[Ti] [Ti]Journaling, was --> Journeling.

[b]

David DelMonte paused, thought it over, and spoke thusly:

>Flipper, sorry about the original spelling.. I appreciate your 
>insight. You didn't mention though about disk optimization provided 
>by journaling that others have mentioned. What are your thoughts 
>there?
>
>David

defragging files, while leaving the so-called 'free space all broken 
up, is pointless, and potentially worse. Let me explain, ANY app that 
collects a file, or files, that are in separate places, then finds 
space for the file as one contiguous block, is doing two things: One, 
it is leaving more smaller, non-contiguous allocation blocks (the 
places where each file's different parts were located), and Two: It 
is creating even more fragmentation of the pre-existing 'free' drive 
space.

As much as i recommend against Symantec products on the Mac, the 
Speed Disk (which was probably acquired from folks who had nothing to 
do with the atrocious Disk Doctor), is the only way to go. It 
analyzes the entire drive, which is time-consuming, and crucially 
necessary, then not only does it de-frag the files (all of them), it 
clears all of the free drive space into one contiguous block of 
allocation blocks... leaving all of the critical drive files 
(extents, wrapper, header, directory, etc) right at the 'top' of the 
drive, where they must be.

The journaling feature doesn't even belong in the same diiscussion as 
optimization/defragmentation. It may be useful (though i doubt it) 
for other things, but speeding up, and securing the operation of the 
drive, isn't one of them.

Same goes for InTech's Disk Defrag, which also does the quick, 
piecemeal, file defrag, leaving the 'clean' space worse off than 
before the so-called 'de-fragging.

Alsoft's Plus optimizer is slow as anything, and won't move 
'anchored' files. Which are almost always, files that are 'anchored' 
by third-party apps that are violating Apple APIs, anyway. Norton 
just gives them the heave-ho.

Lots of RAM, defragged free drive space, and 15-20% of always-free 
space is the way to go. Everything happens faster, and when it's time 
for a periodic defrag, that goes a lot quicker, too, courtesy of RAM 
and free drive space.

A simple real world example: let's say one runs Dreamweaver. It makes 
a nice example because the installation contains a little over 
thirteen thousand files. Mostly small files, but a lot of them.

So, we're running Dreamweaver, which, let's say was installed on a 
nice, fragmented drive... so, the files are scattered, broken into 
pieces, and scattered more, just on the install.... now, after lots 
of editing (more frags), deleting (more frags, importing snapshots, 
editing them, deleting some (a lot more frags).... the journaling 
kicks in and sees a large chunk of the app in three places, near a 
lot of the rerst of the apps files, and 'fixes it'. It creates more 
small holes in the sectors where most of the app resides, and maybe 
the 'space' it moves the 'fixed, reassembled into one' file to is ove 
here, between a fonts cache, and a few forgotten attachments from 
when you used to use eudora... get it? A mess.

you run a real defragger/optimizer, and lo and behold, a 
graphically-enabled inspection of the allocation blocks shows all 
13k+ Dreamweaver files in one, long unbroken chain of allocation 
blocks. Now which 'state' do you suppose Dreamweaver is going to 
function the most efficiently in?

The reason Panther's pseodo-defragging-on-the-fly has given people 
the wrong impression is simple, and it isn't because people are dumb, 
not even. There's this 'myth', which like all myths has some truth to 
it, that goes like this: But Unix 'likes' to have files spread across 
the drive".

Yeah, that's right, it does, because the System knows that modern 
drives can pick up things in certain places faster when they're 
'striped'. BUT, and it's a big but... what the parrots of the myth 
fail to understand, acknowledge, or are simply ignorant of is this; 
pro Unix setups never have anything except for the kernel, and it's 
own sub-systems on the same drive. Never. Applications? forget it. 
Public directories? No way. Nothing, nada.

The System-generated fragmentation that occurs, and there's a lot, 
just do a real defrag, reboot into Jag or Panther, and then, without 
launching any apps, reboot back into the defrag CD, or partition and 
re-scan the drive: several hundred fragged files. Nice job OS. 
<laughs>

If all you want to do is run the Finder, then forget about frags, let 
panther deal with it. But as soon as you want to get some work done 
you have two choices: Move all apps and Documents and scratch disks 
to separate drives, or run a defragger, routinely. It's as simple as 
that.

~flipper