🚀 go-pugleaf

I just saw an add for Copy II Mac PLUS which seems to indicate that this new
version also includes a defragmenting utility (probably working much like the
SUM-utility) but I have not seen or heard anything more about it.

now, to compare SUM's HD-TuneUp and DiskExpress:

HD-TuneUp will scan the disk and de-fragement all those fragmented files,
for which a sufficiently large free contiguous disk-segment is available;
fragmented files which are too large to get defragmented - stay fragmented
(unfortunately, those are often the most important files you'd like to see
defragmented, such as your System file).  This program was developed, because
DiskExpress is a rather dangerous program to use (see below) which caused a
good percentage of the "broken" disks which even ZAP could not help you
recover much from (I lived through a crisis like that ONCE - and I reported
about it to this forum then).

DiskExpress (1.10 was the last version I had looked at) not only can
defragment all files, but also make all free space contiguous.  The problem
is that it does that in a way which  a) is very slow   b) seems to leave the
hole disk in an unusable state during most of this process, which means
that should the program crash for any reason (or a power-failure should
occur) the disk has to be restored completely from a back-up (you DO have
a recent backup?!)


here are my thoughts on the best way to deal with the fragmentation (and
backup problem) at the moment:

FIRST, determine how much free space you have on your hard disk and the
fragmentation index and the identity of the fragmented files (beats me
at this moment which utilities are best for this purpose).

SECOND, decide if you have a fragmentation problem which needs to be
rectified.

THIRD,  if you have only very little free space on your hard disk (several
megabytes, at least), backup a few files to floppy and remove them from the
hard disk to create space to work with.

FOURTH, run HD-TuneUp, and try to catch the names of the files which it
CANNOT defragment; if you miss some yuo can simply run the program again
to get all file-names.

FIFTH, make sure you have an up-to-date backup of your hard-disk!!  ((-:

SIXTH, backup the files which are still fragmented to floppy and remove
them from the hard disk (this allows DiskExpress to run faster and "cleaner",
i.e. less likely to cause you head-aches).  An incremental backup program
keeps you sane (especially if you have a large disk).

SEVENTH, run DiskExpress and go home home for the day (or for a long break,
at least; depends on the size of your hard disk, of course)

EIGHTH, restore any files you temporarily moved to floppy to make the
above process faster/safer.

NOTE: steps 3, 5, 6 and 8 are optional of course....

Comments, anyone?
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