Mac Backup External Drive Got Fragmented? Defrag It Now.

Summary: File fragmentation could be one of the possible reasons behind the slow running of an external hard drive backup`. Ever wondered how your backup drive got fragmented? Don’t worry since this post includes a free method to remove file fragmentation from any hard drive. 

Newer hard drives on Mac don’t get fragmented for many years to come. On the other hand, Solid State Drives (SSDs) never accumulate fragments on its storage space since it doesn’t contain moving parts. Despite all this, fragmentation still remains an exclusive hard drive problem that occurs widely on a Windows system, and occasionally, on OS X Mac. 

How Internal Mac Disk Becomes Fragments?

Internal hard drive fragments because it serves as a primary and frequently used storage device on a Mac. External hard drives being secondary, aren’t used or read-write by the OS X just as the internal hard drives are. Hence, the data gets distributed to multiple locations on the primary Mac drive, that causes the OS X to pick up the file information for the same request from several places to execute. This critical job done by the OS X to fulfil the access request causes delays and more drive’s head movement.

Note: More hard drives head movement repetitions aren’t a good sign for its health.

How External Backup Drives Gets Fragmented?

External storage devices purposely meant to keep an exact backup copy of your Macintosh HD faces file fragments issues due to its source hard drive. If you clone your fragmented Macintosh HD to another drive, then cloning creates a mirror image of your source device to another device. Though the data gets backed up, the destination drive becomes fragmented. This results in unresponsiveness from the external hard drive whenever accessed on Mac.

Fragmentation of Time Machine Drive

The external hard drive used for Time Machine backups are utilized by the OS X twice or more times in a day for backing up the Mac. Nonetheless, the Time Machine external storage device copies the entire Macintosh HD data historically, and it can incremental backup files to the external device too.

Chances of Time Machine disk fragmentation are least if the backup external hard drive is 2X or 3X times the size of the Macintosh HD. Due to the availability of plenty of free spaces on larger drives, the Time Machine drive can perform smoothly whenever approached for files restoration. On the other hand, a small capacity Time Machine hard drive will choke due to rapidly decreasing free spaces, and more importantly, due to incorporation of fragments from the source disks. As a result, the backup restoration may stretch for a longer period than usual.

Defragging a Mac Hard Drive

The source hard drive i.e. internal Macintosh HD requires defragging not just for itself but also for external hard drive. Defragging a Mac hard drive cannot be done using a built-in utility such as Disk Utility or Activity Monitor. Mac hard drive defragmentation can be achieved by using an alternative Mac defrag software.

However, if you aren’t interested in running a specially designed Mac drive defrag utility, then you can perform disk defragmentation using the below steps:

Note: Defragging Mac Hard Drive does not require any special tool 

1.     Image the entire Mac hard drive to external media

2.     Go to Recovery Mode and erase your Macintosh HD

3.     Restore OS X through the Recovery Mode

4.     Restore your files back to your Mac hard drive 

The process of restoring data back to a newly formatted hard drive eliminates file fragmentation or can reduce the severity of fragmentations to a considerable extent. Since the source drive is formatted with a new file system, the backup restoration occupies contiguous memory location rather than distributed. Thus fragmentation is eradicated or reduced.

The Bottom Line

Be it an internal or external Mac hard drive, just remember to keep the storage device free from file fragmentations. Though Macs don’t easily get fragmented yet they aren’t practically safe from fragmentations, especially, the older hard drive that has gone through plenty of head movements. 

How to clean install OS X El Capitan

OS X El Capitan is the latest version of Mac operating system. El Capitan is equipped with all new features and improvements for a Mac user. Some of the notable features are the split view of the applications you may be working on, improved space management, smarter spotlight search feature and more.  If you are thinking to use the new El Capitan OS, there are two ways to go - Upgrading the existing system and performing a clean install of the OS. A clean install will wipe out all the existing data on the Mac machine and provide a fresh install. A clean install will be the matter of discussion in this article.

