. Disk Utility should be able to fix it by erasing or partitioning, but you would lose the data on the drive.
My mac pro started to see programs crash. First one, that wouldn't 'force quit', then a minute later a second. This had happened before last year, so i started quitting apps to restart. At the end, half of them i succeeded to quit and about 4 wouldn't quit. The finder was frozen/crashed, no dock or apple menu or any menu for that matter. The mouse moved. i could shortcut 'force quit' and 'return' on default OKs.
You may have bad RAM, or other hardware problems. Have you run the extended Apple Hardware Tests. Boot from the install DVD while pressing "D". Try removing any non-Apple RAM modules.
I tested the pins on the power adapter with a voltmeter, according to the schematic on the adapter itself and i got 5.5 V on the one side and 13 odd V on the other. Apparently what's supposed to be coming out. (5 V and 12 V)
Some power supplies will put out more than the rated voltage if there is nothing attached, but 5.5 V and 13 V are not high enough to cause damage, anyway.
Can a powerbutton shutdown shoot electricity through the FireWIre bus?
No.

Which one external hard drive is better for my G5's FW800 port?

Hi,
I use a late G5 under 10.4.11. Last two weeks I used two different Western Digital disks, My Book Studio & My Book Studio Edition II but both of them don't operate well with the FW 800. They conflict with my audio interfaces (FW 400 devices). Only at FW 800. At FW 400 and Usb 2.0 they operate fine.
Because of this I have to replace the WD disk and unfortunatelly I have two options from the store I bought it. And here is that I want your help please.
Which one external hard drive from these two is better for my G5's FW800 port?
Lacie Quadra 1TB External HDD by Neil Poulton or Verbatim Quad Interface External Hard Drive 1TB. Formatted HFS+ for Mac OS?
I'll very appreciate any answer. Spyros

Hi-
I think that looking at your other devices is needed.
Check out the Mackie troubleshooting guide for one:
http://www.mackie.com/support/documents/TechFAQno.1.pdf
Page 8 has specific suggestions regarding firewire and chipsets.
The same for the Presonus:
The firewire ports on a Mac (FW400 and FW800) run off the main logic board and share system resources. PreSonus interfaces are designed to be run in series with other firewire peripherals. If you are experiencing erratic performance or pops, clicks, and dropouts, daisy-chain your FW400 peripheral from the secondary firewire port on your PreSonus interface. If you must use a FW800 device, it is recommended to purchase a firewire expansion card for your Mac.
http://support.presonus.com/entries/119100-optimizing-your-computer-for-audio-ma c-osx
It appears to me that both devices require enough resources that the firewire controller of the G5 may be unable to properly support both FW400 and FW800 transfer rates.
It appears that the bandwidth requirements of the devices are forcing the machine to drop FW800 in lieu of supporting FW400.
Both makers suggest use of third party PCI cards for Firewire 800, and it may be that you need additional power to the firewire card to keep up with the I/O and bandwidth demands being placed on the machines by you audio devices.
You mention that someone told you to not use the Oxford chipset, but the best external drives are all those that have the Oxford chipset.
It is important to note that not all WD MyBook drives have the same chipset, and few of the WD drives have the Oxford chipset.
Asrock and VIA are other chipsets for the WD drives.
VIA is notoriously poor as far as Mac compatibility goes.

External Hard Drive Strategy

I have a desktop external hard drive for "regular" backing up. But I am awaiting arrival today of a new little portable from OWC that I ordered to carry around with me: their 100GB 7200RPM FW800/400/USB 2.0.
What would be the ideal strategy for using this drive with my 17" MacBookPRO? I am thinking of it as an "emergency boot drive" for potential diagnostics. I do not care to boot to Windows or any other operating system - well, Linux is intriguing...
How would you like to see this drive set up?
Many thanks.
Clint Bradford
17" MacBook Pro Matte 2GB 09/2006 Mac OS X (10.4.9)

