Cleanup Mac for Mavericks | Speed up Mavericks OS X 10.9

How to cleanup Mac drive for Mavericks to speedup OS X 10.9 performance. The question is very genuine and many of the Mac users facing slow OS X 10.9, may have serious opinion about it.

Apple announces Mavericks, the latest OS X update available for free. Now, users can update their OS X via Mac App Store, it’s the best way for those having enough bandwidth.  Instead of getting caught in the event of update hangs, I would suggest to go with these tips for carving out the maximum out of Mavericks.

Clean out the wastes

When you download the update it will size about 5.3 GB of space, from where the files will be unpacked and installed. In such a situation, if your machine is running short of space, with hard drive about to full, you might want to clear out the cobwebs before updating.

The best recommended utilities for cleaning Mac drive includes Stellar Speedup Mac. It shows you the list of all the applications and files eating space on your Mac drive. You can select and remove those useless items residing in your Mac. It’s really an easy to use Mac speedup tool for Mavericks for finding those games you haven’t played for last many years but, keeping eating GBs of space on your hard drive.

Back up important things

The next important task is to make backup of current data so that you won’t lose any data even if something goes wrong during installation. The easiest way is to use Apple’s Time Machine (an inbuilt program), which makes it really easy to create backup of your system that you can restore from.

The Time Machine doesn’t create a bootable backup. For that, you will have to opt for some third party tool like Stellar Drive Clone. It can create a complete bootable backup of your whole drive.

So, finally, before upgrading to Mavericks, make sure you have the necessary resources ready with you. Get the minimum memory and space required for OS X 10.9.

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How to recover data with Android recovery application

How to recover deleted data in Android phones, Android data recovery software for my phone and how to recover deleted data in Android sd card – are few questions which we are trying to resolve in this post. As per the records available, about 700 million phones with this OS have been activated the number is increasing in millions per week. With the growth in technology, the cases of losing data, is also increasing. Keeping all these problems in mind, many recovery software for Android, have been developed.

What are the scenarios when we need data recovery software?

A user should check if he is facing one of the following problems where a recovery application for Android, is recommended.

• Corruption or damage of files by viruses
• Deletion of files from SD card in phones
• Files damage due to user mistakes
• File system corruptions and collapses due to ejecting memory
• Data loss due to Android OS corruption
• File allocation table corruption

Recover Photos from Android

If you have deleted photos Photos either intentionally or accidentally, a Data Android Recovery app can bring all your data back. It includes pictures in various formats including: JPG, JPEG, GIF, PNG, PSD etc.

Recover android Videos and songs

You can get back your precious memories in the form of videos or songs in formats including: MP3, MP4, AVI, MPEG, 3GP, WAV, WMA, etc.

Recover from External SD Card in Android

Along with the internal memory we also use SD card to extend phone memory. Sometimes, the data in stored in these cards get lost due to SD card corruption. A data recovery application can carve out deleted data in just few clicks without any privacy risks. Recovery supports wide range of Android devices from: Google, HTC, Samsung, Motorola and others.

Defragmentation Safeguards Used By Mac OS X

Overfilled hard drive, obsolete hardware configuration, accumulation of system-generated waste, and many more factors, though, are responsible for minimizing the performance of Mac; fragmentation, nonetheless, is one of the foremost causes of the poor performance of your Mac system. Meanwhile, you come across a colored spinning beach ball, sluggishly booting Mac, and poorly executing applications and files.

Ever since you purchased this so-called excellent computer (i.e. Mac), it is proving itself exactly how you had heard about it. However, this excellence does not last long and it starts facing performance issues as mentioned above. In such a painful situation, many of the users do not even know what the actual cause of this annoying state of Mac is and directly contact with Mac technicians. Well, taking help from experts is a wise decision, but it does not guarantee that the same issue will not arise again just as every other issue does. On the other hand, a few users even ask why to optimize Mac, as it is the finest computer that does not require optimization at all. However, all such users need to know that excellence lacks a lot to meet perfection. This means that performance degradation is a state that is strongly associated with every machine and so does with Mac.

Apart from the typical causes of slowdown of Mac computers, fragmentation is also a major cause of poor performance of computers, since it is responsible for scattering of data segments on the hard drive. For demonstration, go through this article carefully.

“Fragmentation refers to a deprived state of the hard drives that involves data being scattered or stored randomly.”

