Speeding up Panther need tips

Imacer · 11-09-2003, 01:37 PM

What other web site can I go to to get tips to speed up 10.3. I would like turn off certain things i don't need. Or maybe someone can help me here.

Craig R. Arko · 11-09-2003, 02:52 PM

Maybe if you gave a clue about what "certain things" you're talking about it would be easier to help you.

DeltaMac · 11-09-2003, 07:56 PM

You can get a slight (not really noticeable) speedup by disabling Journaling, but Journaling left enabled will tend to optimize your hard drive, which should improve your performance, so there's a trade-off, leaning to leaving journaling enabled. Best performance enhancement is running the periodic scripts occasionally, and deleting the cache files (lots of opinions on how to do this best), and I like one of the utilities the run various scripts for this purpose, like Maintain1, or MacJanitor, or Cocktail. You may notice that none of these 'turn things off' or ask you what you don't need. OS X, IMHO, keeps your system running evenly and smoothly if you let it, and tends to leave processes idle if they're not needed, leaving you with as much speed as possible.

zo · 11-12-2003, 02:18 AM

to see what's chewing up RAM/VM. . .you might make some different choices about what to run. . and it makes a nifty graph in the dock for various functions - pick one.

Jon Richardson · 11-12-2003, 07:51 AM

I'm interested in your remark about Journaling possibly keeping the hard drive in a more "optimised" state.

Do you have any further info about how/if this does happen?

I'm not disagreeing with you, I'm just curious to know if you have any info to support the comment.

DavidRavenMoon · 11-12-2003, 08:44 AM

Quote:


	Originally posted by DeltaMac ...Journaling left enabled will tend to optimize your hard drive, which should improve your performance...

This is incorrect. Journaling does not optimize your hard drive at all. What journaling does is to take a snap-shot of the current state your hard drive is in, and in the event of a power failure, or some other event that prevents you from doing a proper shut down, then journaling will roll back the file system to the last known state.

Keep in mind that if your hard drive is fragmented, or even if it has directory corruption, then that is the state that it is captured in by the file system journaling.

For a complete discussion on journaling see:
Mac OS X: About File System Journaling

An excerpt:

Journaling is a technique that helps protect the integrity of the Mac OS Extended file systems on Mac OS X volumes. It both prevents a disk from getting into an inconsistent state and expedites disk repair if the server fails.

When you enable journaling on a disk, a continuous record of changes to files on the disk is maintained in the journal. If your computer stops because of a power failure or some other issue, the journal is used to restore the disk to a known-good state when the server restarts.

With journaling turned on, the file system logs transactions as they occur. If the server fails in the middle of an operation, the file system can "replay" the information in its log and complete the operation when the server restarts.

DavidRavenMoon · 11-12-2003, 08:50 AM

Quote:


	Originally posted by Imacer What other web site can I go to to get tips to speed up 10.3. I would like turn off certain things i don't need. Or maybe someone can help me here.

I'm running Panther on two different G4's, a 466 MHz and an older 400 MHz gigabit model.

Panther is quite fast on both machines considering they are not the fastest Macs made.

The one thing I would recommend to you is to install more RAM. I have 1 gigabyte on my home machine (the 466 MHz G4) and it makes quite a difference.

The work machine has only 512 MB, and things can get bogged down quickly.

pink · 11-12-2003, 08:55 AM

Speed tips were on the main page like here and here . Most of these can be expected to still apply.

cheers, pink

macmath · 11-12-2003, 09:02 AM

DavidRavenMoon, DeltaMac did not mean that Journalling itself optimized the drive, but that Panther has Adaptive-Hot-Clustering and automatic defragmentation and that these are not enabled unless Journalling is enabled.

AHC creates a list of HotFiles which you use the most (see description of it elsewhere for the definition of how frequently these files must be used) which are also under 10 MB and moves them to the fastest part of the drive (removing 'cold' files if necessary).

The automatic defragmenting defragments files under 20 MB in size as they are opened (there might be other limitations).

Pretty Cool, hunh?

Type
locate .hotfiles.btree
in Terminal and it will be found.

[Edited to add closing parenthesis.]

DeltaMac · 11-12-2003, 09:25 AM

Journaling does not do any optimizing, I agree. But it seems to enable other functions which are a form of optimization.
MacMath - thanks for clarifying some info about this new feature provided by Darwin, the Adaptive-Hot File-Clustering. I'm sure there will be a lot of t-shirts and hats sold with that logo.

The link to the other thread also has links into an ArsTechica thread with some discussion about this undocumented feature

Anyway, as MacMath states, with journaling enabled, this feature also runs. And apparently when journaling is disabled, the adaptive hot-file feature is not available either. So, with Panther, journaling is a Good Thing™...

Jon Richardson · 11-12-2003, 09:44 AM

That's extremely interesting and seems pretty authoritative. I'm glad I asked my question.

