How Auto-Defragmentation Occurs on Mac OS X based Computers

As far as fragmentation is concerned, Windows users have an upper hand because of the inbuilt ‘Disk Defragmentation’ tool that is used to improve the performance of computers when they come across an unusual state of gradual performance downfall. On the other hand, Mac machine lacks such a tool in Disk Utility (i.e. the Mac inbuilt disk management toolbox, found at Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility).
 
Disk Utility is helpful in some cases like fixing corruption in a volume and/or its permissions, drive partitioning tasks, and more. However, when it comes to carry out defragmentation on Mac, Disk Utility is helpless. Mac users believe that the ‘so-called’ excellent Mac machine they are using does not come across any such issue, which also is a statement of Apple Inc. Well, hard drives do undergo fragmentation, no matter which computer they are installed on. Even Mac machine experiences performance downfall issues due to fragmentation.
Auto Defragmentation of Mac
 
According to Apple’s statement, Mac machines do not experience fragmentation since they are smart enough to deal with it automatically. The statement indirectly points to the HFS+ file system that is used to format the hard drive installed on the Mac machines. In fact, the HFS+ file system scans each file being opened for fragments, and then defrags it automatically, if necessary. However, the criteria is applicable only to the files below 20MB of size. Therefore, the users himself has to defragment Mac files above 20MB of size, which obviously requires a commercial defragmentation tool.
 
How Fragmentation Occurs
The term ‘fragmentation’ is associated with the algorithm that a computer operating system implements to save data on the hard drive. On Macintosh based computers, the HFS+ file system is assigned the task to allocate a block to each file saved by the user, where the term ‘block’ refers to a small region of the space on the hard drive, which is intended to store a file individually as well as efficiently. However, a number of blocks contain free spaces due to implementation of an inefficient block allocation algorithm.
 
The free or leftover space in a block on the hard drive is termed the ‘fragment’.
On the other hand, when a large file is saved, Mac file system breaks it into a number of segments, and then these segments are stored individually in multiple blocks on the hard drive. The blocks occupied by the segments of a file are linked to each other logically. However, the inefficient block allocation algorithm fails to store these segments contiguously. Consequently, the file segments are stored in multiple blocks non-continuously.
 
Imagine a large file is stored on the Mac. Undoubtedly, since the size of this file is larger than that of the storage blocks available, the HFS+ file system will break the file into segments of smaller sizes. Consequently, some of the filled blocks contain free space because of their smaller size, while many ones are filled efficiently. The state of the hard drive caused when free spaces are present inside the filled regions of the hard drive is termed as internal fragmentation.
 
As mentioned above, the HFS+ file system is responsible for blocks allocation on the hard drive on Mac machines. Macs often come undergo inefficient utilization of the blocks when a poor storage allocation algorithm is implemented. Consequently, the segments of a file are stored non-contiguously. In such a state, the unfilled blocks are available outside the allocated region though. However, they fail to store files because of their smaller size. Such a state of the hard drive is termed as external fragmentation.
 
Since the HFS+ file system cannot store large files in the available blocks, it breaks all such files into segments, and then stores them. In this state, the segments of the files are scattered; and it is thus, termed as data fragmentation.
 
Defragmenting Mac Drive
“Defragmentation refers to a mechanism to rearrange the blocks of the hard drives in a logical order in order to reduce the response time of data, thereby dealing with the fragments appropriately.”
 
Disk Utility in Mac OS X is able to fix disk related problems; however, it lacks defragmentation tool. In order to be able to deal with fragmentation, you must have a commercial defragmentation tool. However, the developer – Apple denies for any such requirement for Mac systems, as the HFS+ file system itself is able to deal with fragmentation in an efficient manner. For this, it scans each file thoroughly for fragments when it is opened. In case a file is found as highly fragmented, it defrags that file automatically. However, the files it scan and defrags automatically not more than 20MB of size, which means the users need to defragment Mac file that are above 20MB of size.
 
Mac OS X does not allocate recently emptied blocks to save new files. In fact, it shifts all such blocks backwards in order for henceforth allocation. This minimizes the odds for fragmentation to occur. Also, it adds all frequently accessed files to hot file zone, which makes all these files available again at a much faster rate.
 
As discussed earlier, the HFS+ file system on Macs defrags the files automatically when they are opened. However, it does not mean that all files meet the required criteria with no failure. In fact, the size of the fragmented file can be up to 20MB of size in order to be defragmented automatically by the HFS+ file system. In other words, Macs OS X is not able to defrag large files (such as movies, Mac applications, and HD videos), and therefore requires professional defragmentation tool.
 
You can download a defragmentation app from the Internet, as this not only enhances the performance of your Mac system considerably, but optimizes the free space as well. However, make sure the application you use is reliable and you have proper information about how it is used to defrag the Mac drive. If you do not, then you must go through the software user manual. Or else, consult the experts for required help of any kind.

Simple ways To Clean up OS X Mavericks

OS X Mavericks is too smart to keep itself clean and speedy. But, there comes a stage when it needs to be maintained manually. There are many manual tips, which can bring speed to your slow Mavericks.
Here, I am with 5 most powerful tips to speed up Mavericks. But, if you are in great need of cleaning your Mac drive in just few clicks then jump directly to point 6.

1. Verify and Repair Permissions

Do you know what permissions are? Actually, it’s a set of information, associated with each file on your Mac, which tells the operating system what users and applications can access that file. If permissions face any problem or mismatching then it may cause issues with loading applications, email and even logging in.
You can verify permissions via Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility > Verify Disk Permissions.
If you find issues with permissions in Mavericks then click Repair Disk Permissions.

2. Verify and Repair Disk

After permissions, it’s the time to see if there is any problem with your disk. You can both verify and repair Mac disk with disk utility. Before you run the utility on startup disk, you need to boot your machine externally. We use this process when the disk goes unresponsive to experience some major issues.

3. Use Maintenance Scripts

How about running some scripts to maintain your Mac? You must know that your Mac is a UNIX-based system and there run some scripts s to clean up logs and temporary files, usually between 3:15 AM and 5:30 AM. Your Mac misses the chance if it is in sleep mode during this time. In such cases you need to run the scripts manually via terminal (Applications > Utilities > Terminal).
sudo periodic daily weekly monthly

4. Keep your Desktop Clean

Sometimes a cluttered desktop may be a reason of a slow Mac OS X. A desktop full of icons makes folder system slower. Cleaning desktop brings a noticeable improvement in its speed sometimes, equivalent to the sum of all other maintenance tasks.

5. Manage Mac Login Items

What are login items in my Mac? Have you ever asked this question to yourself? Basically, these are the programs that get loaded automatically when you startup your Mac. It’s recommended to have a short list of login items, which can be cut down at System Preferences > Users & Groups.

6. What to do if manual tips are worthless?

If the Mac maintenance manual tips, mentioned above, are not working then you must go with some Mac cleanup tool. There is no built-in application to scan and trash useless items from your Mac. So, a move to third party tool like Stellar SpeedUp Mac, will be an intelligent decision.

What Stellar SpeedUp Mac does?

This Mac cleaning application scans your hard drive / specific volume for all the useless data like duplicate files, cache, leftovers, language files and universal binaries and removes them permanently. It creates free space in your Mac disk to avail memory resources to OS.

Wish you a very speedy Mac OS X  ……..

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.

DOWNLOAD NOW

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.