Fragmentation happened with spinning hard-drives, but is no longer relevant for SSDs (solid state drive).
SSDs don't fragment, and they can't be defragmented. In fact using old software to defragment can degrade or even damage your SSD.

SSDs are not accessed mechanical but instead have random access to all storage cells.

Instead SSDs need regular TRIM to free up cells with deleted content so they can be re-used.
This is something your OS handles automatically, no need to manually interfere with it.

@Helmholtz & @Cyril Blanc Would you please moderate your tone again a little, thank you. Knowledge is power, but a bit of kindness can also go a long way. 😉

Yes, those tests were PRE iLok.

Oh ****! Then I surmise that what we're seeing and actually measuring now shows the penalty of the damnable PACE realtime streaming decryption. But that's a can of worms I'm going to try to ignore for now.

Looking at the new Macs, what I want - if I can justify the price - is a really substantial total horsepower hike above the 8 virtual cores of my old but still very capable i7 Kaby Lake 7700K 4.2 GHz (boost 4.5 GHz) CPU. Problem is, without going for the "Ultra" double-chip which costs an arm and a leg, I'm not seeing a whole lot of attractive options. Two steps forward, one step back.

What I'm wondering now - if I go for a Max Mac (Mini or Studio) - is whether I can face returning to the days of having to print tracks to audio whenever I run out of CPU horsepower. Also, I'm already thinking ahead to perhaps designating each of Synchron Player's audio channels as Essential or Extra, and providing a way of switching on or off the Extra in any one or multiple Synchron Players in my template. I don't fancy that but might have to do it, if I'm to be a happy consumer of all that rich and lovely Synchron Stage sound.

Or .... maybe I'll break my own rule and consider using a slave - even a PC slave.

[Edit]

Well I'm now settled into my computing equipment 'bunker'.

With merely the addition of a couple of new and fast SSDs that can max-out both of my Thunderbolt 3 ports as well as provide substantial random-access read speed, I'm now prepared to bide my time for a while. Maybe it'll be a long while.

I can't go beyond macOS Ventura on this machine because Apple, in their cultish way, try to ... erm ... 'dissuade' users from thinking of Macs more than 5 years old as anything other than obsolete. "Obsolete" used to mean "falling into disuse" in a natural way. Nowadays however, we see more and more examples of products being pushed into disuse by their parent corporations.

Hence my current stubborn bunker attitide, carrying on regardless with my dear old iMac.

As a minimum requirement for a new computer I want many more CPU cores - at least 16, as Stephen now has in his superb new M3 Max MBP. Maybe in this or the next Autumn, Apple will release a Mac Mini or Studio with a 16 core plus 128 GB Ram M3-Max option, or perhaps drop the price of the Ultra 24 core option. In my book, currently the options for Mac Mini and Mac Studio are just nasty.

Don't get me started on that ridiculous toy that now masquerades under the once-proud name of iMac.

Also, Intel's recently announced Thunderbolt 5 would be a very useful new feature in all Macs, most especially for us sample-library users. But who knows how long before that will happen - given that Intel and Apple aren't exactly best friends now.

And anything less than a 27" Retina screen is simply not a choice I'd make willingly.

Hey ho, on we go.

Guys, please stay respectful to each other. In worst case please simply use the ignore-user feature.

Since this thread already derailed multiple times I'll lock it for now.
Sorry @stephen limbaugh, feel free to start a new thread in case you want to discuss this further. If this is rather something our support should look into please send a mail to support@vsl.co.at

- Ben