Mac OS X employs HFS+ file system for allocation of storage blocks to data. Well, formatting a hard drive as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) splits its storage space into blocks of certain sizes to store data. When you save a large file to your Mac drive, based on its size, Mac file system divides it into a number of segments of smaller sizes and each of these segments gets a separate storage block. The storage blocks occupied by all segments of a single file are logically connected to each other. However, due to some poor storage allocation algorithms, file segments occupy blocks that are at distant locations on the drive. Likewise, because of the variance in the sizes of these segments and the storage blocks, many storage blocks contain free spaces, whereas several others require these segments to undergo segmentation again in order to be able to fit in those blocks.

However, not only these internal factors are responsible for fragmentation, but some external factors are as well. For example, when you move a large file from one location to another on your Mac, then a slew of storage blocks are emptied simultaneously. Mac users believe in the fact that Mac OS X does not face fragmentation issue, as it employs HFS+ file system to format its hard drive. This means, if Mac OS X does not face fragmentation issue, they why to optimize Mac? Well, you might be thinking this; it is also a fact that the HFS+ file system only minimizes the need for defragmentation on Mac OS X, but it does not eliminate fragments. Let us discuss how Mac file system deals with fragmentation:

“Defragmentation involves rearranging all physical blocks on the hard drive in a logical order aspiring to reduce the response time of data stored onto them. During this process, all fragments are eliminated throughout the allocated regions on the hard drives, which results in improved performance of the Mac systems.”

Every time you open the files stored on your Mac, HFS+ file system thoroughly scans each file for fragments. In case, if a file is found as highly fragmented (i.e. having eight or more fragments), the file system defrags it automatically. However, not every file satisfies the criteria set (i.e. it works on a fragmented file only if it is not more than 20MB of size) for automatic defragmentation. Therefore, since Mac is unable to defrag large files (more than 20MB of size), you have to use a professional disk defragmentation tool for Mac to get its performance improved significantly.

A professional Mac disk defragmentation application thoroughly analyzes your Mac drive when it is initiated. This analysis includes scanning all storage blocks, storage algorithm used for storage blocks allocation and the remaining free blocks as well. In technical terms, defragmentation involves maintenance of the work done by the file system and yields the highly efficient and contiguous storage blocks with reduced number of fragments. Thus, it minimizes the response time of data and improves the performance of your Mac system. For this, all storage blocks in non-contiguous regions on the hard drive are rearranged in a logical order, which results in improved productivity of your Mac. Besides, it uses compaction mechanism to impede fragmentation to occur again by creating larger regions of free spaces on your Mac drive.

Since a slew of disk defragmentation apps for Mac OS X are available on the Internet, when it comes to selection of a reliable and efficient one, many users get confused and select a random one. However, selection of such an inefficient Mac app may adversely affect your Mac system. In general, an unreliable Mac disk defragmentation app may cause data loss. What all you come across is reliant on the selection of the app. Therefore, in case you are confused or unaware of which app is to choose for your Mac, you can take the help from Mac experts. Besides, make sure you properly go through the user manual provided with the app before using it, as the security of your data as well as the Mac system is must.

Drive Cleaner for Mac to fix slow speed

The smooth running of Mac OS X impresses us all, but with time, it deteriorates its performance and becomes as slow as sloth. No one likes to see a spinning beach ball for minutes while trying to perform any activity, whether it is important or unimportant. Users often come across such problems wherein their Mac starts taking too much time even when performing simple file saving tasks. In such cases, many of you may think of replacing your old Mac with a new machine. However, before opting for such an expensive resolution for this problem, it is recommended to watch out some simple yet cost-effective ways of handling these cases. If you follow these below mentioned fixes for slow Mac, then you can get back the old speed of your machine:

• Clean the Hard Drive: Most of us forget that hard drive is a mechanical device that has limited space, and keep it cluttered with unnecessary stuffs. It is seen that the 40% of the space of user’s hard drive is filled with the items that are very rarely or never used. Removing the unnecessary items from hard drive and moving the less used ones to an external drive like external hard drive or CD drive can be a way to make free space on your Mac. Moreover, visiting the trash of your iPhoto is also recommended. Deleting your photos does not mean that they are gone completely from your machine’s hard drive. The iPhoto has its personal bin that contains all the deleted photos. Emptying this bin can clean up your hard drive.
• Watch Out the ‘Activity Monitor’: Keeping an eye on the ‘Activity Monitor’ of your Mac machine, you can find out the application that is using maximum CPU resources, and hence making machine sluggish. Go to ‘Applications >> Utilities >> Activity Monitor’, click the ‘%CPU’ to get the list of the percentage of CPU used by all the running applications. If you find that an application is showing 90% or above number here, then close that application immediately by clicking the ‘Quit Process’. Another check that you can perform here is for ‘Disk Usage’. Click the ‘Disk Usage’ tab provided at the bottom of the ‘Activity Monitor’. If the free space (in green color) is getting narrow in the provided pie chart, then you should clear unused files from your hard drive.
• Check the ‘Log in’ Items: A sluggish Mac performs a slow start up. This is because the ‘Startup Items’ or ‘Login Items’ collect so many applications. All these applications take a start when you start up your Mac, and hence deteriorate the speed of your machine. To check it, go to ‘System Preferences >> Users & Groups >> Log in Items’. From here, uncheck all the applications that you do not want in startup.
• Clean the Desktop: After removing all the unneeded applications from ‘Start Up’, it is time to check out your desktop. Mac users often keep their desktop cluttered with hundreds of icons. For better working of Mac, it is suggested to stop saving anything on desktop and organize files into their respective folders. However, for best results, it is suggested to keep the desktop completely clean.
• Close Unused Programs and Perform Regular Restarts: This point is especially for Mac users as they take the advantage of multi-tasking facilitated by Mac. Many applications running simultaneously slow down the processing of Mac. Close all the applications that are not currently in use. Apart from this, most Mac users keep their machine in sleep mode and do not restart it regularly. This again makes machine slow. Therefore, to make machine faster, it is recommended to restart Mac frequently.
• Use Mac Cleaning Utility: The easiest yet most efficient way of speeding up your Mac is cleaning it with the help of a professional utility. Professional Mac cleaning utility removes all unnecessary files, large files, and junks, and completely uninstalls an unused application by simple drag and drop. An efficient utility of this category provides you the feature to schedule the cleaning task at your desired ‘Time’ and ‘Date’. Some tools provide the feature of automatic cleanup of Mac removable devices, which are attached to your Mac. The option to set filters for the searching of specific category of files enables the software to include or exclude some particular type of file for cleaning. A reliable utility also provides the option to get the preview of the files before removing them from your machine. This feature prevents removal of useful files from your machine.
• Upgrade Your RAM: If none of the above-mentioned methods is a useful fix for slow Mac, then upgrading your Mac can be a way to speed it up. Upgrading your Mac is not very expensive method and it speeds up your machine. Generally, two GB RAM is sufficient for a normal computer user. However, for graphic designers, this limit increases to 4GB because they use graphic files with heavy applications like Adobe PhotoShop, which eat a lot of RAM. However, if your machine is losing performance even after 2GB or 4GB of RAM, then adding extra 2GB can speed up its performance at least by 50%.   

Almost all aforementioned methods are the best ways for speeding up your slow Mac and more specifically, the professional Mac drive cleaner, which you can opt when basic cleaning methods do not work. If you have doubt that which software you should select for cleaning Mac, then you can download the free demo version of the tool. Most of the efficient utilities of this category provide the free demo version of their software.

Generally, a free utility performs all basic Mac cleaning tasks, and to avail extra features, you have to purchase the license of the software, which too is not very expensive. So, use the method of your choice and get back the old speed of your machine without much trouble.

Uninstall Mac apps from Mac | How to trash applications from Mac

To remove Mac apps from Mountain Lion or Mac OS X Lion, the best tool I always suggest to my users is Stellar Speed Up Mac.  Although it can be done, without spending anything. The task of trashing an application can be done just dragging the application to trash. The problem with this attempt is there remain leftovers, which gradually keep accumulating to consume too much of space in your drive.

So, it is recommended to have an alternate solution to the issue. You can opt for an App cleaner and the perfect name is Stellar Speed Up Mac. Here is a video showing how to use this app for uninstalling Mac App in OS X.

How to Clean Mac Machine That Is Running Like a Snail

Slow Mac, sluggish Mac, my Mac is running slow like a snail - are some of the common complaints of Mac users. This is because with time, your quick-witted Mac is cluttered with items, and hence becomes slow and shows symptoms like rotating beach ball. These symptoms clearly indicate that your Mac needs cleaning and organization of data. Removal of unnecessary items creates free space on its hard drive and improves its performance. Follow below mentioned steps to do the same:

•    Clean Up Your Desktop: Some Mac users keep their desktop very untidy. They have a cluttered desktop having so many items spread all around. This cluttered desktop slows your system largely. Therefore, it is recommended to clean it up by sending all the files to the appropriate folders and all folders to appropriate volumes.

