# How to optimise a sample drive



## MarcusMaximus (Dec 30, 2016)

I posted about this on another forum a couple of days ago but thought I would ask the question here as well as I imagine a lot of folks here would know about this side of things. Hope that's ok.

Over the years I have allowed the (2nd internal) hard drive on which I store all my samples to fill up beyond the 70% recommended by East-West. I own a lot of their libraries, e.g. Hollywood Orchestra, which can be quite demanding on my system. I have recently freed up about 30 GB by moving one library which I rarely use. I am wondering is it enough to have freed up that space or should I optimise the drive by re-formatting it? That would involve copying all the existing files to another location and then putting them back after formatting - a big job - but would it be best to do that in order to make sure that the data is situated on the outer part of the disc and is also contiguous? Would this give me any significant improvement in performance/efficiency?


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## d.healey (Dec 30, 2016)

Buy an SSD or two. Reformatting isn't going to make any noticeable difference, defragmenting might though.


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## MarcusMaximus (Dec 30, 2016)

Well I don't have performance issues as such, the system works fine so I'll keep it as it is for now in terms of HD vs. SSD's. Having cleared the space on the drive I just want to make sure it is optimised. I'm on a Mac so defragmenting isn't really an option. However I have been given to understand that making sure the data for the most demanding libraries is written to the outer parts of the drive as far as possible can have a beneficial effect. The only way to do that would be to format and re-fill the drive to 70% from scratch. My question is whether it's worth it and you seem to be suggesting that it probably isn't.


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## JohnG (Dec 30, 2016)

@MarcusMaximus My bet is that it's a marginal improvement, but sometimes you don't really know until you try it. I guess, if you have the patience and an extra drive, you could copy all your libraries to that spare drive, then format your original sample drive, then copy them back one at a time. I don't think I would bother!

I know you said you weren't in the market to do it, but if you use Hollywood Strings much at all, buying even a small Solid State Drive for that library alone likely would make a pretty big difference. To a considerably lesser extent that's also true for Hollywood Brass, but HB is much less demanding than HS. It's not all or nothing -- just the more-demanding libraries.

If your Mac is very old and only has SATA II ports to which you can connect drives, the SSD will not deliver quite as much oomph as it would on a newer Mac because SATA II inherently has less throughput than SATA III. You would still see a benefit, just not as much. You can even remedy that (should you ever wish to) by adding an inexpensive PCIe card (a piece of hardware that looks like a graphics card) in one of the slots right next to your graphics card.

Apologies if you know all this already.


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## ceemusic (Dec 30, 2016)

Yes, get a SSD drive but NEVER defragment it.


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## Gabriel Oliveira (Dec 30, 2016)

There's no use in defragging SSDs.


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## MarcusMaximus (Dec 30, 2016)

Thanks guys. I do appreciate that ultimately SSD's are a better choice but as I say, my system works fine especially with the latest version of Play which has improved load times, and performance by introducing more streaming options depending on the system. So I'll be sticking with my humble 2011 Mac Mini Server's 2nd internal hard drive for now. The procedure for re-formatting would be as you describe it JohnG but like you, I'm not inclined to bother unless there is sufficient evidence that it would make a significant difference, especially at those times when the system is under pressure from HS etc.


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## synthpunk (Dec 30, 2016)

Maybe you posted here because you didn't hear what you wanted to hear on the other form? 

John and Healy have hit the nail on the head really smart to go SSD at this point especially with east west but if you stick with a spinner just run normal Apple disk first aid I don't think you'll see any improvements but it's always a good idea to do that as practice.


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## ceemusic (Dec 30, 2016)

Gabriel Oliveira said:


> There's no use in defragging SSDs.


Not only that but it's harmful to do so.


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## MarcusMaximus (Dec 30, 2016)

synthpunk said:


> Maybe you posted here because you didn't hear what you wanted to hear on the other form?
> 
> John and Healy have hit the nail on the head really smart to go SSD at this point especially with east west but if you stick with a spinner just run normal Apple disk first aid I don't think you'll see any improvements but it's always a good idea to do that as practice.



Hmm, thought I'd get a little dig for re-posting here!  It wasn't really that, it's just I figured that people on this forum were likely to have more specific technical knowledge than elsewhere. 