Except normally it (Super Duper) erases the whole thing each time so he would have to partition it to backup with Super Duper only to an appropriate partition. The other problem with just using Super Duper to clone is this - if you have issues with your installation and clone it and then have further issues you have a dodgy clone to restore from and a dodgy operating system to restore to.
Advice with 120 GB: Three partitions - Super Duper - just big enough to clone to; OSX, just enough for an install of the OS; and Data for the rest.
Use Super Duper to clone the source occasionally to the Super Duper partition.
Install OSX on the 2nd partition and delete everything but OSX to save size and install Diskwarrior on that partition as well. This will be a diagnostic drive you install nothing - no apps, no haxies no nothing. You boot from it on occasion and update with OSX and security updates but no iLife, no nothing else. It can be very small.
Data goes on the 3rd if there is any room left.
When trouble is afoot and the clone copy may be as whacked as the source drive, boot from the OSX partition to fix and diagnose.
Frankly for the cost of these drives (they do not have to be tiny OWC drives -there are lots of FW drives with lots of room for $100 and up) I suggest more than one- I have an older Promax drive that is just Super Duper for my MacBook Pro. Another Super Duper partition in in each of my G4 and G5 internal drive sets.
I have a LaCie Pocketdrive with OSX for Power PC to boot the G4 and G5 for Diskwarrior and diagnostics. And one for OSX for Intel. My dealer has as well for the same reason. There is a way to meticulously install OSX for PPC and OSX for Intel on one drive on two partitions but it was easier to use 2 drives.
Finally I have a Lacie 8GB USB drive to store the Windows XP HDD image that Parallels creates prior to running Parallels Compressor.
This is on top of 2.5TB of actual backup drives. Drives are cheap , data is often irreplaceable.

External Hard Drives... advice needed

Not sure this is the correct forum category to be posting in... so apologies to admin et all if it’s in the wrong place.
I’m about to do some online shopping for an external hard drive to back up my pics, music, important info etc. on my eMac (OS X 10.4 and am looking for some feedback from external hard drive users.
I’m looking for something with around 80 or 100GB capacity, probably Firewire (I’m told this is quicker than USB), and probably mobile.
The people at my local Apple store in the UK have pointed me in the direction of LaCie products. I’ve had a look at their website and they seem to have all the things I need. They do seem a little pricey though so I’m looking for some feedback from any LaCie product users about whether they are worth the wee bit of extra money.
Any other recommendations from anybody of other products worth looking at?
Oh, and a belated Happy New Year to all!

Gordiewell
I have some recent experience on external dirves & received help here:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=301714&tstart=150
My summary:
Get a firewire drive - A Mac can boot from it but not USB
Make bootable backups (clones) of your system disk (instant access to all data & all your settings in the event of a major problem)
Although Apple's Disk Utility can create a bootable volume under 10.4 it requires you to boot from either the install disk or a different volume from the one being copied (ie 3 volumes are needed one to run DU from, one to be copied (generally your internal system disk) and the third to be copied to (your external fw disk). This is a pain.
SuperDuper! will do all this & more without the need to boot from a CD/DVD.
A couple of other thoughts:
I purchased a generic ex FW (also has USB2 connection which I don't need) box & fitted a Western Digital WD3200JB (320GB IDE) drive. Works fine (now, after a bit of experimentation as per the topice quoted above)
Get a BIG drive - the extra GB don't cost a lot extra.
If speed is an issue you could consider FW800. My 30GB takes he best part of 2 hours to clone on FW400.
Regards
John

I would like to connect an external hard drive to my time machine and use it as a network drive to store itunes and iPhoto how do i do this

I have just purchased a new my book hard drive and would like to connect it to my time capsule and store my itunes and iphoto contentent there to free up space on my internal hard drive . Can this be done and what is the process?

I'd like to store my Aperture /IMovie Libraries on an external hard drive.
That is fine and recommended.. use the fastest disk you can afford.. ie Thunderbolt>USB3>FW800>USB2.
In addition, I'd like to partition the external hard drive so that Time Machine can use it to both back up my IMac and the external library drives.
Let me be clear.. you want to partition the one disk.. use it for TM and move your files to the external disk.. and then backup to the same disk.. You can do it.. but that is not a backup.. that is an experiment in how long you can get away with running files and backups on the same disk before you lose everything.. like Russian Roulette.. pull the trigger enough times and laws of probability will do you in.
You must have backups on a different disk .. otherwise it is pointless.
Can I set up a RAID 5 format for redundancy?
No.. you can buy special USB and Thunderbolt external drives that support RAID..
BUT that is still not a backup.. let me show why.. you make a silly move and corrupt your file in aperture.. it is not that rare.
Raid will corrupt all copies of the files.. it is replicated across all disks.
Delete a photo it is deleted across all disks.. you have no recovery.
Alway, always consider RAID system one disk.. backup onto another disk.. and if the photos or movies are at all important to you.. ie your family .. make another copy and store in a relatives house.. There is no such thing as too much redundancy.

