Hard drive and network performance

Can someone give me the intuitive, if not mathematic, side to where a hard drives performance becomes a bottleneck in network performance?
For example, say a given internal hard drive in a computer has a read/write of 40MB/s = 320Mbps. This is 1/3 the bandwidth of a gigabit ethernet cable, assuming everything works like it should.
So when you are downloading from your big RAID 5 file store on the gigabit network, to your local desktop (the hard drive that read/writes at 320Mbps), how do you ever utilize the full gigabit ethernet connection?
Just seems to me like the drive cache would be constantly full if you are downloading a large video file or such.
So what obvious thing am I missing?
Thanks

The simple answer is that you don't. At least not in this scenario.
As you've correctly surmised, the slower components are going to limit your throughput, but the disk speed is only one of several factors. Network latency, TCP/IP packet overhead and more will all contribute.
So you'll rarely get true gigabit throughput on file transfers. 300-400 mpbs on a gigabit ethernet connection is typical.
Where you can and do get more is on memory-based transfers - data in one systems's RAM (or cache) being copied to another system's RAM (or cache). That's why switches and routers can handle line-speed throughput - they get a packet on one interface and send it out another, never having to think about it again (oversimplified, of course).

Similar Messages

Can I keep photos on external hard drive and still use iPhoto?

I have virtually no space left on my eMac's 80GB hard drive. For a long time, I have kept my sizable iTunes library on an external hard drive connected to the eMac. It takes a bit of extra time to open up the iTunes library and to upload music from newly purchased CDs, but generally the external hard drive and eMac perform well together. My question is: Can I do the same with my photos (put them on the external hard drive) and still use iPhoto to access them and edit them? I have checked some of the Apple knowledge base documents, and there seem to be warnings against this. I am currently using iPhoto 6.0.6. I have purchased iPhoto 7.0 (with iLife '08) but haven't put the new software on the computer because there is not enough space. I would like to straighten out this space problem and get the benefits of the new software. (I have backed up quite a few of the photos onto CDs, but I like to have them handy--therefore on the eMac or on a hard drive connected to the eMac.) Thanks ahead to anyone with some good ideas on this topic.

winesmile
Yes it is, but you cannot access the at the same time as iPhoto can only open one library at a time.
So, a solution might be to have the entire library on the external, and to carry the smaller subset on the laptop.
To do this, follow the instructions above to move the library, but instead of deleting the library on the laptop (in the final step), put the pics from the earlier years into the iPhoto trash and empty it. (iPhoto Menu -> Empty Trash. Hint: Don't so them all at one go! Better a few a a time.)
Now you have the full library on the external (and if you want to access the full library, use that) and the 07 & 08 years on your laptop.
To switch between libraries, simply hold down the option (or alt) key when launching.
As you add photos to the Library you can use iPhoto Library Manager to move pics and albums /events between libraries, and so keep them up-to-date with each other.
Please note this is the only way to sync the libraries, there is no app that can do this automatically.
Regards
TD

I have just bought an iMac, and when I had my PC I had all my mp3 music on external hard drive and used to stream using software called ps3 server and tveristy which used to pick up on my Roberts radio via network wi fi hiw do I get iMac to do it

I have just bought an iMac, and when I had my PC I had all my mp3 music on external hard drive and used to stream using software called ps3 server and tveristy which used to pick up on my Roberts radio via network wi fii and on my iPad via AirPlay. How can I do the same with iMac as this software isn't compatible

To install apps from developers Apple doesn't recognize go to Security and Privacy in the System Preferences and change Allow apps downloaded from anywhere

I have both the 250 gb high performance hard drive and a 1 ter byte hard drive. What happens when the 250 gb hardrive is full?

I have both the 250 gb high performance hard drive and a 1 ter byte hard drive. What happens when the 250 gb hardrive is full? This on Imac desktop

Never let a drive get more than 80% to 85% full.
AND keep 50-100 GB of free space on a startup drive to allow proper function of virtual memory in all OS X versions from 10.5x to current versions.
10.4x can get by with 20 GB of free space on the boot drive, but more is always better.
I try and keep all boot drives between 50 and 60% of capacity.
Beyond 60% and up to 90% capacity, seek times increase almost exponentially; performance suffers.