When you say 'normal Apple disk first aid' I've run 'verify disk' but not 'repair disk' as verify didn't turn up any issues. (There's no option to repair permissions because there's only sample data on the drive.) Do you mean to run 'repair disk'?


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## synthpunk (Dec 30, 2016)

No worries  are you on Sierra/El Capitan ? Apple Disk Utility maintenance functions have been condensed into first aid.



MarcusMaximus said:


> Hmm, thought I'd get a little dig for re-posting here!  It wasn't really that, it's just I figured that people on this forum were likely to have more specific technical knowledge than elsewhere.
> 
> When you say 'normal Apple disk first aid' I've run 'verify disk' but not 'repair disk' as verify didn't turn up any issues. (There's no option to repair permissions because there's only sample data on the drive.) Do you mean to run 'repair disk'?


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## MarcusMaximus (Dec 31, 2016)

synthpunk said:


> No worries  are you on Sierra/El Capitan ? Apple Disk Utility maintenance functions have been condensed into first aid.



I'm actually still on Yosemite - that's another upgrade I haven't got round to!

I think I'm just going to go ahead and do the re-format. Can't do any harm and I may get some small benefits from having everything lined up optimally. I'll probably go the SSD route at some point, when my system proves too clunky but it still works fine for my purposes so I'm thinking why fix it when it ain't broke?! Thanks again guys for the input.


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## ZeroZero (Jan 1, 2017)

I have never used a Mac, but I do wonder if moving your samples off of the drive and then reformatting it, then replacing them is going to acheive anything at all. Defreagging will achieve a bit, but really not much. I dont think that when you move and then move back samples they are going to be put back in a better order than they left - I don't really know, I do have doubts. SSD would bring benefits as said by many above - they are about five times the speed of HHDs


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## MarcusMaximus (Jan 1, 2017)

I have done some research on this so as I understand it this is how it works: Hard drives can access data more efficiently the closer that data is to the outside of the disk. Data is placed on the outside first and then closer to the inside as it fills up. This is why East-West recommend only filling a HD to 70% as performance decreases in a noticeable way beyond that. (It decreases all the time as the disk fills up but up to 70% is ok). I had filled mine a good bit beyond that and so I decided to move one large library which then freed up about 30 gigs. This would have left a 'hole' in the data which de-fragmenting could probably resolve but there is no way to do that on a Mac without a 3rd party utility. Re-formatting the disk and moving the data back one library at a time (for the big ones) would make sure the most demanding ones are on the outer part of the disk and would also ensure that all the data is contiguous. Being a sample drive it functions as read-only (unless I install another library to bring it up to the full 70%) so that means the data will stay where it is.

No doubt the gains will be small but they could be significant at those times when the system is under pressure, so all-in-all it is worth doing imo. Anyway, all this is moot now because I did the whole job yesterday! Now I have a nice fresh sample drive which is just under 70% full and with the data hopefully optimally laid out.

Just in case anyone is interested(!), apparently you can partition and fill the rest of the disk with other data like backups etc. as long as it is not being accessed during sample-streaming. The crucial factor is the location of the samples on the disk rather than the amount of free space. I'm not totally sure about this though so I will leave the free space as it is. 

Apologies if this is a bit long-winded - you just got me on a roll!


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## Nick Batzdorf (Jan 1, 2017)

Marcus, I haven't used this, but would you feel better if you could see where the data are stored on your drive?

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/grandperspective/id1111570163?mt=12

That aside, if it's working without issues, why do you want to do anything to it?

Bear in mind that a 256GB SSD costs a little over $50 now, so don't spend a lot of money on disk-optimizing software.


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## Prockamanisc (Jan 1, 2017)

ceemusic said:


> Not only that but it's harmful to do so.


I'm really curious now, I've never heard about this. Why is it harmful?


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## MarcusMaximus (Jan 1, 2017)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> Marcus, I haven't used this, but would you feel better if you could see where the data are stored on your drive?
> 
> https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/grandperspective/id1111570163?mt=12
> 
> ...



Yes I'll have a look at that app. It will be interesting to see if the procedure I have already followed has made the data line up as intended. Thanks.

