Re: How much HD space needed for memory swapping

On 2025-01-17 21:45:25 +0000, Dudley Brooks said:

On 1/17/25 1:33 PM, Your Name wrote:

On 2025-01-17 21:13:51 +0000, Dudley Brooks said:

On 1/16/25 4:49 PM, Jolly Roger wrote:

On 2025-01-16, Dudley Brooks <dbrooks@runforyourlife.org> wrote:

On 1/16/25 11:16 AM, Jolly Roger wrote:

On 2025-01-16, Dudley Brooks <dbrooks@runforyourlife.org> wrote:
 

(I hope that "memory swapping" is the correct term.)
 Model:    Late 2013 Macbook Pro
OS:    OS X 10.13.6 High Sierra
HD:    1 TB, 954.34 GB used, 44.27 GB available
CPU:    2.6 GHz Intel
Mem:    16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
 As you see, my HD is very full.
 As it fills up, I have seen a big dropoff in function -- programs load
much more slowly, can only have a few programs open at the same time,
windows don't open at full size, etc.
 I assume this is because of not enough swap space on the HD.
 What is the recommended amount of HD space to keep free for good
performance?

 That would depend on how much RAM you actually use, but the general
recommendation is to keep 10-20% free on the startup drive, depending on how much your system swaps due to low memory conditions. You're way short of that 100 GB (10%).

 OK, thanks!  Now I know what to aim for.  Luckily, it will not be too
difficult to accomplish -- loads of stuff I can get rid of.

 🙂👍🏼
 

Should I defrag afterwards?  Or does the OS (10.13.6 High Sierra) make
it somehow unnecessarry

 That's not something you need to do with flash storage (SSDs).

 Ah!  Excellent!  Thanks!

 The original post says "HD", as in hard drive, not SSD flash storage. As usual Jolly Roger didn't bother actually reading the question.
 Having noted that, defragging isn't really neccessary on MacOS hard drives either.

 My apologies -- it actually is an SSD.  I just have been using computers for so long that I still say "HD" generically -- anything that's not a floppy or a tape!

It's an easy mistake to make, especially as Apple kept on labelling the main storage drive "Macintosh HD" even long after they were switched over to using SSDs instead.
But whether you made a mistake or not, it was typed as HD and Jolly Roger replied about SSDs.

    Do Mac hard drives need to be defragmented?
    macOS does not include a built-in defragmentation tool
    because it is deemed unnecessary. macOS is designed to
    handle file fragmentation automatically, especially for
    small files. Using an external defragmentation tool on
    a Mac is not recommended.
    <https://www.crucial.com/articles/mac-users/how-to-defragment-a-mac