Renewing a Late 2008 MacBook Pro: hard drive and battery substitution

Hi all,
I am an happy user of a late 2008 MacBook pro.
However, with the passing of time, it became slow and the battery also deteriorate (it still quite OK, but it is not like at the beginning).
But let's start from the beginning: the hard drive
By googling for a while, I noticed that several people experienced very slow performance of their late 2008 MacBook Pro. That is also my case. Apparently, this is due to the hard disk which is dying, and then I considering to change it. However, I haven't found answers to these questions:
- Is it possible to mirror all the containt of the current disk to the new one?
- I only have the original installation disks of the first Leopard. I made all the updates through the network. Moreover, since it passed lot of time, I am afraid that some sector of the installation disks may be damaged. This means that I may fail in the installation of Mac Os X on the new hard drive. If I have to reinstall everything from scratch with the new hard drive and without installation disks, how should I do?
- If I go a Mac Reseller shop, will do they perform this operation? And how much does it costs to make it? Or I may also go to some generic computer reparation guy?
- Is it convenient to save all the data (movies, documents, pictures, emails, etc) somewhere (e.g. external HD) and then perform a completely new installation?
Next, let's consider the battery.
Here is a screenshot taken with iStat Pro:
Do you think it is worth changing it? From System Profile I have those other info:
Full charge capacity (mAh):          3386
       Current (mA):          846
       Voltage (mV):          12029
Condition:          Replace soon
What do you suggest to do then? How much does it cost a new battery? Actually, I think that also the processor performance deteriorate (it often becomes very hot, especially when watching Flash or Silverlight stuff), but, unfortunately I cannot change it.

Hi!
Thanks for all the answer. Please let me to resume this old and interesting discussion.
After having evaluated several solutions (including NAS, different ways of backup, etc) I bought an external firewire HDD, since I believe it nicely fits my necessities. Next, after these holidays, I will finally replace my old HDD with a SSD one. I think 120 GB are ok. I just need the apps and small-sized documents (rather LaTeX, Matlab, word, pages or excel documents, etc. - no movies or mp3 (I have Spotify, for that) ). Large files (e.g. movies, pictures, etc) may end up in external firewire HDD.
Now, let's consider the OS. I currently have 10.6.8 and I am very satisfied of that. I find it very stable, and all the apps I need are still well supported. On the other hand, given that there are like 5 years that I have the same installation, I may have a lot of obsolete files and setting that I can safely remove. This means that once I will have performed a backup of my documents, my email, my pictures etc. I can safely throw away all the rest. Hence, I may perform a brand-new installation of the OS. Although I am happy with 10.6.8, I was wondering if it is worth to upgrade it (I have a 2.53 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo - 4 GB 1067 Mhz DDR3 RAM) to Lion, Mountain Lion or Mavricks. In that case, which would be the real benefits? And what about the cons?
Finally consider that I only have the Leopard installation disks from 2008 (not even Snow Leopard) and I will bring my laptop to a techician to change the HDD (I know, it is simple but I don't have all the screws etc. and I will not buy them only for this purpose). Once he will have replaced the HDD, will he re-install the OS also? Or I have to reinstall the OS through my original DVD (5 years old, I don't even know if they still work) and upgrade to Snow Leopard again by myself? I would exclude the carbon copy solution since I may want to throw away a lot of garbage and perform a brand new instalation of the OS. How to proceed? Thanks again!

My 2009 MacBook Pro keeps restarting even after I wiped the hard drive and reinstalled OSX.