Preparing for installation

1. Minimum system requirements

Before you rush into installing the new OS X, here are few things listed that you should check to get a successful installation of El Capitan:

a) Minimum of 2GB RAM is required for the OS X El Capitan to give a decent performance. However, 4GB should be considered the best.

b) 8GB of free space on the drive is required for installation. This amount is what the OS X El Capitan will occupy. The extra space is required for other storage.

c) A 64-bit processor space and a 64-bit version of EFI firmware.

To check whether, the system meets the requirement “c”, follow the steps below:

a) Go to Applications and open Terminal application.

b) Type the command: Uname –a and press enter.

c) Check the output displayed. It should contain the phrase “X86_64”. If it does not, then you cannot install OS X El Capitan on the given machine.

d) Then, enter the command: ioreg -l -p IODeviceTree -l |grep firmware-abi and press enter.

e) The output should contain the phrase “EFI64”. If it does not, you cannot install El Capitan on the given machine.

2. Data backup

Update to the operating system always has a probability to go haywire. El Capitan, with its new features, changes the system settings and makes changes to the overall machine that may cause data loss. Adding to that; power failures, hardware errors and other unwanted hurdles might escalate the loss of data and normal functioning of the system. Hence, take a Mac backup using Time Machine or other methods as desired. This way, you can restore the system to the working state in case of an update failure.

Getting the clean install done

There are two ways to clean install viz. clean install on startup volume or clean install on empty volume. Before installation, download the installer package. It starts running automatically. Quit the installation if you need to install it on the startup drive. Follow the instructions to create a bootable installation device. Let’s take the installation methods one by one.

1. Clean install on empty volume

This should be straightforward.

a) Launch the installer from the Applications folder and click Continue to start the installation.

b) Then, the wizard asks to accept the license agreement. Read & accept the terms and the process continue.

c) Select the target disk and location where the installation will happen. Enter the admin password if any and continue.

d) The system restarts and the installation progresses on its own. This may take some time.


2. Clean install on startup volume

Once you have prepared the bootable USB drive for installation, shutdown the system and plug in the USB drive. Start the system and hold down the option key. Follow the steps below:

a) You will be displayed with the start up menu. Select the USB device.

b) Select Disk Utility to erase the volume where you need to install the El Capitan.

c) Select the format to be Mac OS X Journaled (Extended). Then click on Erase.

d) You will be back to the startup menu. Select install OS X.

e) Now the two methods follow the same process from here. Repeat the steps (a to d) in point 1 above.

3. Set up process

Once the installation is complete via either of the clean install methods, you will see the login screen on the system. Enter the admin password and follow the steps below:

1. OS X El Capitan asks for an Apple ID. You may choose to enter it or do it later. Providing the Apple ID here will ease the installation process and will automatically set many system preferences.

2. Then the user is prompted to set the preferences for “Find my Mac” which allows remotely locking or erasing the Mac and identifying the geo-location. You may set the preferences now or later.

3. The next step is to set up the iCloud Keychain, which allows you to sync the passwords and other information across the Apple devices. You can set them now or later.

4. This finishes the configuration and shows the new desktop of El Capitan.

Repair Macintosh HD with Disk Utility and Safe Mode

If you are concerned about your Mac drive as it is continuously showing issues while accessing the operating system or stored files, then there could be either mechanical or logical issues with the hard drive. In order to repair Macintosh HD, first you need to diagnose the problem and try to resolve the issues with disk utility.

Here are he steps you can follow to identify the actual issues along with most possible way to resolve them:

Using Disk Utility:

Mac provides a Recovery Mode that lets you to diagnose the hardware issues, restore Time Machine backups, manage hard drives, and even reinstall OS X itself. Therefore, Recovery Mode should be your initial steps to diagnose and resolve the Mac drive problem.

1. To use Recovery Mode, reboot or start the Mac while holding the Command and R keys as soon as you hear the startup sound. 
2. Keep holding the key until you will not be able to view a screen along with multiple Mac utilities. 
3. Here, select ‘Disk Utility’ when it opens and click on your hard drive and then ‘Repair Disk’. Now, wait till the computer completes its process. 
4. After successful process exit the installer and also Quit Disk Utility and go to Utilities > Start-Up Disk.
5. Now, select the disk with Mac OS X and click Restart

After successful process the result either resolves your system problem or the hard drive might show failure indications.