I have an IMAC and I'm running OSX 10.9.2. I'd like to store my Aperture /IMovie Libraries to an external hard drive. In addition, I'd like to partition the external hard drive so that Time Machine can use it to both back up my IMac and the externa

I have an IMAC and I'm running OSX 10.9.2. I'd like to store my Aperture /IMovie Libraries on an external hard drive. In addition, I'd like to partition the external hard drive so that Time Machine can use it to both back up my IMac and the external library drives. Is this possible? Can I set up a RAID 5 format for redundancy?

I'd like to store my Aperture /IMovie Libraries on an external hard drive.
That is fine and recommended.. use the fastest disk you can afford.. ie Thunderbolt>USB3>FW800>USB2.
In addition, I'd like to partition the external hard drive so that Time Machine can use it to both back up my IMac and the external library drives.
Let me be clear.. you want to partition the one disk.. use it for TM and move your files to the external disk.. and then backup to the same disk.. You can do it.. but that is not a backup.. that is an experiment in how long you can get away with running files and backups on the same disk before you lose everything.. like Russian Roulette.. pull the trigger enough times and laws of probability will do you in.
You must have backups on a different disk .. otherwise it is pointless.
Can I set up a RAID 5 format for redundancy?
No.. you can buy special USB and Thunderbolt external drives that support RAID..
BUT that is still not a backup.. let me show why.. you make a silly move and corrupt your file in aperture.. it is not that rare.
Raid will corrupt all copies of the files.. it is replicated across all disks.
Delete a photo it is deleted across all disks.. you have no recovery.
Alway, always consider RAID system one disk.. backup onto another disk.. and if the photos or movies are at all important to you.. ie your family .. make another copy and store in a relatives house.. There is no such thing as too much redundancy.

Disk utility can't repair disk (1 partition) on external hard drive

I've search here some to try to find the answer to my scenario, but I really don't understand how Disk Utility got involved in my external hard drive to begin with, so here's my question.
I have a 2TB Western Digital My Book Studio FW800 external that has 5 partitions, connected to my 2011 iMac. I had help doing the partitions and don't really remember the reasoning, but one is just for my SuperDuper! backup, one is Miscellaneous, one for movie clips off my camcorder, one for misc scanned photo's and one for my genealogy research.
I back up using Time Machine to a Time Capsule and also to this WD hard drive with SuperDuper!
Recently I'm getting a pop up message that "Mac OS X can't repair the disk "Genealogy"'. And it needs to be reformatted. It's become a read only disk. When I look in Disk Utility it shows all the partitions as "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" EXCEPT for the one in question. I also noticed that there are a lot of files with "date created" being the same date in 1969! These files may be letters I've written or photo's I added to that partition within the last few years.
I think I have to completely reformat the entire external hard drive to repair this, but I want to make sure. Because it's going to be a major hassle backing it all up to another external (having to get one first) and then figuring out how to make the files that have turned "read only" in that one partition, back to their original state!
Does this sound right, that I have to reformat the entire external hard drive? And how do I get the read-only files back to their original state.
Thanks, Sandy

I don't back them up. There isn't much on them, besides the one I save video files too, but those are 2-3 min snippets of school events, that are just uploaded to youtube without any editing (like titles, fade ins, etc.) through iMovie. All those vid's are on original tapes I have.
The partition that is giving me problems, I do have most of that on my iMac's hard drive, just not as organized. I guess it's just seeming overwhelming to re-created those files into the same file structure on my iMac, but I think it could be done.
I'm still not sure why my brother had me do the partitions like this. In the past I had just two partitions, one for the back up and the other for random stuff that I didn't want to take up space on my iMac.

External Hard Drive not recognized.

Hello everyone,
I have a probem where my external hard drive is not being recognized by my late 2009 iMac.
The hard drive is an OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro connected to the firewire port.
It was working fine till this happenend:
I keep all of my iTuned music on the external hard drive.
I was using a meta tag fixer type program.
I dragged the files from itunes into this program (Tune Up) to fix the meta tags.
However, I missed the program and dragged thusands of .mp3 files onto my desktop.
My computer, of course, became unresponsive.
So I used the power button on the back of the iMac to shut it off.
I used my MacBookPro to connect to my iMac as a target drive, and deleted all the .mp3's from the desktop there.
Once I restarted my iMac everything was fine, except that the external hard drive has not been able to be recognised ever since.
The same drive shows up just fine on my MacBookPro.
Help!
Thanks!