About a month ago, my laptop started to randomly turn off: I would be using either Chrome, Photoshop (the free CS2 version available from Adobe's website) or Powerpoint, and the screen would go blank. I would then have to hold the power button for a while until the little light at the front of the computer would flicker and it would restart. I brought it to the Mac Store where they tested it and said it looked fine. They suggested I erase my hard drive and reinstall OSX as a precaution.
Fast forward a month, I have been very busy with work and hadn't been able to fix this problem. It wasn't that bad, only once every couple of days, sometimes more, sometimes less, I could work despite this problem.
Then, I installed OSX Mavericks. The installation started in the morning, but, like an idiot, I paused it to go to work. Later on, I completed the installation, it looked fine, but then all day long my laptop would suddenly restart and go to a grey screen that said in multiple languages "Your laptop restarted because of a problem, press any button to continue the restart." A computer technician friend of mine checked it out and said it was probably due to the badly installed OSX and suggested that I erase my hard drive and reinstall OSX.
I backed up all my files, erased the hard drive and reinstalled OSX. Everything looked fine.
Then it happened again.
Any ideas of why this is happening?

Please read this whole message before doing anything.
This procedure is a diagnostic test. It’s unlikely to solve your problem. Don’t be disappointed when you find that nothing has changed after you complete it.
The purpose of the test is to determine whether the problem is caused by third-party software that loads automatically at startup or login, by a peripheral device, by a font conflict, or by corruption of the file system or of certain system caches.
Disconnect all wired peripherals except those needed for the test, and remove all aftermarket expansion cards, if applicable. Start up in safe mode and log in to the account with the problem. You must hold down the shift key twice: once when you turn on the computer, and again when you log in.
Note: If FileVault is enabled, or if a firmware password is set, or if the startup volume is a Fusion Drive or a software RAID, you can’t do this. Ask for further instructions.
Safe mode is much slower to start up and run than normal, with limited graphics performance, and some things won’t work at all, including sound output and Wi-Fi on certain models. The next normal startup may also be somewhat slow.
The login screen appears even if you usually login automatically. You must know your login password in order to log in. If you’ve forgotten the password, you will need to reset it before you begin.
Test while in safe mode. Same problem?
After testing, restart as usual (not in safe mode) and verify that you still have the problem. Post the results of the test.

Can I put my library on an external hard drive and use it between two computers?

Can I put my library on an external hard drive and use it between two computers? I have two MBP; I will refer to one as computer A and to the other as computer B. I would like to be able to plug in my external hard drive, boot up iTunes, and if there were any changes made to the library previous to its last time accessed on this compluter, they show up on that computer, regardless of being imported on the other.
A hypothetical example: I import three albums called 1, 2, and 3 on computer A over a week or so. I take the external hard drive and plug it into computer B. The entire library which was visible on A, is visible on B, including albums 1, 2, and 3.
Is this possible? If so, what files need to be copied onto the external? I'm trying some different combinations, trial and error basically. Hopefully someone knows and can answer before I mess up my library. I also want to do this to free up space on my computer. All importing will be done from disc.

iTunes/Preferences/Advanced : point your iTunes to the new location of the Library.
Set "Share on local network" in the Sharing tab, and you or everyone on the local network can play your music.
You make a backup first of the Library.
Move the follwing to the new location:
/Users/your username/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music
have fun.

External Hard Drive and Back Ups..

I've been searching the net and getting myself more confused with each website I find. Since I've had great luck with the folks on these forums I figured that I'd try my luck again...here goes...
I thought backing up my MacBook Pro would be easy...get and external drive one half the size of my current hard drive and let Time Machine do the rest. But then I got all twisted trying to decide between external drives, online back up services, etc.
1. Some folks recommend taking video, photo, iTunes files, etc. and keeping them EXCLUSIVELY on an external drive just to keep the computer from running slowly. Problem is...if I do that...there's only ONE copy of those files. Drive fails...bye bye.
2. And what about the system itself? If my comp goes down and I have to reboot the whole system or a new computer...does the external have my system files on it? Some folks recommend having a clone drive all by itself?
3. HOW MANY DRIVES AM I SUPPOSED TO HAVE?!?
Basically I'm a paramedic and emergency services educator and I'm always on the move. I also work overseas a lot and am always downloading medical videos, podcasts, photos, e-books, etc. for educational purposes. I don't want my computer to get slow but I have to make sure every thing is copied...one original...and one copy.
Sorry if I sound like I'm technologically illiterate but I could really use a hand here. The more I look...the more confused I get.
Thanks in advance for you time fellas...
-John-

