How to Defrag an External Drive connected to MacBook

I have an external hard drive (Western Digital 250 GB) connected to my Macbook which is used mainly for over flow files and larger CAD files, etc. I add-to and delete-from this drive frequently and it is starting to become a little flakey.
From my PC days, I would normally think that a defrag may help this, however I don't see any such option when looking through the various Finder utilities or System Preferences. Does OS X provide a way to clean-up this drive or will I need some type of outside software?
Message was edited by: Little River

Little River wrote:
I still had some time left on my tech support contract so I thought I'd give them a quick call to see what they thought. Here's what I learned:
1) my existing external drive is formatted in FAT32 (PC / windows format)
2) as such it is not an option to run the "Repair Disk Permissions" command. That is only available to drives that have been formatted using the Mac Journals format
Actually, it only works on disks with OSX installed, and only on your system files.
You or they may be confusing +*Repair Disk+* (which repairs the +File System+ on the disk -- directories, etc.), with +*Repair Permissions.+*
From Disk Utility's Help about Permissions:
Disk Utility repairs the permissions for files installed by the Mac OS X Installer, Software Update, or an Apple software installer. It doesn’t repair permissions for your documents, your home folder, and third-party applications.
You can verify or repair permissions only on a disk with Mac OS X installed.
3) I could back-up my files, erase the drive, re-format it using Mac Journals, then reload my files
Yes.
4) The advantage to doing this is that I could then run disk permissions in the future and would not need to defrag the drive (same idea as the primary drive file structure in OS X)
No, not Permissions. And no option in Disk Utility will move any data to defrag a disk.
5) The disadvantage is that any of my older files (i.e. CAD drawings) that were created on PC and saved in FAT32 format would no longer be readable (NOT an option)
They'd be readable to your Mac, but not a PC.
6) as my archive files are now, they can be read and/or shared on any platform (MAC, PC, etc.)
Yes, if that's what you need, do not change the format.
7) so their recommended option was a "paid" third party defrag app (Paid = accountability with tech support vs. shareware) for this drive to keep access to existing files and then using the alternate Mac Journals format on any new drives as storage needs dictate

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