I had the exact same problem! I had to force shut down my iMac (24in, Mid 2007) due to a system freeze. After restarting, everything was working fine, except for my external 1GB G-Drive, which was connected through FW800 port.
The drive connected fine to my MacBook Pro, but it would not be recognized by my iMac. I tried restarting, but neither Disk Utility, nor System profiler would see the drive.
What worked though, was Resetting the System Management Controller (SMC):
1.          Shut down the computer.
2.          Unplug the computer's power cord.
3.          Wait fifteen seconds.
4.          Attach the computer's power cord.
5.          Wait five seconds, then press the power button to turn on the computer.
The drive mounts fine now. I am surprised this is not mentioned by Apple in their support documents! It has happened twice to me and it was the only thing worked both times. The link for the resetting the SMC is here:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US
Hope this helps solve your problem too.

I/o device error when trying to use windows 7 backup to an external hard drive

I have a Windows 7 operating system. The computer was running very slowly so I used the systems diagnostics at startup and received short DST failed with a failure id of 6C2NXD-53Q713-XD002J-60RL03 for the hard disk test, the start up test, the
run-in test. Each test showed memory test passed and smart check passed. In researching the error it states that my hard drive is failing or perhaps some program is causing the error. I tried removing some programs I thought may be the issue.
Didn't work.
I have tried using the Windows 7 backup but the backup reached about 67% then states backup not completed i/o device error. I am trying to back up my files to a brand new Toshiba USB 3.0 & 2.0 external hard drive with 1.0 TB/To.
I have gone to start then computer and it shows the device. It also shows some files on it. The backup fails when it it trying to do a system image as far as I can tell by reading the progress details. The Toshiba device says that it is
working fine and is already formatted to NTFS.
What else should I check or do? My computer is also now popping up with a window telling me a backup is needed before the hard drive fails. It pops up with this message at the same time I am trying to do the backup (the backup is already processing).
Thank you

Hi,
Have you performed a disk check on your PC? More details, please check here:
How to Run Disk Check in Windows 7
Regarding the i/o device error, have you received any specific error IDs like
0x8007045D?
In addition, please also take a verify to see if the external disk is Advanced Format Disks(Some types may not compatible with Windows 7):
For example Run fsutil fsinfo ntfsinfo f:
to check the
bytes per physical sector
of the external disk drive.
More information, please see:
An update that improves the compatibility of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 with Advanced Format Disks is available
Hope this may help,
Best regards
Michael
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My external hard drive will no longer connect to my macpro......any ideas on how to solve this problem??

My external hard drive will no longer connect to my macbook pro via FW800........Any ideas on how to solve this??

Reset the SMC, see this Apple note: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964
Also reset the PRAM:
Shut down the computer.
Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command, Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.
Turn on the computer.
Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys. You must press this key combination before the gray screen appears.
Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
Release the keys.
In most cases, those two actions will fix the port issue. If it's still an issue, you may need to see if the external hard drive can connect to another system, to ensure it's not having problems.

External hard drive back up keeps disappearing

The external hard drive connected by USB 3.0 and it's own power supply disappears or won't mount after rebooting or powering on Mac Pro. I have to shut off the external hard drive and turn it back on to mount. It doesn't always do that. Just recent prior to latest Snow Leopard update and after.

Are you sure it is a USB3?
And what program? TM does have a lot of problems.
Switch to FW800 or invest in SATA native case and interface.
FWIW: 3GB is very low, minimal RAM
check out the TimeMachine forum and support, lots of threads and help. I think most of the people I know only use it as a supplement to other backup methods and clones.
Snow Leopard
http://www.apple.com/support/timemachine

External hard drive keeps disconnecting and then reconnecting

External hard drive on Time Machine, running via USB keeps disconnecting. Get the pop us that the drive wasn't disconnected properly. This Mac is brand new as is the hard drive. It is a Seagate 1T Free Agent.
After a minute or two it reconnects. I've run Seagate diagnostics and it says the drive is fine.
Any suggestions?

See #A1 in [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), for a handy widget that will display the backup messages from your logs.
See what that shows; there may be a problem with the backup, which results in TM ejecting the drive. If so, the disconnect may be a symptom, not a cause. If so, see #C2 there. If not, or if you're not sure, copy and post them here.
Also, to rule out other USB problems, disconnect everything but keyboard and mouse; connect the drive directly to your Mac (no hub).
Make sure all connections are snug and secure.
Try other ports, cables, and combinations of the two (a plug that works fine in one port may not make good contact in another one, and throw intermittent errors).

