Photoshop blur tool Vs expensive lenses

In article <v04an3pllqt9iqr7vqtdusq91d7vt4bpar.RemoveThis@4ax.com>, John Navas
<spamfilter1.RemoveThis@navasgroup.com> wrote:

> >>what apple calls optimization is something entirely unrelated to disk
> >>defragmenting.
> >
> >In fact that's just what it is.
>
> "About disk optimization with Mac OS X"
> <http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=25668>

originally, apple used it for the prebinding step when installing
software, where it would display the 'optimizing system performance'
message, sometimes for quite a while.

here's how to minimize that:
<http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=25807>

it appears they're using it to mean multiple things now.
 >> Stay informed about: Photoshop blur tool Vs expensive lenses 

On Fri, 28 Dec 2007 15:30:03 +0100 (CET), Nomen Nescio
<nobody.TakeThisOut@dizum.com> wrote in
<e5b2ab5ffbc6ca068caa33db620c8f6a.TakeThisOut@dizum.com>:

>David J Taylor wrote:

>> It's good practice - keeping the disk 70% full can reduce the
>> likelihood of fragmentation in the first place, although it's OS
>> dependant.
>
>Utter nonsense. Fragmentation occurs at essentially the same rate
>whether a volume is 10% full or 70% under *all* modern file systems from
>FAT to RISER. Mostly because much of the underlying causes for
>fragmentation have their roots in the physical limitations of the media
>and the controllers used to manage them. Fragmentation may not be as
>much of a *problem* for some operating systems because some operating
>systems deal with it more intelligently, but it most certainly does
>occur at rates operating systems can do little to reduce.

How full a disk is can have some effect on fragmentation. The reason is
that the OS will attempt to allocate new files from contiguous free
space, and as the disk fills up and free space becomes more fragmented,
the ability to do that goes down.

--
Best regards,
John Navas
Panasonic DMC-FZ8 (and several others)
 >> Stay informed about: Photoshop blur tool Vs expensive lenses 

David J Taylor wrote:

> John Navas wrote:
> []
> > I mean that background defragging is problematic,
> > as the reviewer noted, and as I explain in another post:
>
> OK, but I haven't seen these issues.
>
> > In fact it can be a big issue for defraggers, many of which perform
> > poorly (or not at all) with a low percentage of free space.
> >
> > There should be no significant impact of system performance as long
> > as the system doesn't run out of free disk space, so perhaps I don't
> > understand what you're saying.
>
> It's good practice - keeping the disk 70% full can reduce the
> likelihood of fragmentation in the first place, although it's OS
> dependant.

Utter nonsense. Fragmentation occurs at essentially the same rate
whether a volume is 10% full or 70% under *all* modern file systems from
FAT to RISER. Mostly because much of the underlying causes for
fragmentation have their roots in the physical limitations of the media
and the controllers used to manage them. Fragmentation may not be as
much of a *problem* for some operating systems because some operating
systems deal with it more intelligently, but it most certainly does
occur at rates operating systems can do little to reduce.
 >> Stay informed about: Photoshop blur tool Vs expensive lenses 

nospam <nospam.TakeThisOut@nospam.invalid> wrote:
> In article <v04an3pllqt9iqr7vqtdusq91d7vt4bpar.TakeThisOut@4ax.com>, John Navas
> <spamfilter1.TakeThisOut@navasgroup.com> wrote:

>> >>what apple calls optimization is something entirely unrelated to disk
>> >>defragmenting.
>> >
>> >In fact that's just what it is.
>>
>> "About disk optimization with Mac OS X"
>> <http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=25668>

> originally, apple used it for the prebinding step when installing
> software, where it would display the 'optimizing system performance'
> message, sometimes for quite a while.

> here's how to minimize that:
> <http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=25807>

> it appears they're using it to mean multiple things now.

