Goldenseal is Very Slow (Disk Fragmented)

Problem

Cursor spins for a long time during record saves. Fragmented hard drive. Goldenseal construction accounting software is very slow.

Diagnosis

The disk may be extremely fragmented-- so it takes much longer to find places to put things when changes are saved.
Fragmentation is most likely if:
1. the disk is almost full, or
2. they've used the machine for 1+ year and never have defragmented it.

HINT-- Disks are quieter nowadays, but if you put your ear up to the computer you may still hear a "chug chug" sound as the drive head moves all over the place, looking for small scraps of the company file.

Solution

Best solution- use Norton Utilities or something similar to defragment the drive.
Riskier but cheaper:
1. back up everything to another drive.
2. initialize the problem drive (Finder, Special menu, Erase Disk).
3. restore everything to the drive

Another thing to consider-- it may be a problem of insufficient RAM memory, which can cause excessive disk access when the computer starts using virtual memory for common operations.

NOTE-- These days, this is a much less common problem for Goldenseal construction accounting software. That's because modern operating systems are better at preventing disk fragmentation, hard drives are faster, and RAM is cheap and abundant.

Comments

Entered 11/26/01 by Dennis. Updated 11/13/2010.