Why do anything to it? Simply to optimise streaming efficiency as far as possible. I am just at the point in a project where I will be pushing my system to its limit, a point at which I usually have to resort to bouncing tracks to audio so it would be nice to have even a little more 'headroom'. The whole process only took a few hours so it really was no big deal in the end.

Yes I know. SSD's are better. I get it. That's a separate issue to the one I posted about though. And since I decided to do the re-format, I'll be able to forget about it and get on with my work. I'm happy with my system the way it is; also all my ports are occupied. However if I run into serious difficulties due to streaming issues, I will invest in an SSD. I promise.


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## MarcusMaximus (Jan 1, 2017)

Prockamanisc said:


> I'm really curious now, I've never heard about this. Why is it harmful?



Yes I've come across this warning in several places. Not sure why though.


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## ZeroZero (Jan 2, 2017)

You may wish to research allocation unit sizes - when formatting. Apparently this makes a difference to speed, even on a HHD. I really do not have the expertise to comment further, though I know it is about the size of the sectors that the data is written in, smaller sizes mean more room, larger sizes mean less fragmentation


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## MarcusMaximus (Jan 2, 2017)

I have indeed read about this and although you can specify the unit size when formatting a drive in Windows, there is no way to do that on a Mac that I know of. Disk Utility doesn't give any option for it, only for the actual format you want, i.e. MS-DOS (FAT), Mac OS Extended (Journaled) etc. Perhaps there are some 3rd party utilities that can do it but I don't know about them.


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## ZeroZero (Jan 2, 2017)

The more I learn about Mac's the less I think they are suitable for todays compositional needs (I will get flamed I expect).

Z


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## afterlight82 (Jan 2, 2017)

MarcusMaximus said:


> Yes I've come across this warning in several places. Not sure why though.



SSDs are basically random access, so de-fragging does almost nothing (since it doesn't improve the disks ability to pull the data in a way that a sequential access would) and just shortens the drive's lifetime in terms of writes - because de-fragging does a lot of new writing (picking up data and putting it elsewhere). There are things you can do if you really want to (make an image and then rewrite it to the disk), but on the majority of SSDs it will make no difference whatsoever.


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## afterlight82 (Jan 2, 2017)

The other thing is sample drives are pretty unlikely to get seriously fragmented, since the majority of what happens is simply reading...you only really have writes when you add new samples! So it doesn't suffer from the fragmentation problem unless you are routinely deleting samples...


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## MarcusMaximus (Jan 2, 2017)

It would be pretty complicated to replace the second internal HD on my 2011 Mac Mini Server with an SSD and Crucial list the only compatible one as a 2TB costing $634 (though I imagine it would be possible to get a smaller capacity one somewhere - I haven't explored all the avenues) so the only real option for me would be an external one via thunderbolt. These start at a cost of about $200 for a 120 GB and for a Lacie Rugged 250 GB it's more like $265, Amazon prices. Also, I currently have my audio drive, a G-Tech, connected by adaptor to the thunderbolt port because I have a couple of other devices including my audio interface connected to the firewire port. I'd rather have the audio drive connected on its own but perhaps this is not necessary - so I suppose I could daisy chain it before the interface (a Metric Halo ULN-2, which is FW 400). Have to think about that but for now I reckon I'll stick with my trusty internal HD, which btw looks very nice and colourful with a single block of free space through the lens of GrandPerspective!


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## MarcusMaximus (Jan 2, 2017)

afterlight82 said:


> The other thing is sample drives are pretty unlikely to get seriously fragmented, since the majority of what happens is simply reading...you only really have writes when you add new samples! So it doesn't suffer from the fragmentation problem unless you are routinely deleting samples...



And that's very interesting about de-fragging SSD's. Thanks for explaining, makes sense.

Yes, I wouldn't have gone to the trouble of re-formatting the drive if I hadn't deleted (moved) over 30 GB of samples but I thought it would be best not to leave that big a hole or gap - it was one of the earlier libraries I installed so all that free space would have been towards the outer edge of the disk, a waste if that is the area most efficiently accessed during streaming. So I thought it best to re-align everything. I won't be deleting anything else now. All I might do is bring it up to the full 70% again by adding another small library at some stage but that should be installed contiguously if everything else is.