•    Remove Login Items: The slow booting of Mac is a clear indication of unnecessary startup items in the list of Login items. In order to start these applications present in the list of Login items, your Mac is unable to load the Operating System on time, and hence increases startup time. To check the list of startup or login items, go to ‘System Preferences >> User & Groups’, and then click on ‘Login’ items tab to find out the list of applications that open when you boot your machine. From this list, uncheck all the applications that you do not want at startup.

•    Uninstall All Unnecessary Applications: According to your requirement, you install various applications on your Mac. However, you do not use all these installed applications regularly. Therefore, after cleaning up your desktop and improving the startup speed of your Mac, it is time to go to the ‘Applications’ folder and find out which applications are useless. Select these applications and drag them to trash to remove them.

•    Empty the Trash: Now, as you have sent all unused applications to the trash, it is time to clean the trash as well.  The trash contains all unused files and folders. Therefore, it is the time to clean up the entire trash folder. Empty the trash and reclaim more free space on the hard drive of your machine.

•    Archive Old Files after Compacting: Some files in your machine are those that you do not use frequently; however, they are of utmost importance and you cannot afford their deletion. For those old and important files, it is recommended to compress them. Compressing reduces their size to great extent, and hence frees the extra space on the hard drive. Moreover, after compressing these files, you can transfer them to an external hard drive or to a CD.

•    Delete All Large and Unused Files: While compressing and archiving old files, you may find that some of the files are completely unused as well as they are so large in size that they are eating up too much space on your hard drive. Deleting such unused large files is another efficient way to earn free space on your Mac, clean it up, and hence improve its performance.

•    Remove System Logs and Temporary Files Regularly: One of the reasons of slow performance of your Mac is presence of system logs and temporary files. It is suggested to clean up these logs and temporary files on regular basis. This will free a lot of space on your computer’s hard drive and improve its performance.

•    Maintain a Clean Cache: Generally, most of the performance issues of Web browsers can be rectified by keeping their cache clean. Therefore, to rectify this problem, it is suggested to clean your Web browser’s cache on regular basis. Doing the same improves the speed of your Web browser.

•    Close All Unused Dashboard Widgets: The widgets on your dashboard do not use any CPU resource until the dashboard is open. However, when dashboard is active, they use both virtual and real memory. However, many of these dashboard widgets are unused or used very rarely despite the fact that they consume various CPU resources all the time until dashboard is active. Therefore, to reclaim the CPU resources used by these unused widgets, it is recommended to close them. You can close a widget by opening the dashboard >> pressing and holding the ‘Option’ key, moving the pointer of your mouse over a widget that you want to close. The button for closing the selected widget is present on the upper left corner of it. Click on this button to close the widget. Repeat these steps to close all the widgets that you want to close.

•    Clean Out the Mail Downloads Folder: Most of us get attachments via emails. These attachments can be image files, Word files, PDFs, ebooks, or anything else. Generally, these downloaded email items go to the ‘Mail Downloads’ folder of your Mac. This Mail Downloads folder is of very large size as it carries all your downloaded items until you have not transferred them to some other location. Get into that folder, remove all the unused email downloads, and store all the required files to the permanent location on your machine.

Despite performing these manual deletion methods and other efficient ways to optimize the performance of your Mac, it is seen that Mac machines do not get back there original performance. Moreover, removal of all unused applications by sending them to trash and then cleaning the trash as well does not clean your machine to great extent. This is because leftovers of the deleted applications remain there. The manual cleanup is not only time consuming, but a tedious task as well.

To overcome such issues, it is recommended to use a professional clean my Mac tool. Reliable cleaning utility for Mac cleans your machine completely without leaving any leftovers of an application. Moreover, you can schedule the cleanup task as well and avoid the problem of performing the cleaning of your machine on regular basis.  

Tune Up Your Mac's Performance in Easy Steps

Mac has millions of system processes executing concurrently, when it is running. These system processes, during their execution, generate several temporary files to store their intermediate results. However, these files are not deleted automatically even after completion of the process, and keep eating up system's resources (i.e. RAM and Processor). As a result, Mac becomes slow like a snail and you face performance issues with Mac.

