OS X boot optimize: Orange drive icons, or fixed in the past.

[startupfiletool]

Hello,

 

When you go in to System Profiler, Serial-ATA, does your system boot drive indicate it is removeable or detachable media?

 

If so, please download HFSDebug and see if your system is doing hotfile clustering. Mine did not appear to be doing so after the update to 10.5.7 replaced the kexts that eliminated orange drive icons.

 

http://osxbook.com/software/hfsdebug/downl...SDebug-4.32.dmg

 

Put the hfsdebug program in your home folder

 

At Terminal, type these commands:

sudo bash

./hfsdebug -t 10 -H

./hfsdebug -b hotfile

 

The first command should show the top 10 hot files, and indicate how many hotfiles total. If it is zero, then your orange drives are preventing hot file clustering.

 

If most people out there do have hot files, even with System Profiler indicating Removeable/Detachable as yes, then it was just some kind of transient problem with my system.

 

But if most people don't have hot files, then OSX86 users should put more effort in to getting proper kexts so that their internal boot drive is not considered removeable, and not just changing icons.

[ELECTRObounce]

Hello,

 

When you go in to System Profiler, Serial-ATA, does your system boot drive indicate it is removeable or detachable media?

 

If so, please download HFSDebug and see if your system is doing hotfile clustering. Mine did not appear to be doing so after the update to 10.5.7 replaced the kexts that eliminated orange drive icons.

 

http://osxbook.com/software/hfsdebug/downl...SDebug-4.32.dmg

 

Put the hfsdebug program in your home folder

 

At Terminal, type these commands:

sudo bash

./hfsdebug -t 10 -H

./hfsdebug -b hotfile

 

The first command should show the top 10 hot files, and indicate how many hotfiles total. If it is zero, then your orange drives are preventing hot file clustering.

 

If most people out there do have hot files, even with System Profiler indicating Removeable/Detachable as yes, then it was just some kind of transient problem with my system.

 

But if most people don't have hot files, then OSX86 users should put more effort in to getting proper kexts so that their internal boot drive is not considered removeable, and not just changing icons.

 

Done,

 

A total of 4486 Hot Files are being tracked.

[Beerkex'd]

Interesting.

 

10.5.7 on top of 10.5.6 retail, all vanilla kexts in S/L/E

Chameon 2.0 RC1 with icon fix by IOAHCIBlockStorageInjector.kext that comes with Chameleon 2.0, running from /Extra/Extensions

ICH10R in AHCI mode.

 

Removable media: Yes

Detachable drive: No

bash-3.2# ./hfsdebug -t 10 -H
# Top 10 Hottest Files on the Volume
rank temperature	   cnid path
1			600	 164325 HFS+:<unknown>
2			361	 841616 HFS+:<unknown>
3			361	 841596 HFS+:<unknown>
4			361	 841580 HFS+:<unknown>
5			361	 841557 HFS+:<unknown>
6			361	 841541 HFS+:<unknown>
7			361	 841537 HFS+:<unknown>
8			361	 841521 HFS+:<unknown>
9			328	 841600 HFS+:<unknown>
10		   328	 841592 HFS+:<unknown>

A total of 98 Hot Files are being tracked.

Is it supposed to say <unknown> there?

bash-3.2# ./hfsdebug -b hotfile
# HFS+ Hot File Clustering (HFC) B-Tree
# B-Tree Node Descriptor
 fLink				= 0
 bLink				= 0
 kind				 = 1 (kBTHeaderNode)
 height			   = 0
 numRecords		   = 3
 reserved			 = 0
# B-Tree Header Record
 treeDepth			= 1
 rootNode			 = 1
 leafRecords		  = 196
 firstLeafNode		= 1
 lastLeafNode		 = 1
 nodeSize			 = 4096 bytes
 maxKeyLength		 = 10 bytes
 totalNodes		   = 16
 freeNodes			= 14
 reserved1			= 0
 clumpSize			= 65536 (ignored)
 btreeType			= 128 (kUserBTreeType)
 keyCompareType	   = 0 (unspecified/default)
 attributes		   = 00000000000000000000000000000010
				   . kBTBigKeys (keyLength is UInt16)
# User Data Record
 magic				= 0XFF28FF26
 version			  = 1
 duration			 = 216000 seconds
 timebase			 = Thu May  7 23:31:15 2009
 timeleft			 = 117750 seconds
 threshold			= 24
 maxfileblks		  = 2560 blocks
 maxfilecnt		   = 1000
 tag				  = CLUSTERED HOT FILES B-TREE

 

Nice to see that there's "magic" involved. I knew it!