Perhaps all they're doing is using the word in its standard general
English sense. That would seem adequate to explain all the confusions
remarked on in this thread

--
Chris Malcolm cam.TakeThisOut@infirmatics.ed.ac.uk DoD #205
IPAB, Informatics, JCMB, King's Buildings, Edinburgh, EH9 3JZ, UK
[http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/homes/cam/]
 >> Stay informed about: Photoshop blur tool Vs expensive lenses 

In article <5tkof9F1dnqd3U1 DeleteThis @mid.individual.net>, Chris Malcolm
<cam DeleteThis @holyrood.ed.ac.uk> wrote:

> Perhaps all they're doing is using the word in its standard general
> English sense. That would seem adequate to explain all the confusions
> remarked on in this thread

apple chose 'optimizing system performance' because 'update prebinding'
is meaningless to non-geeks. it modifies the executables to improve
launch times, so its use was appropriate. ironically, defragmenting a
disk can *reduce* performance on a mac, because it can interfere with
the hot clustered files.
 >> Stay informed about: Photoshop blur tool Vs expensive lenses 

Nomen Nescio wrote:
[]
> Utter nonsense. Fragmentation occurs at essentially the same rate
> whether a volume is 10% full or 70% under *all* modern file systems
> from FAT to RISER. Mostly because much of the underlying causes for
> fragmentation have their roots in the physical limitations of the
> media and the controllers used to manage them. Fragmentation may not
> be as much of a *problem* for some operating systems because some
> operating systems deal with it more intelligently, but it most
> certainly does occur at rates operating systems can do little to
> reduce.

Keeping a disk less than 100% full is accepted good practice across the
industry, certainly not "utter nonsense". Reduced chance of fragmentation
is only one of the benefits.

David
 >> Stay informed about: Photoshop blur tool Vs expensive lenses 

David J Taylor wrote:
> Nomen Nescio wrote:
> []
>> Utter nonsense. Fragmentation occurs at essentially the same rate
>> whether a volume is 10% full or 70% under *all* modern file systems
>> from FAT to RISER. Mostly because much of the underlying causes for
>> fragmentation have their roots in the physical limitations of the
>> media and the controllers used to manage them. Fragmentation may not
>> be as much of a *problem* for some operating systems because some
>> operating systems deal with it more intelligently, but it most
>> certainly does occur at rates operating systems can do little to
>> reduce.
>
> Keeping a disk less than 100% full is accepted good practice across the
> industry, certainly not "utter nonsense". Reduced chance of fragmentation
> is only one of the benefits.

But, NN didn't imply what you're countering with; 70% was his top
figure. No OS can run with the boot disk at 100%! The rule of thumb that
used to work was 10%, but that was when drives were smaller. It may
still obtain, but I dunno. I like to keep ca. 20% free.

--
John McWilliams
 >> Stay informed about: Photoshop blur tool Vs expensive lenses 

In article <0JOdnctNh7HXq-janZ2dnUVZ_jqdnZ2d.RemoveThis@comcast.com>, John
McWilliams <jpmcw.RemoveThis@comcast.net> wrote:

> No OS can run with the boot disk at 100%!

i've run earlier versions of mac os with literally a completely full
drive (less than a megabyte free). obviously, i had to be careful what
i did, but it worked without any major problems.
 >> Stay informed about: Photoshop blur tool Vs expensive lenses 

nospam wrote:
> In article <0JOdnctNh7HXq-janZ2dnUVZ_jqdnZ2d DeleteThis @comcast.com>, John
> McWilliams <jpmcw DeleteThis @comcast.net> wrote:
>
>> No OS can run with the boot disk at 100%!
>
> i've run earlier versions of mac os with literally a completely full
> drive (less than a megabyte free). obviously, i had to be careful what
> i did, but it worked without any major problems.

Literally doesn't reach 100%. Of course one can run at the ragged edge,
but you can't accomplish jack with many megapixel images. What were you
able to do with one Meg free, how much RAM, and what processor?

David points out correctly that a boot CD or DVD is 100% full, and of
course uses RAM to run at all. Saving a change is a bitch, tho!

--
John McWilliams
 >> Stay informed about: Photoshop blur tool Vs expensive lenses 

John Navas <spamfilter1 DeleteThis @navasgroup.com> wrote:
>A modern virtual memory OS needs free disk space to run effectively.

Many routers, as one example, run with *any* disk. That
is quite typical of embedded systems. Virtually all
Unix systems can be configured to work without free disk
space.