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## MarcusMaximus (Jan 2, 2017)

ZeroZero said:


> The more I learn about Mac's the less I think they are suitable for todays compositional needs (I will get flamed I expect).
> 
> Z



Ah now.. there's no need to be like that. 

And I'm a Logic person. Been using it pretty much since it first came out. In fact I built a PC around E-Magic's specs way back and then changed to a Mac when Logic was taken over by Apple and left the Windows platform altogether. Wouldn't use anything else, though of course it's not perfect.


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## robgb (Jan 2, 2017)

MarcusMaximus said:


> Thanks guys. I do appreciate that ultimately SSD's are a better choice but as I say, my system works fine especially with the latest version of Play which has improved load times, and performance by introducing more streaming options depending on the system.


 While I understand the desire for SSDs, their cost is prohibitive for me. For my Mac, I simply bought a 4TB USB3 external drive for $100 that carries all of my libraries and streams without a glitch on a full orchestral template. It's also the size of a deck of cards. 

I don't believe defragmenting is necessary on Mac attached drives. Or maybe that's what repairing permissions does. But 4TB would probably take care of that 70% limitation you're concerned about.


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## ZeroZero (Jan 2, 2017)

MarcusMaximus said:


> Ah now.. there's no need to be like that.


Yes should have been more polite! I just don't like the uninitiated upgrading to them, without at least considering the other side of things. No offence intended to anyone anywhere


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## robgb (Jan 2, 2017)

ZeroZero said:


> Yes should have been more polite! I just don't like the uninitiated upgrading to them, without at least considering the other side of things. No offence intended to anyone anywhere


It's funny, because I switched to Mac specifically because I was tired of dealing with all the issues with audio and PCs. I was a hardcore PC guy for many years and as soon as I switched, 80% of the headaches disappeared. That's my experience, at least.


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## MarcusMaximus (Jan 2, 2017)

robgb said:


> It's funny, because I switched to Mac specifically because I was tired of dealing with all the issues with audio and PCs. I was a hardcore PC guy for many years and as soon as I switched, 80% of the headaches disappeared. That's my experience, at least.



Yeah, me too though of course no offence taken ZeroZero!

In terms of your previous post I'm thinking the cost of SSD's as I described above is pretty prohibitive for me too. I don't have USB 3, only 2 which is why thunderbolt would be the only option apart from FW 800 which wouldn't cut it (and anyway I don't think there are any FW SSD's out there). Plus my Mini came with two 500 GB 7200 RPM internal drives, being a Server model and generally well thought of for audio purposes when they came out. (I maxed the memory up to 16 GB, small by today's standards I know). I imagine an internal HD would generally be more efficient than an external one and 70% of 500 GB is enough for what I currently run; I also have some other less demanding libraries on a couple of other drives.


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## ZeroZero (Jan 2, 2017)

Gentlemen we leave it there then, with goodwill to all!


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## MarcusMaximus (Jan 2, 2017)

ZeroZero said:


> Gentlemen we leave it there then, with goodwill to all!


Ah why not keep it going - I'm sure there's never been a PC vs. Mac debate on this forum before.. wouldn't it be interesting? (Insert innocent noob smiley here!!)


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## Nick Batzdorf (Jan 2, 2017)

Marcus, just to be clear: I'm not telling you to run out and buy SSDs. The only thing I suggested is to avoid spending a lot of money on defragging software that costs as much as a 256GB SSD (which is a little over $50 if you shop around, not the very high prices you quoted).

robgb, what I did with SSDs was 1) replace my system drive a while ago (really speeds up everything, the best upgrade you can do to a computer), and 2) more recently, added a 1TB SSD for the libraries I use most often. I didn't delete anything from my standard drives.

In other words, it's not like you have to spend a fortune all at once.


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## synthpunk (Jan 2, 2017)

As someone who has been there through all the years of PC vs. Mac and started on an Atari, you won't get flamed from me but I will pass on hopefully this helpful advice... move on, make music, and make art, life is too short.