I shall watch my file system with renewed interest.

macmath · 11-12-2003, 10:08 AM

I can see why you would want to enable these only when Journalling is running. If there were any disruption to the power supply while the reading and rewriting of files was taking place, you'd want to know where you were in the process. I'm sure that it would not erase the original copy of the file before it had written the new copy, but knowing which copy (the original one, or the partially written new one) represented the file would be important.

11-09-2003, 01:37 PM	#1
Imacer Major Leaguer Join Date: Aug 2003 Posts: 305	Speeding up Panther need tips What other web site can I go to to get tips to speed up 10.3. I would like turn off certain things i don't need. Or maybe someone can help me here. __________________ 27'' Dual Core i7, 1 TB GB drive, 12 GB Ram, Safari. 2 external 1GB & 3GB external WD drives, Lacie blue-rey burner

11-12-2003, 02:18 AM	#4
zo Prospect Join Date: Nov 2003 Posts: 30	use Activity Monitor to see what's chewing up RAM/VM. . .you might make some different choices about what to run. . and it makes a nifty graph in the dock for various functions - pick one.

11-12-2003, 07:51 AM	#5
Jon Richardson Triple-A Player Join Date: Jul 2002 Posts: 53	DeltaMac .... I'm interested in your remark about Journaling possibly keeping the hard drive in a more "optimised" state. Do you have any further info about how/if this does happen? I'm not disagreeing with you, I'm just curious to know if you have any info to support the comment.

11-12-2003, 08:55 AM	#8
pink Major Leaguer Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Germany Posts: 441	Speed tips were on the main page like here and here . Most of these can be expected to still apply. cheers, pink __________________ "And what have we got in here ? - Ahh, things.." (Louis (2), inspecting kitchen cupboards.)

11-12-2003, 09:25 AM	#10
DeltaMac League Commissioner Join Date: Jan 2002 Posts: 8,531	Journaling does not do any optimizing, I agree. But it seems to enable other functions which are a form of optimization. MacMath - thanks for clarifying some info about this new feature provided by Darwin, the Adaptive-Hot File-Clustering. I'm sure there will be a lot of t-shirts and hats sold with that logo. The link to the other thread also has links into an ArsTechica thread with some discussion about this undocumented feature Anyway, as MacMath states, with journaling enabled, this feature also runs. And apparently when journaling is disabled, the adaptive hot-file feature is not available either. So, with Panther, journaling is a Good Thing™... Last edited by DeltaMac; 11-12-2003 at 09:35 AM.

11-09-2003, 02:52 PM	#2
Craig R. Arko Site Admin Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Minneapolis, MN Posts: 3,988	Maybe if you gave a clue about what "certain things" you're talking about it would be easier to help you.

11-09-2003, 07:56 PM	#3
DeltaMac League Commissioner Join Date: Jan 2002 Posts: 8,531	You can get a slight (not really noticeable) speedup by disabling Journaling, but Journaling left enabled will tend to optimize your hard drive, which should improve your performance, so there's a trade-off, leaning to leaving journaling enabled. Best performance enhancement is running the periodic scripts occasionally, and deleting the cache files (lots of opinions on how to do this best), and I like one of the utilities the run various scripts for this purpose, like Maintain1, or MacJanitor, or Cocktail. You may notice that none of these 'turn things off' or ask you what you don't need. OS X, IMHO, keeps your system running evenly and smoothly if you let it, and tends to leave processes idle if they're not needed, leaving you with as much speed as possible.

11-12-2003, 09:02 AM	#9
macmath MVP Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Elsewhere Posts: 1,497	DavidRavenMoon, DeltaMac did not mean that Journalling itself optimized the drive, but that Panther has Adaptive-Hot-Clustering and automatic defragmentation and that these are not enabled unless Journalling is enabled. AHC creates a list of HotFiles which you use the most (see description of it elsewhere for the definition of how frequently these files must be used) which are also under 10 MB and moves them to the fastest part of the drive (removing 'cold' files if necessary). The automatic defragmenting defragments files under 20 MB in size as they are opened (there might be other limitations). Pretty Cool, hunh? Type locate .hotfiles.btree in Terminal and it will be found. [Edited to add closing parenthesis.]

11-12-2003, 09:44 AM	#11
Jon Richardson Triple-A Player Join Date: Jul 2002 Posts: 53	Thanks DeltaMac, DavidRavenMoon, & macmath ..... That's extremely interesting and seems pretty authoritative. I'm glad I asked my question. I shall watch my file system with renewed interest.

11-12-2003, 10:08 AM	#12
macmath MVP Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Elsewhere Posts: 1,497	I can see why you would want to enable these only when Journalling is running. If there were any disruption to the power supply while the reading and rewriting of files was taking place, you'd want to know where you were in the process. I'm sure that it would not erase the original copy of the file before it had written the new copy, but knowing which copy (the original one, or the partially written new one) represented the file would be important. Last edited by macmath; 11-12-2003 at 08:11 PM.