Well, it is obvious for Mac to slow down after exercising for long, since its major resources (RAM and Processor) always stay busy in repeated execution of temporary files. These temporary files self-allocate Processor to process their execution repetitively. Besides the temporary files, several internal factors also affect Mac's performance. For example, overfilled hard drive, slew of installed applications, obsolete hardware configuration, and fragmentation. To speed up Mac and keep up its performance level, you must take care of these factors in following ways:

• Remove all unwanted items from the Hard Drive: Hard drive stores operating system installation files along with large amount of user data, such as images, videos, songs, movies, personal and professional documents, and many more things. Go through each Mac volume and move all unused data items to any external drive. If possible, permanently delete all those items that were never used.
  
  
• Minimize number of Installed Applications: All installed applications are stored together with operating system's files on Mac's boot volume (i.e. Macintosh HD). The size of the boot volume increases with number of installed applications, which is not good for the health of boot volume. Therefore, install only necessary applications, and remove when you are no longer going to use them. For this, go to Applications folder, look for those applications that are not in use, and uninstall them.
  
  
• Upgrade Hardware Configuration: Mac OS X requires at least 1GB RAM to run without any interruption. However, if you play graphical game, use large-sized applications (such as Photoshop), or use both (games and apps), then you must upgrade RAM to least 2GB to speed up Mac. Besides, upgrade to latest Mac OS X version and install all necessary updates release by Apple's developers.
  
  
• Fragmentation: Fragments are empty memory blocks in between contiguous streams of data, which are not occupied because of poor memory allocation to data segments. Because of these fragments, data becomes scattered and therefore, it takes longer time to respond when it is accessed. Since Disk Utility does not include any feature to deal with fragments, users have to use external disk defragmentation software for Mac.
  
  
• Speedup Mac software: Get speed-up Mac software to remove all temporary files (such as system binaries, junk, cache, browser plug-ins, and cookies) in efficient way. Since these files are stored in different corners of Mac, you need to clean them up using a speed-up application.

Using a speed up application not only fastens your Mac, but frees up disk space as well.

What are the features in Mac OS X Mavericks that make OS X faster

Mac OS X 10.9

Is OS X 10.9 faster than the previous versions of OS X. Lets see the enhancements in Mac OS X mavericks which make it more responsive. 

1. Compressed Memory: The feature of “Compressed Memory” helps to free up memory to OS X faster. The technology of automatic compressing helps to avail memory at runtime when it reaches maximum capacity. The OS compresses least used items in recent memory, compacts them by more than 50 percent and allows the Mac to handle more data with more efficiency.
   
   
   
   
   
   
2. Timer Coalescing: It trims the task of system maintenance and background processes while the Mac is running on battery power. The new OS technology follows the attempt of low-level operations. The method of creating small periods of inactive moments is adopted through which the CPU enters a state of low-power to reduce CPU activity and thus to reduce energy consumption and increased battery life. 
   
   
   
   
3. App Nap: When we work on multiple apps simultaneously, the “App Nap” comes into play to reduce power consumption. The technology puts unused apps into a low-power state that slow them down and helps conserve valuable battery life. However, whenever the user starts an unused app, it quickly shifts back to full speed. App Nap does the same trick with Safari tabs, meaning that only the visible tab runs at full speed. Apple claims that App Nap can reduce CPU energy by up to 23 percent. 
   
    
   
4. Extra fast: With the new OS, you are going to notice nothing but a faster and more responsive Mac which doesn't waste time continually moving data between memory and storage because now it can create free space in memory by instant compressing and decompressing. So, it can do more in less time especially when you’re running many applications at once.

The above tests were conducted on machines configuring

• 1.8GHz Intel Core i5-based
• 13-inch MacBook Air
• 4GB of RAM
• OS X v10.9 (Mavericks) and OS X v10.8.4
• 256GB of Memory

Speed up Mac OS X 10.9 | Clean up Mac OS 10.9 drive

Would I have to search for solution for slow Mac OS X 10.9 . How to fix slow Mac running OS X 10.9. As per the resources, the new version of OS X is going to release in few weeks. It is important to note that OS X Mountain Lion came with app-based features from iOS but in OS X 10.9, the additions from iOS will focus more on system fundamentals. 

Usually, we upgrade the OS X without arranging the necessary basic requirements for it. This could slow down your Mac and can ruin your Mac experience. Here we are discussing tips which can help you to fix issue of slow Mac OS X 10.9 in coming future.