There are many philosophies on backing up, and you will get many opinions.
For safety, it is good to have at least 2 separate drives for backup, so that you have your information on more than one drive. One of these drives could be a portable drive that goes with you everywhere. The other could be a large desktop drive that stays home when you travel, or it could be a second portable drive. I travel a lot myself, and what I have is two portable firewire drives. One goes everywhere with me, and the other stays at home in a fire proof safe. This is so that if the worst happens and my Mac and external drive are stolen or destroyed, most of my data will be safe at home. So if it it feasible, it would be good to have one complete copy of your stuff in a separate location so it would always be safe.
What might be simplest would be for you to have a large enough internal drive to accommodate all your stuff if possible. You will need to keep 15% to 20% of your internal drive free for optimum performance of the OS. As long as you do that, you should not experience the slowness that comes when a drive is too full.
If you want to create a bootable clone for a backup, you will need an external drive--or a partition of an external drive--that is the same size as your internal drive. If you want to have a Time Machine backup, you will need an external drive--or a partition-- that is much larger than your internal drive. I'm not sure that a Time Machine backup would be the best thing for you to have. For one thing, it it's not bootable.
If all your stuff will not fit on your internal drive, then you will need a drive--or a partition of a drive--that is dedicated to that data.
I would recommend that you look at these two cloning utilities:
http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html
http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html
You can download either one and run it as much as you like for free. If you want to unlock Super Duper's more useful features such as Smart Update, you can register a copy for $28. CCC is donation ware.
I use Super Duper myself, so I can say that it is very easy to use. I am not as familiar with CCC, but I have heard good things about it.
What I would recommend is 2 external FireWire drives, each larger than your internal drive. A good source would be OWC, where you can select a bare drive and put it in OWC's excellent Mercury on the Go FireWire 800 enclosure. USB would work, but FireWire 800 would be much faster.
You can partition these drives. One partition on each would be the same size as your internal drive, and this partition would be used to create a bootable clone of your internal drive. That means that if your internal drive were to die, you would be able to boot from the external and keep on working. You would of course keep both of these external clones as up to date as possible.
The second partition would be for any data that would not fit on your internal drive--say if you find your internal drive is getting too full, and you need to move some videos off onto the external to create more space on the internal. If you did that, you could clone the second partition of that drive to the second partition of your other external drive, so that you would have 2 copies, one on each external drive.
It's hard to give complete advice not knowing the size of your internal drive or about how many GB's of videos and stuff that you need. If there is going to be a huge amount of videos, you may need separate drives for them rather than partitions.
Hope this will help. If you could post back with the size of your internal drive and the approximate size of your videos etc, it would be easier to make specific recommendations.
Good luck!

What is the Best way to set up Photoshop on a new PC with multiple Hard drives and SSD?

