Do Defragmentation Corrupt My Mac Files

You might be aware about that defragmenting the hard drive enhances its efficiency and reduces its response time, by re-arranging the memory blocks regardless of whether they are occupied or unoccupied. People are often seen complaining that drive defragment corrupted the registry and file system of their Mac. Therefore, being a non-professional user, one might get confused whether to go for drive defragment or not, and the question remains unanswered.

1. What are Fragments

Before we discuss about one should defrag his/her Mac drive, we must be aware about what are the fragments and how does they cause.

Have you ever experienced that your Mac is running slower and its response time has diminished as compared to when it was new? If yes, this might be due to the fragments in the memory. These memory fragments are caused automatically and even when you delete some data from your hard drive. When you store large data on your hard drive, it does not always occupy the memory in a continuous fashion, but occupy these memory fragments first and remaining data gets fit up in other unoccupied space; however, a logical sequencing is maintained. When you access this fragmented data, it takes longer time to response, as it retrieves data from different memory blocks.

2. What is Defragmentation

You might be glad knowing that Mac OS X has built-in memory defragmentation mechanism in its file system i.e. HFS, HFS+, HFSX etc. that automatically defrags the memory. This intelligent mechanism shifts the data to a recently vacated memory location whenever a particular memory block becomes free, thereby maintaining the same logical sequencing. In addition, when you access a file or document on your Mac, this intelligent file system scans it for fragments and defrags, if required.

In case, if you are confused about whether to defrag Mac hard drive or not, as you have read and heard that it corrupts file system and registry of your Mac. In this regard, you must first fix your confusion, as Mac is smart operating system that auto defrags the drives and your data remains intact.

3. Advantages of Defragmentation

Hard drive defragmentation is the process of removing fragments from the memory (hard drive) of your machine. It physically organizes the memory blocks of the hard drive that are carrying the data in order to optimize the memory. This optimizes the efficiency of the machine and reduces the response time of the data, which automatically enhances the overall throughput.

Drive defragmentation is advantageous for a machine as well as for its user. When a drive has fragments, the read/write head takes longer time to move over the platter, causing slower data access. Alternatively, it moves faster if it does not meet fragments on the platter i.e. hard drive, which automatically reduces response time of the data.