05-14-2008, 04:22 PM
[quote GGD]Can anyone quote any documentation from Apple that states that you need to leave 10-15% of the space on a drive free, and the reason why.
With a 20 GB Drive you're saying that it's OK to get down to 2 GB, but if you took that same data and copied it onto a 1 TB Drive you're saying that now the exact same system needs 100 GB - 150 GB free. Where is 100 GB of data going to come from that will suddenly fill up the drive?
I agree that running it down to zero can be bad on any OS, but I'd like to know where Apple says 10% to 15% free that is so widely quoted on this forum as a requirement.
It isn't Apple that states this. It is the nature of hard drives. The more data you put on the platters the longer it takes to find free space and read or write files. When the drive gets more than 10 or 15% full it has a very hard time finding free space and has to search through a lot of information.
With a 20 GB Drive you're saying that it's OK to get down to 2 GB, but if you took that same data and copied it onto a 1 TB Drive you're saying that now the exact same system needs 100 GB - 150 GB free. Where is 100 GB of data going to come from that will suddenly fill up the drive?
I agree that running it down to zero can be bad on any OS, but I'd like to know where Apple says 10% to 15% free that is so widely quoted on this forum as a requirement.
It isn't Apple that states this. It is the nature of hard drives. The more data you put on the platters the longer it takes to find free space and read or write files. When the drive gets more than 10 or 15% full it has a very hard time finding free space and has to search through a lot of information.