What if you don’t have Mac OS install DVD?

In case the Mac OS install DVD is not available right now but you have access to another Mac and a firewire cable then you can also try to boot the Mac in Target Disk Mode. To do this follow the below steps:

1. Turn on your targeted Mac machine while holding the T key
2. A gray screen will appear with a large moving Firewire logo
3. Now, you can connect the two Mac systems via firewire cable and then boot the healthy Mac while holding the Alt/Option key as described above
4. The sick Mac’s hard drive in target disk mode will appear as a boot option on your healthy computer. Select it and initiate the process
5. If you will be able to boot through the selected drive successfully, you can try again to run Disk Utility from Applications->Utilities and verify/repair the hard drive
6. If this works, the again try to reboot your computer normally and check if the problem has been solved.  

Booting the Mac in Safe Mode

When you boot your Mac in safe mode it will automatically attempt some disk repair measures. Here are the steps to start up into standard Safe Mode

1. Shut down the Mac
2. Now, turn on the system by pressing power button
3. Immediately hold the Shift key after the startup tone
4. Hold the Shift key until the Grey Apple icon and the progress indicator doesn’t appear

Note: In order to start up a Mac machine into Safe Mode with display of the progress in a command line UI, follow all above mentioned steps except hold the Command and V keys along with Shift.

Alternative solution

If nothing worked for you, then possibly your Mac has a severe problem that needs a special treatment to resolve. In order to do that a professional drive repair software should be the preferred choice of professionals. You can repair corrupt drive directory with Stellar Volume Optimizer software. Yes, it also repairs bad disk permissions and creates bootable media to repair Mac startup drive.

All of the above explained solutions might take you to data loss situation if anything goes wrong; therefore, backup is the most preferred solution you should always follow if you can before performing any data recovery method. In case, you your hard drive is having these issues due to any reason then it is better to go with a professional method instead of trying multiple repair trials as they might end up with a data loss situation.

Upgrade MacBook Pro Hard Drive to SSD Now

You might have been tired of MacBook Pro random slow downs.  Or say, you want your MBP to have lightening speed especially on startups & shutdowns. Then my friends, upgrading your old MacBook Pro hard disk drive with a solid-state drive is the next big thing. Upgrading your MacBook Pro to SSD is actually celebrating Christmas for your Mac.

But Why Upgrade to SSD?

Traditional hard disk drives are bound to slow down after decades of read and writes.  At some point of time your existing RAM & Hard Drive will fall short to provide you enough speed. This time is right to upgrade the Mac’s hardware and to begin with SSDs are the best choices. Moreover, HDD are prone to crashing due to their traditional technology of spinning platters and use of magnetism. Solid State Drives have advantage of having chip based storage over HDD.

Benefits of installing SSD on Mac?

• Consume Less Power as compared to HDD
• OS X boot time is reduced dramatically
• Unlike HDD, SSDs are quite
• No or extremely low issues of overheating
• SSD doesn’t require defragmentation
• Write Speed is enormous in comparison to HDD
• Access speed is 30% faster than a normal HDD
• Unlike HDD, SSDs aren’t affected by magnetism

Downside of installing a SSD on MacBook Pro

• Low on space
• High on cost

Search for Best SSD Manufacturers:

Don’t just buy a SSD without spending few hours researching on the best available hardware. Below is the checklist to follow while selecting a SSD:

1. Manufacturer or Brand
2. Compatibility with your OS X
3. Price
4. Storage Capacity
5. Warranty
6. Return/Replace/Refund Policy

Use Google as the best tool to check out for best SSD manufacturers for MacBook Pro machines. Among the top providers are the Samsung, Toshiba Q Series Pro, Seagate, SanDisk Extreme and OCZ Vector.

Backup old Mac Hard Disk Drive before an upgrade

Don’t use Disk Utility to backup your old HDD data to the new Solid State Drive. At times, there are issues related to size difference between SSD & HDD that can bother you for a while. Instead, use a third party Mac SSD Cloning software and copy all the content of the old HDD to the Solid State Drive. The cloning of the entire Macintosh HD to its new destination will take some time to complete. Till now, the task is simple and doesn’t require a technical expertise to monitor. After some time, the third party cloning application will successfully clone your HDD to SSD.