3 different external hard drives keep disconnecting every day -HELP

I have 3 external hard drives on my 2.7GHz Core i5 iMac. It's got 16 gigs of memory. One external drive is in a basic external case and 2 are exposed on my desk using an Adapter Converter Cable. I've never had this kind of problem with these hookups in the past. And it's completely random. They work for a day or 2 at most and then suddenly when I wake the machine 1-2 or all 3 have dropped out and I have to unplug and restart the drive. The internal drive has never done this - it has 2 partitions. It rarely happens WHEN I'm actually using the machine and it's never happened when the computer was reading or writing to the drive and caused any corruption that I know of.
It started when I first hooked them up right after I got the iMac and has been the same every day since. I can't remember if it happened with SnowLeopard or if it started when I installed Lion a day or two after I got the machine. I have not tried booting into Leopard to test that.
2 of the drives came from my old G5 and one is new - all Seagate
1T
1.5T
and 2T
Thank you for any help with this,
Jay

Jay,
No where did you mention how the EHD's are connected. Is it USB, Firewire, FW800 and if so are they connected directly to the back of the computer or via a hub. If they're USB are they bus powered or powered with external power? You need to be specific so we can begin helping.
If they're USB drives with external power and are connected directly to the back of the computer then try doing a SMC reset 2-3X.
SMC RESET
Shut down the computer.
Unplug the computer's power cord and all peripherals.
Press and hold the power button for 5 seconds.
Release the power button.
Attach the computers power cable.
Press the power button to turn on the computer.

How to move huge HD video files between external hard drives and defrag ext drive?

I have huge high definition video files on a 2TB external hard drive (and its clone). The external hard drive is maxed out. I would like to move many of the video files to a new 3TB external hard drive (G-drive, and a clone) and leave a sub-group of video files (1+ TB) on the original external hard drive (and its clone).
I am copying files from original external drive ("ext drive A") to new external drive ("ext drive B") via Carbon Copy Cloner (selecting iMovie event by event that I want to transfer). Just a note: I do not know how to partition or make bootable drives, I see suggestions with these steps in them.
My questions:
1.) I assume this transfer of files will create extreme fragmentation on drive A. Should I reformat/re-initialize ext drive A after moving the files I want? If so, how best to do this? Do I use "Erase" within Disk Utilities? Do I need to do anything else before transfering files back onto ext drive A from its clone?
2.) Do I also need to defrag if I reformat ext drive A? Do I defrag instead of or in addition to reformating? If so, how to do this? I've read on these forums so many warnings and heard too many stories of this going awry. Which 3rd party software to use?
Thank you in advance for any suggestions, tips, advice. This whole process makes me SO nervous.

