Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!decwrl!purdue!gatech!linus!brando
From: brando@linus.UUCP (Thomas J. Brando)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: question about disk compaction
Keywords: disk compaction
Message-ID: <32435@linus.UUCP>
Date: 20 May 88 12:50:50 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: The MITRE Corp., Bedford, MA
Lines: 32

Two questions:  (1) will compacting my hard disk do me any good, and
(2) how can I do it?

(1) The 20MB hard disk in my SE has been fairly full for a number of
	 months, lots of stuff has been trashed, and lots of other stuff
	 has been added.  I'm noticing that applications seem to run
	 more slowly [Not that they were fast to begin with :-)], and I
	 naturally attributed that to disk fragmentation.  My brother had
	 a similar experience with his AT, got a program that compacted
	 his disk space, and realized a very noticeable speedup.  Am I
	 off course here, or what?  People that I've asked about this
	 problem have said they weren't sure that compacting my disk
	 would do me any good.

(2) Given that it would be of benefit for me to compact my disk,
	 WHAT PROGRAMS CAN I GET TO DO THAT?  Let's assume I don't want
	 to backup my hard disk to floppies and then restore.  I know
	 that'll work, and I might not mind doing that ONCE, but I'd
	 like a solution that could develop into a more long-term
	 relationship.  I've looked through quite a few MacWorlds, I
	 found an article on file management, and another on backup
	 software, but no mention of disk compaction, or whether any
	 of the programs that were mentioned did disk compaction.  Can
	 anyone give me a pointer here?

I'll be more than happy to summarize whatever I learn for those of
you with similar problems.  Thanks.


-- 

Thom Brando              linus!brando@mitre-bedford.{arpa,bitnet,csnet}
617-271-3947               {decvax,ihnp4,philabs,...}!linus!brando.uucp