What do you expect from a vendor that sells the OS?
Seriously, I don't see the difference between the support article from apple and the blurb from the defrag vendor other than the apple one says "you probably won't need to" but if you do need to, get a utility for it or, what you left off, just go ahead and reinstall the OS. That would be implicit in the defrag blurb i.e. if you are looking at defrag programs for your apple product then you "probably" feel you need to. Either way both are filled with marketing speak.
I'm not accustomed to seeing support pages as sales literature, perhaps you are.
The "blurb" includes, as replacing operating system components not only increases file fragmentation. File fragmentation is not an issue in the HFS+ file system. Generally, the entire file is rewritten. In situations, in which the complete file is not rewritten, the OS will automatically take care of file fragmentation during idle time. On the other hand, disk fragmentation dose occur. Hence, when the disk approaches full, it is advantageous to defrag to collect the unused space in one contiguous region.
Although I haven't looked at how NTFS is implemented in Windows 7 and recognizing that it is a big improvement over the FAT systems, I believe that it allocates space for a file. If the file grows larger than that space, it becomes fragmented.
Now, if you will look at the context of my post, I believe you will find the implication that modern file systems don't need fragmentation like older ones do, and then a post that HFS+ needs to be defragged, implying that it in the latter category, when, in fact, it is in the former.
Southernsuzy wrote: On another note... I see no one ever touted the gain over XP with the new win7.
To be honest, I haven't run XP with any regularity in probably 3-4 years. I do have a laptop with XP on one of the partitions and Win7 on another, the laptop is a good 3 years old and Win7 runs great on it. In fact, it feels more responsive/zippy than XP, but that could also be the difference between a clean Win7 install and an old XP install that's ended up bloated and fragmented over time.
Which brings up a cool feature with Win7 (And Vista); Scheduled, automatic defrags. Both Vista and Win7 do these on their own at a pre-defined interval. XP doesn't do this, and I'm sure some of you are familiar with this process.
Based on the XP vs Win7 experience on my particular laptop I'd say Win7 is easily as good as XP with some nice enhancements over and above the UI improvements, etc.
My desktop came with Vista and has been fine, XP wouldn't even be an option on it.
In the end, if you're happy with XP then stick with XP. The main point I want to make is that there's no reason to be afraid of Win7 at this point.
#1...defrag...
The difference...Vista, Win 7, defrag is set to run automatically by default. In XP the user must manually set this.
#2...mysterious UI improvements.
The question still stands. What is better about win 7?
"Better" is subjective. I can name a number of things that are better for ME.
What I find better about Win7:
DirectX 10+ (XP can only do up to DX9), grahics improvements for games
Much better support for 64-bit (64-bit XP isn't something I'd wish on anyone)
Aero (I do prefer a better-looking UI)
Better integration with removable hardware, such as MP3 players, scanners, digital cameras
Built-in backup software that actually works to back-up the entire machine, including creating a shadow copy/system image
Native VHD support - You can create a VM and boot the VHD as a native OS, fully utilizing all the hardware
Some or all of these things someone else might not find important or better, so it's subjective and each person will need to evaluate what Win7 has to offer and determine for themselves if it's better for what they need or do.
I don't know why this is such a sticking point for some people. XP is getting long in the tooth, comparing it to Win7 which is a good 8+ years newer is silly, IMO. Not saying newer is automatically better, but you might as well ask what's better about a 2009 Dodge Ram compared to a 2000 Dodge Ram. The '09's changes might not be important to some people and they're perfectly happy keeping their '00 Ram.
OS's don't wear out...Dodge Rams do. Not a very comparative analogy.
Yahooligan wrote: XP is getting long in the tooth, comparing it to Win7 which is a good 8+ years newer is silly, IMO. Not saying newer is automatically better, but you might as well ask what's better about a 2009 Dodge Ram compared to a 2000 Dodge Ram. The '09's changes might not be important to some people and they're perfectly happy keeping their '00 Ram.
OS's don't wear out...Dodge Rams do. Not a very comparative analogy.
I believe he's talking about a brand new 2000 vs 2009. Older tech, features, bells and whistles vs new.
Yahooligan wrote: XP is getting long in the tooth, comparing it to Win7 which is a good 8+ years newer is silly, IMO. Not saying newer is automatically better, but you might as well ask what's better about a 2009 Dodge Ram compared to a 2000 Dodge Ram. The '09's changes might not be important to some people and they're perfectly happy keeping their '00 Ram.
OS's don't wear out...Dodge Rams do. Not a very comparative analogy.
I believe he's talking about a brand new 2000 vs 2009. Older tech, features, bells and whistles vs new.
Yahooligan wrote: XP is getting long in the tooth, comparing it to Win7 which is a good 8+ years newer is silly, IMO. Not saying newer is automatically better, but you might as well ask what's better about a 2009 Dodge Ram compared to a 2000 Dodge Ram. The '09's changes might not be important to some people and they're perfectly happy keeping their '00 Ram.
OS's don't wear out...Dodge Rams do. Not a very comparative analogy.
I believe he's talking about a brand new 2000 vs 2009. Older tech, features, bells and whistles vs new.
How would YOU know what HE is talking about?
Because I read what he wrote and understood (and agree with) it.
Now, if you will look at the context of my post, I believe you will find the implication that modern file systems don't need fragmentation like older ones do, and then a post that HFS+ needs to be defragged, implying that it in the latter category, when, in fact, it is in the former.
Tom
I recently did some defragging and found one laptop with XP which had never been defragged was 26% fragmented. It has a NTFS file system. My other laptop was 6% fragmented but I have occasionally defragged it, same OS and file system. I don't know how much of a problem fragmentation presents, but almost immediately after defragging there appears to be fragmentation, once files are used.
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