Tip: Keep some "head room" on your Mac OS X volume for best performance, fewer errors
A quick reminder that Mac OS X requires at least 10 percent of the volume it is contained on as free space in order to maintain the integrity of the file system. However, even with 10 percent free space, Mac OS X's use swap files - as well as extra data generated by third-party application caches, etc. - can quickly put you back into a position of possible directory/file damage.
Realistically, 20 percent of your Mac OS X startup volume should be kept clear in order to achieve best performance and avoid disk problems.
Choose which files to place on-disk from the Mac OS X Installer's options menu when starting with a fresh installation (or performing an Archive and Install process). You can opt out of unnecessary languages and printer driver support that you will never use, which in some cases can easily make up for the extra 10 percent of head room.
Feedback? Late-breakers@macfixit.com.
Resources
mention a disk headroom condition that has been obvious since at least
10.1.5. Apple has been remiss in explaining this, and in detailing
whether their VM system can search out and use swap space on ANY
mounted volume, or just the boot volume. Linux is more transparent
than Apple's OS X, and Apple is fast running out of good will in some of
these critical but user-hostile Unix areas.
Actually, Micromat has been recommending this for several years now
on the various forums in Macfixit. Note that they recommend this for
MacOS 9 as well as OS X. The issue is not Unix in this case.
I concur. I've been running Macs for 10 years now (since System 7.0)
and always recommend keeping about 10% of disk space free. I say the
same to Windows users.
Shouldn't there be a maximum amount of free space needed regardless
of the size of the drive? I DO use the 20% rule but have never received a
satisfactory answer to why so much space is needed on larger drives.
- by Marcvpt July 23, 2003 12:14 AM PDT
- just put your swapfiles on a seperate partition, using for instance
- Like this Reply to this comment
-
(5 Comments)Xupport. added performance, and you don't have to keep a lot of space
free on your startup partition. Use a seperate partition of ± 1.5 - 2 Gb,
and you'll be safe.