Deleting unnecessary files saved on the hard drive not only speeds up the Mac machine, but even frees up the disk space. A hard drive storing less amount of data performs considerably well as compared to the one, which is about to get full. Today, computer’s hard drives offer large data storage capacity (i.e. 500GBs and more) allowing the users to store large amount of data on a single device. However, users are not aware of the gradual decrease in performance of the hard drives due to massive amount of data. Therefore, to improve Mac’s performance, it is recommended not to store the unnecessary files on the hard drive.

Well, the recommendation does not imply to delete Mac files or the data currently not in use, but move them to any external USB hard drive. There are several effective ways to get rid of the unnecessary files saved on the Mac machine. Moreover, a few easy to perform ones are discussed below: 

Clean up Mac volumes

Go through all Mac volumes scanning each file and folder manually to prepare a separate note with the names of the files currently being used, frequently used, rarely used, and finally those which are not used but are stored. Keep only those files that are currently being used and frequently used; thereby moving all rarely-used files to any external data storage device. On the other hand, you can delete the files that are not used.

Delete Auto-downloaded Mail Attachments

You send and receive emails with attachments (such as images) that remain in emails as well as automatically downloaded at youruserfolder/Library/Mail Downloads whenever you open any attachment by double-clicking it. Go to the default download location and delete all such attachments to free up the disk space, and even to speed up the email. 

Delete Temporary Files

Operating system performs different calculations, processing, and displays the result. All such events are stored in binary format in the intermediate files. These temporary files are of no use after completing the process. In addition, browser cookies, junk, corrupt, and system binaries are the files that should be removed from the hard drive periodically. 

Remove Duplicate Files

When you download any attachment from the email or anything from the Internet, it goes to a default download location. Moreover, many a times, you specify desktop as the destination to save the file. All such downloads are duplicated if you copy and paste (instead of moving) them to a location where all other similar files are saved.

You can find all duplicate files on your hard drive in Finder’s result. Moreover, you can download smart finder tools from the Internet for better result.

Best Mac Cleaner to Clean and Speed Up Macbook

How to clean up my Mac drive ? Does it help to improve my Mac speed.

These are some of the questions I am answering in this post. The very first answer to these questions, you will get are – go for hardware upgrades.

Now, How what to upgrade in Mac...

1. Buy a new SSD. SSD are better than HDD for greater speed.
2. Increase RAM. First check if your machine has the adequate amount of RAM, as per the OS requirements and type of applications you run.

But, these are not the only solution to fix slow Macbook. The better and cheaper way to speed up a slow running Mac is to optimize it. Older Macs, especially laptops, came with low capacity hard drives which are not enough to serve big iTunes or iPhoto libraries and thus the machine slows down. Such an issue can be fixed by upgrading hard drive.

I strongly recommend to use the best Mac cleaning software for speeding up Macbook.

The best Mac cleaner I have ever used is from Stellar. The application can be targetted either on complete drive or at a specific volume of Mac drive. It deletes following types of files from your drive:

1. Cache files
2. Log files
3. System Junks
4. Trashes and leftovers
5. Manage extensions
6. Universal binaries
7. Language files
8. Large files
9. Duplicate files

Some other mannual fixes, one can try are:

1. Repairing disk permissions
2. Clear out log in items , unwanted applications, unused system preferences
3. Clear desktop and desktop icons
4. Empty trash
5. Turn off Universal Access
6. Turn off Bluetooth
7. Turn off Speech Recognition
8. Turn of f sharing option on net

Keep visiting for more tips to speed up Macbook......

Mac Defragmentation Tips

What does it mean to defrag your Mac drive?

It doesn't matter on which operating system you are working either Windows, linux or Mac , with the passage of time fragmentation occurs. The reason is when you work with your system, you create and delete thousands of files in it , empty space will be created and files gets scattered over hard drive . This state of Mac drive is called 'Fragmented Mac hard drive' and as a result of this, your Mac OS X will take extra time to open any file and launch applications, because pieces of files are fragmented around your hard drive.

and to overcome this problem you need to defrag your Mac.

What is defragmentation?

It is the process of organizing fragmented data into contiguous memory location to enhance Mac performance. Mac OS X has its own way to handle fragmented data, it has the ability to minimize the chances of fragmentation up to 20 MB file size. Defragmenting Mac will leave the computer's free space in one big chunk. This will allow new files to be saved in contiguous memory location, thereby reducing the need for future defragmentation.

How to defragment hard drive?