Replacing the HDD with SSD on MacBook Pro 

For a technical user, replacing the MacBook Pro’s hard drive with SSD will take matter of minutes. However, f you are completely unaware of replacing the drive then use Google Search to find an authenticated method for the same. Usually, you need approximately ten screws to unbolt from the bottom case and remove the old drive, replace with the SSD. In total, it may take 10-15 minutes from unbolting to bolting again.

What After Successful Installation?

Power up your Mac OS X and check if it boots normal after a successful installation of the SSD. You may not notice the quick boot up at the first attempt. When Mac logs in completely, move to System Preferences<<Startup Disk<<Select Your Newly Install SSD and press Restart. Now, your MacBook Pro system will experience the real speed change.

Read, repair, burn and recover Mac hard drive on Windows

Windows & Mac OS X is neither friends nor foes, I believe they are simply competitors and offers advanced operating interface to the users.  Hadn’t there been both the operating systems, the human race still might be using an Abacus. But for an individual, who switches from PC to Mac, finds a great deal of learning while operating OS X. Though there arises dozens of challenges on Mac but thanks to web that offers solutions to almost all the queries.

1. How to read a HFS formatted hard disk drive on Mac?

The answer to this solution is software called Mac Drive developed by MEDIAFOUR INC. This software reads the content of a Mac drive with HFS file structure. And, not only it reads but user is allowed to perform multiple operations on Mac formatted drive on Windows using Mac Drive software.

A user can perform below useful tasks using Mac Drive software:

• Access HFS drives, CD, DVD etc.
• Create partitions on drives
• Repair disk drives
• Burn media
• Manages media
• Access Time Machine data

Image Courtesy: Mediafour.Com

Why you need Mac Drive on Windows?

• To access your Mac formatted hard disk drives on PC (Windows 10, 8, 8.1 and Server 2012)
• To manage your Mac drive data in case your Mac is unable to do so
• Mac Drive becomes a bridge between your PC & Mac OS X
• Mac Drive becomes a saviour when you badly need to access a HFS hard drive but you don’t have a Mac around

2. How to recover Mac data from hard drive on a Windows system?

The answer to recover deleted, formatted or initialized Mac hard drive (HFS) on Windows platform is Stellar Phoenix Mac data recovery on Windows, developed by Stellar Data Recovery Inc. This software is designed to recover a Mac hard disk drive using a Windows system. Sounds strange but it does read, analyze, scan and recover your HFS formatted disk using a Microsoft PC.

User can perform below powerful tasks using Stellar Mac recovery software for PC version:

• Quick Recovery
• Deleted File Recovery
• Formatted Media/Lost File Recovery
• Search Lost/Deleted Volumes
• iPod/Photo Recovery
• Resume Recovery
• Create Image

Image 1: Select HFS drive on PC

Image 2: Files are previewed & recovered on PC

Why you need Stellar Phoenix Mac recovery for PC version?

• To recover a dead Mac’s hard drive using PC
• To recover HFS drive on a Windows when no other Mac OS is around

Conclusion: Both Mac Drive & Stellar Phoenix Mac recovery for PC version fills the gaps that have between the both operating systems. Both of the software creates a bridge that helps users go beyond cross platform compatibility issues and perform their tasks freely.

How to Perfectly Optimize the Mac Disk File System

Mac is one of the most popular OS from Apple Inc., which is used by millions of users worldwide. There are many added advantage of using Mac OS X over other OS. One of the main advantage of Mac is it doesn’t require any specific process to defrag the Hard Drive. If you have files of very large size, then it is normal for the hard drive to be fragmented and it reduce the overall speed of the system.

Fragmentation: - Fragmentation is the process that occurs when large size files are created and deleted from the Mac hard drive. The Hard drive may not be able to store all the data of same files together, which increases the hard drive activity, as it has to look more than two places for a single file, which reduce the speed of the system?