Hi hope someone can help.
I am considering buying a new PC (see below). We want to run both Photoshop and Lightroom on the PC. We will also be using it as a Media centre – that’s why I have two big hard drives.
I would like to know the best way to install both Photoshop and Lightroom on the storage devices. As you can see I will have two 3TB hard drives and one 250G SSD card.
For Photoshop I have read that it can be advantages to have the program on one drive the photos on another drive and the “scratch file’ on a third drive. It was even suggested that the PCs Operating system could be on a different drive than the program. Is this correct and if
so what is best to go on the SSD card? I will be partitioning the Hard Drives and I could even partition the SSD drive if that could help. In this case what size partitions are recommended?
If you can see a component below that you think would be an issue with running Photoshop and Lightroom, could you also let me know what you would recommend?
CPU: Intel Core i7-4790 CPU. LGA1150
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z97M Micro-ATX Motherboard LGA1150
RAM: TWO (2) x Kingston 8GB DDR3 1600Mhz Desktop Memory
HDD: TWO (2) x Seagate Barracuda 3TB 3.5" 7200RPM 64 MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s
SSD: Samsung 850 EVO 250GB Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
Graphics card: Leadtek nVidia Quadro K2200 4GB Graphic Card
Optical drive: LG Blu-Ray Combo Drive. BH16NS40
Power supply unit: Cooler Master V750S ATX Power Supply 750W, 80Plus Gold Certified
Case: Cooler Master Centurion 6Mid Tower Case
Operating system: Microsoft Windows 8.1 Pro 64-bit
Wireless / WiFi: TP-Link TL-WDN4800 900Mbps Wireless-N Dual Band PCI-E Adapter
BTW I would have liked to email this to Adobe support but could not find an email address to send it to. I hope this way works.

That's a nice system Kevin, and it will work very nicely with Photoshop. I do take it that you have 16Gb RAM in Total?
250Gb SSD is a good size, but you can still run short, and that will affect Windows performance. When you get your system, instal WinDirStat which gives you a graphic display of everything on your drive, like below. Clicking on any of the large areas will tell you what and where they are, so you can think about moving cache folders etc. to one of the HDDs.
Leave the Pagefile.sys on the boot drive. Think about disabling Hyphenate as it takes a ton of space, and too often crashes on wake up.
My Documents
Desktop
Downloads
Look at Bridge cache
iTunes backup
Other stuff like that.
Think about another 500Gb drive just for Photoshop Scratch. Drives are cheap as chips nowadays
Do yourself a favour, and invest $100 in Shadow Protect (or similar if there is such a thing) SP saves incremental backups every 15 minutes (you can set the interval, but it has no impact on performance with a system like yours). If you have a problem you can mount the back up at any of those 15 minute points, and open files from it. You can also make a bootable DVD image of your C drive, and be back up and running five minutes after disaster strikes.
Optimize Performance in Photoshop
Photoshop CC and CC 2014 GPU FAQ
For more ideas, swing by the Premiere Pro Hardware forum. Those guys are serious good at this stuff, and you'll find links tips and ideas.
Happy computing, and have fun with your Creative Cloud® apps.

Move PC iTunes library to external hard drive and consolidate with iMac

Hi, I have a PC that I'm not using much. I have a ton of iTunes music files on it so I went through the process of copying these files to my networked external hard drive. I have my iMac connected wirelessly to this same hard drive. I went into the System Preferences on the iMac to tell it where it could find the new library and I pointed it to the iTunes folder but there is not an iTunes Media folder like many of the articles state, like this one: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1449
Do I need to create an iTunes Media folder? Note this is an iTunes Library that was on a PC, moved to a networked external hard drive and will be used on my new iMac.
Thanks.

kneedragger101 wrote:
Note this is an iTunes Library that was on a PC
you might want to read these articles: one and two.
why not move your media files using _*Home Sharing*_ ?

Hard drive and FCP question

I got lots of short questions and a semi bigger one.
I plan on editing HD and standard definition video with my iMac using FCP. My hard drive is 130 gig and I need a bigger one. My current fire wire ports on my iMac are both 400mb/sec and that is too slow for HD and I was told I cannot get that upgraded. The guy at an apple store told me iMac's use lap top hard drives and there is no big improvement from my current 130 gig.
I looked my hard drive up and I believe it is actually a desktop hard drive if I'm not mistaken. The model number is ST3160812AS. So does that mean I can get a desk top hard drive upgrade? If so I was looking at the Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000 750g 7200 rpm. Is that a good choice?
How do you upgrade to a new hard drive anyway? Who installs it? Me or can I get a professional to do it for me for a small fee? How do I get all the current data on my hard drive on to the new one?
Where I usually do most of my editing the computers have two hard drives. One to hold the footage and transfer the data to the other one which is actually doing the editing. My film teacher says this is the best thing to do, but obviously I can't do that since two hard drives in my iMac is out of the question and I can't get a fire wire port fast enough to support a hard drive that isn't just for storage. Can that hard drive I was looking at handle doing the two processes on its own? Do I have any other options?
Thanks in advanced.