In Windows:-

Click on the Start button - > Programs - > Accessories - > System Tools. In System Tools, you'll find Disk Defragmenter. In this program, you can select the hard drive that you want to defrag. If you want to defrag multiple drive then you can select all. Click to analyze button, it will tell you either your drive needs to be defragmented or not. You will see lots of colored bars scattered all over the graph usually means you need to defrag.

In Mac:-

As we know Apple does not provide any inbuilt tool for defragmentation to Mac users. So, if you want to defrag your Mac, you need third party tool like iDefrag, Stellar Drive Defrag.

iDefrag is very famous tool but, you have to pay more bucks to purchase it while Stellar Drive Defrag is new but, you can get it only at $39.

iDefrag- It is the product of coriolis-systems and it helps to defrag your Mac. It can defragment individual files in your Mac volume and it helps to improve your Mac performance. iDefrag monitors your drive temperature, and it will take steps to protect the drive if it starts to overheat.

Full Defrag - It combines the Metadata and Optimize algorithms defragmentation.

Full support of Mac OS X 10.8 - It is compatible with the latest versions of Mac OS X.

Works with Time Machine – It works with Time Machine back-up volumes.

Support for case-sensitive HFS+

Supports the Hot Zone – It is a smart about the files you use the most time. It moves them to an area on the disk called the Hot Zone, for improved access times.

Stellar Drive Defrag- This utility helps you to defrag all fragmented data in your Mac disk. It defrags all heavy fragmented files and optimize free spaces. When you will start scanning your Mac disk by using this tool, it will keep together all fragments of related files that can theoretically result in increased performance. There are many functions inside this tool like full defrag, quick defrag, metadata defrag etc.

If you have too much data in your drive then defrgmentation can take little longer so, it is suggested to defrag drive when you are free. With the help of this defrag tool you can easily see the fragmented file in layout view. Temperature bar is associated with this tool to show the temperature of Mac disk during defragmentation process.

Features:-

1. Defrag Mac drive effectively and safely.

2. This tool has advance algorithm to defrag Mac quickly.

3. Option to defrag a single file and metadata also.

4. After the completion of defragmentation, it sends automatic email notification (if preferred).

5. It has temperature bar to show the temperature of Mac hard drive.

System Requirements:-
Processor: Intel, PowerPC (G3 or later)
Operating System: Mac OS X Mountain Lion 10.8, OS X 10.7, OS X 10.6, OS X 10.5, OS X 10.4 and OS X 10.3.
Memory: 256 MB RAM
Hard Disk: 25 MB of free space
Defragmentation helps not only to keep scattered data in an organized manner but also boost the system performance.

So, I would like to suggest every Mac users to use Stellar Drive Defrag to keep their Mac healthy.

Mac defragmentation myths:-

Defragmentation can crash my Mac - There are many Mac users who believe that defragmentation can cause their Mac to crash or if they use defrag software for their Mac then it may lead sudden crash on their Mac drive.

Mac defragmentation is not possible – Many people think, Mac does not need any defragmentation activity because its file HFS+ has the ability to minimize the chances of fragmentation.

Defragmentation can slow down your Mac – There are many Mac users, who believes that defrag process can make their Mac slow.

Mac defragmentation facts:-

Mac needs defragmentation- Over a period of time, Mac disk stores fragmented data which causes slow Mac performance. So, Mac OS X needs to defrag Mac to improve Mac performance.

Defragmentation is an easy process- It is a very easy process and Mac users can easily perform it. However, Mac does not have any inbuilt tool for defragmentation but, with the help of third party tool, one can easily perform.

Defragmentation prevents Mac failures- If data remains in fragmented way in Mac hard drive then processor needs to put extra effort to pick them and show. In this process, temperature of Mac hard drive increases and there might be a chances of Mac hard drive failure.

Mac defrag process helps to increase Mac performance- Defragmentation process keeps all chunks of data together in Mac memory drive in sequential order and make it available for faster access by Mac OS. So, through this process Mac's performance improves.

These are the basics myths and facts about defragmentation but, it depends on us that how we take care of our Mac. For this purpose, you need regular maintenance of your Mac.