On the other hand defragmentation is the process, which keeps the same data together on the hard drive. This process recognizes the similar data and keeps them together, so that the hard drive will get all similar files in the same place without searching.

Difference between Defragmentation in Windows and Mac Operating System:-

In Windows, fragmentation is a very common issue and Microsoft provides the lots of utilities to support it. That is why the users who switch to Mac from Windows have the tendency to defrag their hard drive within the regular interval.

Though, the latest version of Windows include with the improved file fragmentation feature, but users who are using this OS for years continuing doing regular defragmentation process. In the newest version of Windows the 'Disk Defragmenter' function is renamed as 'Optimize Drives’, which is more capable of doing defragmentation of Windows hard drive.  

However, Mac system do not includes any of such defragging utility or any derive optimization tool. If a user feels that his Mac drive is fragmented and he is looking for an inbuilt solution in disk utility, then it will be a completely waste of time, as there is no such inbuilt tool provided by Mac.

There are reasons why Mac does not have any hard drive optimization tool; one is Mac OS X HFS Plus file system, which defrag all the files automatically under Hot File Adaptive Clustering (HFC) process. Another reason is latest Macs ship with SSD, or Flash Storage drives, which do not need defragmentation process as they already have their own processes, known as TRIM.

Some Exceptional Defragmentation Cases in Mac Systems:-

Usually users who regularly upgrade their hard drive will not get such fragmentation issue in their Mac system. However, if you are a stick on a same hard drive since many years and you have hundreds or thousands of large files such as a music files, creative documents, etc.

And these files use tools like Logic Pro, Photoshop, Adobe Premier, Final Cut, or many similar apps that create or run many large multimedia files.
So you may face the fragmentation issue and also require tools to defrag your data with any utility.

Remember Below mentioned Facts at the time of Defragmentation of Your Hard Drive:

• Use defragging process only with hard drives not with SSD's
• Don’t defrag your Mac drive regularly, as OS X always writes small files in one batch which automatically eliminates most of the fragmentation issues.
• Hard drives are usually fast in the beginning and with increasing data storage they becomes slowest. Data can’t be magically moved to up to take available space, there can be many holes developed with lots of read and write operation. 
• The first 50% drive is faster than last 50% because of more sectors in each track, so that the heads have less data to move and can gather more data on a single time. So if you have maintained the first 50%, the drive works faster.
• Over the time Mac hard drive can get slow down because of lots of new file creation and old file deletion?

Stellar Drive Defrag is one of the most trusted tools for Mac defragmentation. This utility has also available in a free demo version by which you can check its efficiency and is compatible with latest OS X Yosemite.

This tool helps you to increase the speed as well as the performance of your Mac hard drive. It runs on your Mac hard drive and searches for all the scattered data fragments as well as organizes them in a proper way to optimize the speed of your system. It creates a free contiguous memory space instead of fragmented empty space.

You can see all the similar data file into the same color so that you can identify all similar block in the hard disk. This efficient utility can also monitor the drive temperature fluctuation at the time of defragmentation Free.

How to recover inaccessible files on OS X Mac?

It has been said, Mac is more reliable and safe as compared to other operating systems but still many nasty errors make OS X platform clumsy. Till today, Mac users come across many unknown data loss situations by attempting wrong steps in a hassle manner. Either during drive formatting or installing new software phase, just a wrong step leads a user to face unexpected events of data loss. To overcome from those situations, users try to restore Mac files from Time Machine backup or seek data recovery programs to regain the lost data. To get an efficient Mac data recovery software with in best prices is not always a worth deal. Above all, wouldn’t it be the best if users get more aware and stay away from the causes of data loss? If you support this viewpoint then take a look at the causes mentioned below that why data gets inaccessible? 

What causes inaccessibility of data?

• Interrupted read/write operations

An interruption during file Read/Write process may lead to data loss. The chances of file corruption get increased and on-going process becomes inactive or halted in mid of the way if such kind of the interruption occurs at an extreme point.

• Human mistakes

Sometimes, due to accidental deletion of files/folders or incorrect formatting Mac drive makes data inaccessible.