J D McIninch wrote:
\- The bitrate for HDV high-definition video is *25 Mbps* -- 1/16th the bandwidth of FW400.
\- Max bitrate for AVCHD is *24 Mbps*.
\- DVCPRO100 has the highest bitrate of all the HD video formats at a whopping *100 Mbps*.
The maximum burst speed of FW400 is about 393 MBps \[typo: 393 Mbps\] and sustained
transfer rate it near that.
You shouldn't worry about the transfer rates on FireWire as much as the drives.
Most hard drives are not going to be able to sustain transfer rates of 100 Mbps --
you probably need an array for that. It's moot, however, if you are using consumer-grade
HD (with rates around 25 Mbps).
Very useful info on the video data rates on various formats, JDM -- thanks.
However, I'm a little confused by the disk drive data rates you quoted. It appears that
the numbers you mentioned are actually MBytes/s (MBps) rather than Mbits/s (Mbps).
The OP's current internal HD (ST3160812AS) is a 160GB Seagate 7200.9 family drive
spec'd at 83MBytes/s max sustained throughput. (That applies only to the outermost
tracks, when the drive is nearly empty. It'll be about 40MBytes/s on the inner tracks.
So, when nearly full, the internal drive is about the same speed as a FW400 external.
The 750GB Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000 is slightly faster (ca. 85-90MBytes/s maximum,
when empty, and half of that when nearly full). That's fairly fast as today's large HDs
go, but not quite as fast as the new Seagate 7200.11 family drives (105MBytes/s max)
or WesternDigital's WD7500AAKS (98MBytes/s, max) -- but they're all more than fast
enough to saturate a FW400 link, even when the external drive is nearly full.
BTW, from the spec sheets, I see no indication that any of the four drives mentioned
here are "green." They all have similar power requirements; if anything, the Hitachi
consumes the most power, and the Western Digital the least. (That seems to agree
with tomshardware.com's observation 7K1000 drives run hotter than most others.)
It is nice to see that today's fastest 750GB drives consume no more power than the
best-performing 160GB drives of a few years ago.
vtwiz wrote:
Don't attempt to replace the drive in your iMac. Keept it for the OS and software
and use an external drive for all your video.
Good advice! Regardless of the size of your internal drive, save the data-flogging
for the easily-replaceable external drive.
Looby

Hard-drive and audio interface set-up - Advice please

Hello,
Please offer me some advice if you can. I have the new 13" macbook pro 2.26Ghz with Logic Studio. I am going to get a hard-drive that has both usb and firewire 800 interfaces and need to decide whether to get a usb or firewire audio interface. The crux of my problem is in what configuration to use the devices, which will determine which audio interface I choose. E.g.
1. Firewire 800 hard-drive to record tracks onto and back-up + usb audio interface; or
2. Firewire 800 hard-drive as above + firewire 400 audio interface daisy-chained; or
3. Record onto the internal hard-drive and use a usb audio interface; or
4. Record onto the internal hard-drive and use a firewire 400 interface.
FYI, the audio interfaces I'm looking at are the E-Mu 0404 USB or Focusrite Saffire LE, both of which have had excellent reviews.
Questions to consider, please, are: Which configuration will offer the best performance and least latency? Is it worth recording onto external hard-drive (7,200) or will the internal drive (5,200) be faster/as fast? Will daisy-chaining cause a significant drop in performance? Do you have any alternative configuration suggestions? Plus any other comments you can think of.
Thank you in advance
Jamie

The good thing about #2, if the drive enclosure also has a USB 2.0 interface you have the option of using/trying that configuration as well. I know a few that get away with using USB drives for recording.
Make sure the audio drive is formatted Mac OS Extended, with Journaling OFF.
Don't trust the drive formatting as it's delivered.
pancenter-