ZeroZero said:


> The more I learn about Mac's the less I think they are suitable for todays compositional needs (I will get flamed I expect).
> 
> Z


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## MarcusMaximus (Jan 2, 2017)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> Marcus, just to be clear: I'm not telling you to run out and buy SSDs. The only thing I suggested is to avoid spending a lot of money on defragging software that costs as much as a 256GB SSD (which is a little over $50 if you shop around, not the very high prices you quoted).


I know Nick, I'm really only discussing things here. Sometimes my sense of humour makes me play on things a bit..

But you and others have got me thinking about the whole SSD thing. I have no intention of buying de-fragging software, the job I've done on the drive will have to suffice. However I honestly can't find an external thunderbolt SSD out there for anything less than the sort of prices I quoted. Perhaps if you have a moment you could point me in the direction of one or two? Or you probably mean internal, which as I've said would be a big job to undertake. Not impossible but more than I'm willing to do despite being fairly tech-savvy. This is a Mac Mini after all, not a tower which is easily upgradeable. 



synthpunk said:


> As someone who has been there through all the years of PC vs. Mac and started on an Atari, you won't get flamed from me but I will pass on hopefully this helpful advice... move on, make music, and make art, life is too short.



Yup, I started on an Atari too, many years ago with Notator!


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## MarcusMaximus (Jan 2, 2017)

Just watched this OWC video on replacing the Mini's drive and apart from not owning the requisite tools, it really does look prohibitive. They rate the job as 'challenging'. Not sure I'd have the nerve. You literally have to take the whole thing apart to access the drives, especially the 2nd one which is my sample drive..

https://eshop.macsales.com/installvideos/mac_mini2011_server_hd/


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## synthpunk (Jan 2, 2017)

When we used quad Mac mini slaves we replaced them all with OWC data Doublers it's not an easy job, once you do one you get the hang of it but keeping track of all the parts and reverse engineering reassembly is probably the hardest part even with following the video.

If you do attempt it I advise having someone work with you, it helps. There was also a time you could send your machine to OWC for a nominal fee to have this done for you I'm not sure if they still do that

Old Dr. T KCS and Freestyle & M user here 



MarcusMaximus said:


> Just watched this OWC video on replacing the Mini's drive and apart from not owning the requisite tools, it really does look prohibitive. They rate the job as 'challenging'. Not sure I'd have the nerve. You literally have to take the whole thing apart to access the drives, especially the 2nd one which is my sample drive..
> 
> https://eshop.macsales.com/installvideos/mac_mini2011_server_hd/


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## Nick Batzdorf (Jan 2, 2017)

Marcus, does your Mac Mini have USB 3? There are lots of enclosures that cost very little.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...H&Description=usb+3+enclosure&N=-1&isNodeId=1


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## MarcusMaximus (Jan 2, 2017)

Synthpunk, doubt I'll brave removing the innards of my Mini myself. Might look into seeing if OWC still do that though I'd have to send it from Ireland. Hmm..
Ah yes, the old Atari was a fine beast back in the day!

Nick, no the Mini doesn't have USB 3, only thunderbolt. That's why all the options are so expensive, including getting a t'bolt to USB 3 adaptor and putting a regular SSD into an enclosure. The adaptors alone are about $80. Adding that to the cost of a drive and enclosure brings it up to the price of a straight t'bolt drive.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Jan 2, 2017)

This thing won't work?

http://www.apple.com/shop/product/MMEL2AM/A/thunderbolt-3-usb-c-to-thunderbolt-2-adapter


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## MarcusMaximus (Jan 2, 2017)

Looks interesting for sure. Haven't come across that one. It would depend on whether t'bolt 1 and 2, and also usb 3 and C are fully compatible. I'll have to look into it as I just don't know enough about it, unless anyone here can help. But that certainly does look promising and very affordable. Thanks.


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## jcrosby (Jan 2, 2017)

MarcusMaximus said:


> I posted about this on another forum a couple of days ago but thought I would ask the question here as well as I imagine a lot of folks here would know about this side of things. Hope that's ok.
> 
> Over the years I have allowed the (2nd internal) hard drive on which I store all my samples to fill up beyond the 70% recommended by East-West. I own a lot of their libraries, e.g. Hollywood Orchestra, which can be quite demanding on my system. I have recently freed up about 30 GB by moving one library which I rarely use. I am wondering is it enough to have freed up that space or should I optimise the drive by re-formatting it? That would involve copying all the existing files to another location and then putting them back after formatting - a big job - but would it be best to do that in order to make sure that the data is situated on the outer part of the disc and is also contiguous? Would this give me any significant improvement in performance/efficiency?


