Defrag

[CaptainOats]

Is there anyway you can defrag an ipod?

[trevor]

Yes, but it's not a wise thing to do.

1. You're causing lots of unnecessary wear on the hard drive.
2. There's almost no value in the results.

Trevor

[Lanny]

Yes, but it's not a wise thing to do.

1. You're causing lots of unnecessary wear on the hard drive.
2. There's almost no value in the results.

Not true, if there is about 25% free space, a defraging software can be used, i.e., iDefrag or the Optimization portion of TechTool Pro. Or, if it contains copies of what's in your iTunes library, generally the case, just reformat it and copy the songs back on afterwards.

It doesn’t cause any more significant wear than just playing music.

Like all hard drives, OSX and jounaling not with standing, it will become fragmented over time, and accessing fragmented files takes more time than unfragmented files.

[acme.mail.order]

Given the iPod's rather limited usage, performance of the internal drive would seem to be a non-issue. If the drive can keep ahead of the play buffer it really doesn't matter how far ahead it is.

My recommendation: format and resync will probably be easier and faster than any funky 3rd party program.

[styrafome]

Like all hard drives, OSX and jounaling not with standing, it will become fragmented over time, and accessing fragmented files takes more time than unfragmented files.

Yes, but with the iPod, the difference between disk access time on a defragged and fragmented drive should not be noticeable. Is there anyone who has heard skipping or an unusually long gap between songs during playback that could be attributed to fragmentation? Probably not. One reason is that the iPod caches songs into RAM to save battery, so disk access in many cases happens with a song or song segment other than the one you're actually listening to. Meaning you wouldn't notice. Second, MP3s just don't need that much speed. I've seen my DSL modem as it streams MP3 radio stations. The activity lights are not constant. They happen in bursts. That means it's resting much of the time. If MP3s aren't going to saturate my low-end broadband connection, they're not going to be held up by a fragged iPod hard drive.

[trevor]

Not true, if there is about 25% free space, a defraging software can be used,

Defragging software CAN be used, as I stated. It is just unwise to use it.

It doesn’t cause any more significant wear than just playing music.

This is patently and 100% untrue. Defragging reads and writes multiple times on EACH block of your hard drive continuously for a long period of time. There is nothing that you can do to your hard drive short of outright abuse, such as slamming it into a hard surface, that causes more physical wear to the drive than defragging.

Playing music is a read-only process that only reads what is needed, and does not cause undue wear.

As the very small hard drive used in your iPod is more sensitive to wear than the large 3.5" hard drive used in your desktop computer, it is even more unwise to defrag your iPod hard drive than it is your desktop computer's hard drive.

Like all hard drives, OSX and jounaling not with standing, it will become fragmented over time, and accessing fragmented files takes more time than unfragmented files.

True, but immaterial. acme.mail.order and styrafome have both given clear reasons why fragmented iPod drives are not particularly problematic. In the case of an iPod hard drive that is more than 95% full, defragging is not the answer either--you should clear some space off of your iPod drive.

Trevor

[styrafome]

That reminds me...the absolute fastest way to defrag any drive is to back it up, format it, and copy everything back on. You can do that with an iPod too. Usually that's faster than waiting until the defrag software is done shuffling all those teensy weensy file fragments back and forth, back and forth.