Hard drive and screen failures

Hello all, thank you for any help! I have to do this on my phone, apologies for any errors!
I have an early 2011 macbook pro, purchased in the fall of 2011.
Last repair:
I had 3 year apple care, and had last taken it for repairs september 2014, for first not ejecting discs from optical drive, then losing touchpad sensory control, then starting to sometimes not booting and/or black screen. When I got it back they had replaced the logic board, hard drive, and screen and connections there were a few screws not flush on the base, and they said that was fine, and it needed to be like that for the touchpad to work.
Today, this morning, it was fine. I left it at 9 am, came back at noon and the screen was black, and only the least of fan sounds
I have
MBPro early 2011 OSX 10.7.4 Lion
Use surge protector 95% of the time (except rarely when out at a cafe)
'Symptoms':
Black screen
No boot sound on start up
No sounds of hard drive or disc/DVD drive
No indicator light bar at the front right corner
Sound of fans running on low
Light from charger indicator is green (full)
I tried:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201295
A)Shift-control-option-power a handful of times, no change
B)Disconnected power cord, waited, reconnected
Combinations of these (power off, then A, B, power on; on, A, B, on; B, A, on; etc)
D) I tried command-R, no boot, no change
Results: only when I use method A, then the optical drive clicks/buzzes. Otherwise no change for any other attempts I listed ^. If I shut down and restart with the power button then as before, no sounds except low level fan sound.
I am quite disappointed, one reason I've enjoyed Apple products is in being able to use them for 5-10 years :/

Whenever you remove system modifications, they must be removed completely, and the only way to do that is to use the uninstallation tool, if any, provided by the third-party developers, or to follow their instructions. If the software has been incompletely removed, you may have to re-download or even reinstall it in order to finish the job.
Here are some general guidelines. Suppose you want to remove something called “BrickYourMac.” First, consult the product's Help menu, if there is one, for instructions. Finding none there, look on the developer's website, say www.brickyourmac.com. (That may not be the actual name of the site; if necessary, search the Web for the product name.) If you don’t find anything on the website or in your search, email the developer. While you're waiting for a response, download BrickYourMac.dmg and open it. There may be an application in there such as “Uninstall BrickYourMac.” If not, open “BrickYourMac.pkg” and look for an Uninstall button.
If you can’t remove software in any other way, you’ll have to erase your boot volume and perform a clean reinstallation of OS X. Never install any third-party software unless you're sure you know how to uninstall it; otherwise you may create problems that are very hard to solve.
Trying to remove complex system modifications by hunting for files by name often will not work and may make the problem worse. The same goes for "utilities" that purport to remove software.

Hard drive and dvd are not recognized in the setup menu, what could be wrong?

The hard drive and dvd drive are not recognized on the setup menu for my Pavilion a4316f desktop computer. Could it be a failure of the controller? Can a PCI controller be used to replace the mother board controller?
This question was solved.
View Solution.

The Recovery process would erase you hard drive, and attempt to install a fresh OS. Decidely a bad choice if you wanted to save your data files. The Recovery sets are "tattoo" with the BIOS hardwafre configuration. It will not, IMHO, recognize the PCI Sata card.
You mentioned the Recovery program on the hard drive actually requested the installer of the controller (PCI card). Try running from that.
I am a volunteer. I am not an HP employee.
To say THANK YOU, press the "thumbs up symbol" to render a KUDO. Please click Accept as Solution, if your problem is solved. You can render both Solution and KUDO.
The Law of Effect states that positive reinforcement increases the probability of a behavior being repeated. (B.F.Skinner). You toss me KUDO and/or Solution, and I perform better.
(2) HP DV7t i7 3160QM 2.3Ghz 8GB
HP m9200t E8400,Win7 Pro 32 bit. 4GB RAM, ASUS 550Ti 2GB, Rosewill 630W. 1T HD SATA 3Gb/s
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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.

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