Here is a very good writeup on de-fragging in the OS environment that I borrowed
From Klaus1:
Defragmentation in OS X:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1375 which states:
You probably won't need to optimize at all if you use Mac OS X. Here's why:
Hard disk capacity is generally much greater now than a few years ago. With more free space available, the file system doesn't need to fill up every "nook and cranny." Mac OS Extended formatting (HFS Plus) avoids reusing space from deleted files as much as possible, to avoid prematurely filling small areas of recently-freed space.
Mac OS X 10.2 and later includes delayed allocation for Mac OS X Extended-formatted volumes. This allows a number of small allocations to be combined into a single large allocation in one area of the disk.
Fragmentation was often caused by continually appending data to existing files, especially with resource forks. With faster hard drives and better caching, as well as the new application packaging format, many applications simply rewrite the entire file each time. Mac OS X 10.3 onwards can also automatically defragment such slow-growing files. This process is sometimes known as "Hot-File-Adaptive-Clustering."
Aggressive read-ahead and write-behind caching means that minor fragmentation has less effect on perceived system performance.
Whilst 'defragging' OS X is rarely necessary, Rod Hagen has produced this excellent analysis of the situation which is worth reading:
Most users, as long as they leave plenty of free space available , and don't work regularly in situations where very large files are written and rewritten, are unlikely to notice the effects of fragmentation on either their files or on the drives free space much.
As the drive fills the situations becomes progressively more significant, however.
Some people will tell you that "OSX defrags your files anyway". This is only partly true. It defrags files that are less than 20 MB in size. It doesn't defrag larger files and it doesn't defrag the free space on the drive. In fact the method it uses to defrag the smaller files actually increases the extent of free space fragmentation. Eventually, in fact, once the largest free space fragments are down to less than 20 MB (not uncommon on a drive that has , say only 10% free space left) it begins to give up trying to defrag altogether. Despite this, the system copes very well without defragging as long as you have plenty of room.
Again, this doesn't matter much when the drive is half empty or better, but it does when it gets fullish, and it does especially when it gets fullish if you are regularly dealing with large files , like video or serious audio stuff.
If you look through this discussion board you will see quite a few complaints from people who find that their drive gets "slow". Often you will see that say that "still have 10 or 20 gigs free" or the like. On modern large drives by this stage they are usually in fact down to the point where the internal defragmentation routines can no longer operate , where their drives are working like navvies to keep up with finding space for any larger files, together with room for "scratch files", virtual memory, directories etc etc etc. Such users are operating in a zone where they put a lot more stress on their drives as a result, often start complaining of increased "heat", etc etc. Most obviously, though, the computer slows down to a speed not much better than that of molasses. Eventually the directories and other related files may collapse altogether and they find themselves with a next to unrecoverable disk problems.
By this time, of course, defragging itself has already become just about impossible. The amount of work required to shift the data into contiguous blocks is immense, puts additional stress on the drive, takes forever, etc etc. The extent of fragmentation of free space at this stage can be simply staggering, and any large files you subsequently write are likely to be divided into many , many tens of thousands of fragments scattered across the drive. Not only this, but things like the "extents files", which record where all the bits are located, will begin to grow astronomically as a result, putting even more pressure on your already stressed drive, and increasing the risk of major failures.
Ultimately this adds up to a situation where you can identify maybe three "phases" of mac life when it comes to the need for defragmentation.
In the "first phase" (with your drive less than half full), it doesn't matter much at all - probably not enough to even make it worth doing.
In the "second phase" (between , say 50% free space and 20% free space remaining) it becomes progressively more useful, but , depending on the use you put your computer to you won't see much difference at the higher levels of free space unless you are serious video buff who needs to keep their drives operating as efficiently and fast as possible - chances are they will be using fast external drives over FW800 or eSata to compliment their internal HD anyway.
At the lower end though (when boot drives get down around the 20% mark on , say, a 250 or 500 Gig drive) I certainly begin to see an impact on performance and stability when working with large image files, mapping software, and the like, especially those which rely on the use of their own "scratch" files, and especially in situations where I am using multiple applications simultaneously, if I haven't defragmented the drive for a while. For me, defragmenting (I use iDefrag too - it is the only third party app I trust for this after seeing people with problems using TechToolPro and Drive Genius for such things) gives a substantial performance boost in this sort of situation and improves operational stability. I usually try to get in first these days and defrag more regularly (about once a month) when the drive is down to 30% free space or lower.
Between 20% and 10% free space is a bit of a "doubtful region". Most people will still be able to defrag successfully in this sort of area, though the time taken and the risks associated increase as the free space declines. My own advice to people in this sort of area is that they start choosing their new , bigger HD, because they obviously are going to need one very soon, and try to "clear the decks" so that they maintain that 20% free buffer until they do. Defragging regularly (perhaps even once a fortnight) will actually benefit them substantially during this "phase", but maybe doing so will lull them into a false sense of security and keep them from seriously recognising that they need to be moving to a bigger HD!
Once they are down to that last ten per cent of free space, though, they are treading on glass. Free space fragmentation at least will already be a serious issue on their computers but if they try to defrag with a utility without first making substantially more space available then they may find it runs into problems or is so slow that they give up half way through and do the damage themselves, especially if they are using one of the less "forgiving" utilities!
In this case I think the best way to proceed is to clone the internal drive to a larger external with SuperDuper, replace the internal drive with a larger one and then clone back to it. No-one down to the last ten percent of their drive really has enough room to move. Defragging it will certainly speed it up, and may even save them from major problems briefly, but we all know that before too long they are going to be in the same situation again. Better to deal with the matter properly and replace the drive with something more akin to their real needs once this point is reached. Heck, big HDs are as cheap as chips these days! It is mad to struggle on with sluggish performance, instability, and the possible risk of losing the lot, in such a situation.

External hard drive FW800 diagnostics

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