Depending on your OS there is this: http://coriolis-systems.com/iDefrag/
I used it religiously when I still had HDDs. Despite Apple's claims OSX doesn't fragment like other OS's you'll find that's totally untrue, you can see the physical location on the drive...

Running it the first time is quite telling, you'll see you have data all over your drive, right up to the outside and things are scattered everywhere... Deleting data does nothing in terms of changing the location of files. Sure you have more space, but it's just as disorganized as it was before deleting, and nothing gets "moved" anywhere... HDDs stick data in whatever block is most efficient for them to use at the time of writing data. One audio file can actually be scattered all across your drive, (most files are as the drive gets more use)... iDefrag lets your compact everything, and you can be even more specific by 'optimizing', where it essentially looks for related data and tries to put it back somewhat in the order it was intended to be put there...

I'd also strongly recommend getting drivedx if you're on HDDs. I moved away from them as I've had too may fail on me over the years and often without a sign of impending doom... It will let you know if your drive is nearing the danger zone and well worth the piece of mind...


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## babylonwaves (Jan 3, 2017)

marcus, even though it is slightly unrelated to your quest, one thing you really should consider is to get a utility which reads out the SMART status of your drive(s). this way you can check if those are in a healthy condition before you start copying everything over and back again only to discover that your data might be compromised. there is one called SMART utility which works good for me. once installed it is likely you'll get a warning _before_ a drive fails. from what i red, you're planning on using your drives for a while. this might save you a lot of pain.


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## MarcusMaximus (Jan 3, 2017)

Thanks guys for those tips. I have downloaded and run demo versions of both SMART utility and DriveDx although they overlap. Both report my two internal drives as healthy so that's good. Will probably purchase one of them for continual future use.

iDefrag looks excellent as well however that's the sort of utility that it has been suggested I don't shell out on because the cost would go a long way toward paying for an SSD. I'll definitely keep it in mind though. However jcrosby I didn't just delete and then replace the data, I re-formatted the drive using the 1st level of security in Disk Utility and then copied the data back so I imagine it should be pretty contiguously laid out. Not the same as populating a virgin drive for the first time but pretty close I would have thought?



Nick Batzdorf said:


> This thing won't work?
> 
> http://www.apple.com/shop/product/MMEL2AM/A/thunderbolt-3-usb-c-to-thunderbolt-2-adapter



As far as I can find out, this might work out quite expensive after all. T'bolt 3 is compatible with USB-C and 3.1 rather than 3.0. The specs for that adaptor say that it does not support bus-powered devices so I'd need a USB-C or 3.1 self-powered enclosure. They seem to be more expensive. I might be better off just getting the t'bolt to usb 3.0 adaptor which is around $80 but then I could get a 3.0 enclosure. Would probably come to a similar price in the end. The 'cleanest' option would be to just get a thunderbolt drive and be done with it but they are the most expensive. Hmm.. Perhaps I will stick with my thankfully healthy HD for now after all.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Jan 3, 2017)

Cheap enclosures usually come with power adapters.

What's happening is that Thunderbolt is/is going to use a USB-C connector. I've lost track of where USB 3.1 fits into the picture, but USB is also getting faster.

In any case, connecting a SATA box to a Thunderbolt port shouldn't require $80 this or that. I think that Apple adapter will work, and there are probably cheaper ebay ones that do as well, although I could be wrong.


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## MarcusMaximus (Jan 3, 2017)

Yes, that adaptor will work but only with a USB-C or 3.1 enclosure as they have the same connector afaik. The ones I found do seem to be a bit more expensive than the USB 3.0 ones. The only t'bolt to USB 3.0 adaptors I came across do cost around $80. 

Anyway, none of this a huge amount of money so both options are do-able and I'd prefer to use good quality components. I'm just going to wait a bit and see how I get on with my newly formatted drive before I make any move. Thanks for all your help, and others too, as it has got me thinking again about SSD's etc. and how I might connect one up if and when I decide to upgrade.


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