Clean up Mac’s Drive to Experience Actual Mac Performance

Just like every other computer, Mac machines also come across performance issues after running incessantly for a long time. Even more, if you an Internet addict, several junk files, corrupt files, system binaries, cookies, cache, and other temporary files must be stored in different corners of your Mac machine. These unwanted files eat up essential system resources (i.e. Processor and RAM), thereby minimizing its overall performance. Therefore, you need to walk through entire hard drive in order to clean up Mac machine. Besides some known system areas, you need to visit all portions of your drive for a manual cleanup. There must be several unknown regions of the Mac machine storing huge amount of system waste. How can you clean such unknown areas? Well, you can clean such unvisited areas with advanced cleanup software for Mac. For the time being, let us enlighten those system areas, which a user can clean up manually:

Clean Up Mac Volumes

The performance of every computer (whether Mac or Windows) relies on a slew of factors, including the amount of data stored on different volumes of the hard drive. Make sure at least 10 percent of the size of each partition is available as free. If not, then make a note of the data in use, frequently used, rarely used, and never used. Keep only the data that is in use and frequently used, and move rest of the data to any other data storage media, thereby freeing up the memory. Moreover, install required application only.

Delete Chat Logs

iChat messenger in Mac OS X creates a separate log file for saving every chat by default in a folder named as ‘iChat’ in Documents folder. However, you can manually choose a different location to save these logs. If you have been chatting for a long time and sending/receiving media files (i.e. images, audio and video clips etc.), imagine size of the iChat folder. Remove these logs periodically to save not even the memory, but also system resources.

Remove Cookies and Cache

Cookies and Cache are temporary files carrying the intermediate data of the online transactions downloaded automatically on your Mac machine whenever you surf the Internet. These files self-allocate memory and eat up RAM and Processor because of which you face spinning beach ball every time you start a new process. Sometimes, the situation becomes critical and you have to force shutdown the Mac machine. Remove such files frequently to keep your Mac performance high.

Email Auto-Downloads

Email attachments automatically download on your Mac whenever you double-click any attachment, such as an image for quick view. You must have lots of such downloads eating up large amount of memory. Go to youruserfolder/Library/Mail Downloads folder and clean up everything as a step towards cleaning up the Mac’s hard drive.

Alternatively, you can use a good software to clean up Mac for quick and better cleanup, and hence to experience real Mac performance.

Speed up Mac by Freeing up the Disk Space

Mac machine slowdown is a perennial issue that users complain about over and again regardless of the causes. When you purchase a new Mac machine, you find everything is pleasant; however, the pleasant factor starts losing ground after certain period of rigorous usage. If we peek inside the Mac machine before and after slowdown issue is encountered, slew of differences minimizing system performance are noticed. It is recommended to clean up Mac disk in order to improve your Mac's performance. Moreover, you can also find Mac cleanup software on the Internet to enhance Mac's performance significantly.

Following are the areas of the Mac machine where you need to make some alterations in order to improve Mac's performance:

Hard Drive

Hard drive needs major cleanup because it is where all data and applications are stored. A hard drive is supposed to be 'Ideal' if it carries at least 10% of its total capacity as free space. If not, move the unused files to any external data storage device and free up the hard drive space. The unallocated space available on the hard drive is referred to as Virtual Memory that is utilized during execution of the programs. Therefore, clean up Mac disk as much as you can for faster program execution, or move to SSD.

Login Items

Login items are none other than the applications that run automatically when Mac boots to desktop, thereby consuming RAM and Processor. As a result, Mac machine boots up sluggishly, and you suffer from spinning beach balls. Therefore, it is recommended to disable these startup actions from Apple menu->System Preferences->Accounts->Login Items, to achieve faster startup.

Installed Applications

Mac users install so many applications over time, thinking a Mac machine cannot slowdown; however, the system behaves adversely. Go through all installed applications and remove every single application that is not used for a long time. Removing unused applications results in creating free space on the disk, thereby giving performance gains.

Safari Browser

Apple's very own Safari browser in Mac (just like every other web browsers) stores Internet history, cookies, cache, bookmarks, logs, browser plug-ins, and add-ins that affect Internet browsing speed when present in large number. Clean up these items from Safari menu-> Reset Safari, check these items, and click Reset to boost Internet surfing speed.

Apart from cleaning up several areas of the Mac machine, you should also update all the apps installed on your Mac machine in order to improve your Mac machine's performance:

Updating Applications

Make sure the apps installed on your Mac machine are updated. If not, then click Apple menu-> Software Update, and let the Mac connect to Apple's app store to search and download the updates for installed applications.

Follow each of the tips recommended above, not only to free up the hard drive space, but even to speed up the Mac machine.