--
Floyd L. Davidson <http://www.apaflo.com/floyd_davidson>
Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska) floyd DeleteThis @apaflo.com
 >> Stay informed about: Photoshop blur tool Vs expensive lenses 

John McWilliams wrote:
[]
> But, NN didn't imply what you're countering with; 70% was his top
> figure. No OS can run with the boot disk at 100%! The rule of thumb
> that used to work was 10%, but that was when drives were smaller. It
> may still obtain, but I dunno. I like to keep ca. 20% free.

Thanks, John.

The way I read NN's post, was that what I was recommending (trying to keep
a disk no more than 70% full) was utter nonsense. It isn't. I would also
want to see much more evidence of his assertion that fragmentation doesn't
depend on how full the disk is.

By the way: OSes which boot from CDs are effectively booting from a disk
which is 100% full, using physical memory for temporary storage.....

20% - 30% free is fine, 10% perhaps a little marginal, particularly if you
have a smaller number of very big files. Were you thinking NTFS or a
different disk format - it's another variable. It seems to me that you
should have as good an overall picture as possible of your disk usage and
needs, so that you can best organise your PC to optimise what you are
trying to do. Number of physical disks, type, partitioning etc. Knowing
and ideally able to measure where the bottle-necks are.

What I have seen out in the field are many folk who say "my PC isn't like
it used to be, slower than when I bought it". These folk can't be
bothered to do a defrag every month - or perhaps they remember the Windows
9X defrag tool? Oh, dear. For folks like this, the small cost of a
background defrag program like MSF Defrag, can save them the expense of a
new PC for another year or two, and restore the performance they expected.

Cheers,
David
 >> Stay informed about: Photoshop blur tool Vs expensive lenses 

In article <8cCdnfe0JuRz6ejanZ2dnUVZ_tuonZ2d RemoveThis @comcast.com>, John
McWilliams <jpmcw RemoveThis @comcast.net> wrote:

> >> No OS can run with the boot disk at 100%!
> >
> > i've run earlier versions of mac os with literally a completely full
> > drive (less than a megabyte free). obviously, i had to be careful what
> > i did, but it worked without any major problems.
>
> Literally doesn't reach 100%. Of course one can run at the ragged edge,
> but you can't accomplish jack with many megapixel images. What were you
> able to do with one Meg free, how much RAM, and what processor?

i don't recall exactly how little space there was, but less than a
megabyte on a 1 gig drive (it was a while ago) is >99.9% full. i
*have* had it say 0 meg free, without any data loss, but that's a
situation i quickly fix. as long as no additional disk space needs to
be allocated, the system is happy as a clam. and this was on various
macs, 68k & powerpc, of assorted configurations, os 9 and earlier.

os x, on the other hand, does *not* like full disks, and will warn the
user when it is close to full. it will even generate disk full errors
in certain situations when there is really some free space left for
whatever file operation it was attempting to do. i find that to be
rather annoying but i guess that helps guarantee some free space in
case someone does download something and does not realize their disk is
full.
 >> Stay informed about: Photoshop blur tool Vs expensive lenses 

John Navas <spamfilter1.TakeThisOut@navasgroup.com> wrote:
>On Fri, 28 Dec 2007 17:29:43 -0900, floyd.TakeThisOut@apaflo.com (Floyd L. Davidson)
>wrote in <87bq8aw7vs.fld.TakeThisOut@barrow.com>:
>
>>John Navas <spamfilter1.TakeThisOut@navasgroup.com> wrote:
>>>A modern virtual memory OS needs free disk space to run effectively.
>>
>>Many routers, as one example, run with *any* disk. That
>>is quite typical of embedded systems. Virtually all
>>Unix systems can be configured to work without free disk
>>space.
>
>Not to run meaningful workloads with any sort of performance.

Wrong. Nice try though.

It's a simply fact, free disk space is not a requirement.

--
Floyd L. Davidson <http://www.apaflo.com/floyd_davidson>
Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska) floyd.TakeThisOut@apaflo.com
 >> Stay informed about: Photoshop blur tool Vs expensive lenses