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.