Looks like IOAHCIBlockStorageInjector works like it should.

[startupfiletool]

Is it supposed to say <unknown> there?

 

Nice to see that there's "magic" involved. I knew it!

Looks like IOAHCIBlockStorageInjector works like it should.

 

Some unknown are ok, but if you do -t 98 and they are all unknown, then it means it isn't really working. Unknowns are more likely after you've done system updates, or updated your most frequent apps.

 

Yep, the hotfile clustering is one of the magic parts of OS X. It's one of the reasons why a system will fly when everything is working right.

[Beerkex'd]

Aha, so it's a cache..kind of like prefetching in Windows?

 

Updated to 10.5.7 last night.

 

So those unknowns should be populated after a while?

[ELECTRObounce]

Some unknown are ok, but if you do -t 98 and they are all unknown, then it means it isn't really working. Unknowns are more likely after you've done system updates, or updated your most frequent apps.

 

Yep, the hotfile clustering is one of the magic parts of OS X. It's one of the reasons why a system will fly when everything is working right.

 

It says my drive is Removable and all my hot files are coming up.

 

 

bash-3.2# ./hfsdebug -t 10 -H

# Top 10 Hottest Files on the Volume

rank temperature cnid path

1 24 26011 Macintosh HD:/System/Library/Perl/Extras/5.8.8/darwin-thread-multi-2level/auto/BerkeleyDB/BerkeleyDB.bundle

2 24 26009 Macintosh HD:/System/Library/Perl/Extras/5.8.8/darwin-thread-multi-2level/auto/BerkeleyDB/autosplit.ix

3 24 25999 Macintosh HD:/System/Library/Perl/Extras/5.8.8/darwin-thread-multi-2level/Alien/wxWidgets.pm

4 24 25998 Macintosh HD:/System/Library/Perl/Extras/5.8.8/darwin-thread-multi-2level/Alien/wxWidgets/Utility.pm

5 24 25997 Macintosh HD:/System/Library/Perl/Extras/5.8.8/darwin-thread-multi-2level/Alien/wxWidgets/Config/mac_2_8_4_dbg_uni_gcc_3_4.pm

6 24 25992 Macintosh HD:/System/Library/Perl/Extras/5.8.8/Convert/TNEF.pm

7 24 25991 Macintosh HD:/System/Library/Perl/Extras/5.8.8/Convert/BinHex.pm

8 24 25990 Macintosh HD:/System/Library/Perl/Extras/5.8.8/Convert/ASN1.pm

9 24 25989 Macintosh HD:/System/Library/Perl/Extras/5.8.8/Convert/ASN1/parser.pm

10 24 25988 Macintosh HD:/System/Library/Perl/Extras/5.8.8/Convert/ASN1/IO.pm

 

A total of 4486 Hot Files are being tracked.

[Beerkex'd]

Would be embarrassing if all your porn videos came out on top.

[startupfiletool]

Aha, so it's a cache..kind of like prefetching in Windows?

 

Updated to 10.5.7 last night.

 

So those unknowns should be populated after a while?

 

I think there is a prefetcher component to it. HFC is an area at the beginning of the disk (theoretically the fastest part) where the files are stored, always defragmented, and possibly in some kind of order. The reason for the B-Tree is to tell disk defragmenters to beware those files.

 

The unknowns should eventually cycle out, and new files added. 98 is really low for a total count, and indicates a new system or non-working HFC. (Maybe 10.5.7 reset the HFC? You never know what Apple is up to.) It takes a few days(and possibly reboot) for changes to happen.

 

It had been my observation (not confirmed) that external firewire boot disks never did HFC or it was always stale. I might have been wrong, it might have been because the drive was being used on more than one system. It might have been a bug in past OS X that was since fixed.

[Beerkex'd]

I did a complete cleanout with Leopard Cache Cleaner yesterday when I was troubleshooting something following the update to 10.5.7, that must be why there's nothing there. I guess I could check the logs.

 

Thanks for the interesting and informative topic!

[tmim]

bash-3.2# ./hfsdebug-lite -t 10 -H
# Top 10 Hottest Files on the Volume
rank temperature       cnid path

A total of 0 Hot Files are being tracked.

 

Just got SL 10.6.2 functioning well on my Pentium D Intel 945G. My internal drives are showing as removable and brandishing the infamous orange drive icons.

 

I placed the IOAHCIBlockStorageInjector.kext in my Extras/Extensions folder and did a restart and the issue remains.

As far as I know my motherboard doesn't have AHCI(could be mistaken).

 

Side note: I cant select kexts to install using OSX86tools and Kext helper crashes after the fingers crossed message; any reason as to why fellas?