Enabling "File System Journaling" In Mac OS X 10.2.2

File System Journaling (FSJ) is the latest cool feature of Mac OS X. It's largely intended for servers so Apple has a KBase article describing it and another KBase article [MacSurfer] on how to enable it in Mac OS X Server 10.2.2 but not the "client" Mac OS X 10.2.2.

To enable FSJ in Mac OS X 10.2.2 on your startup volume, open the Terminal application and type (or copy and paste the text) without the quotes:

"sudo diskutil enableJournal /"

Then hit Return, type in your Adminstrators password and hit Return again.

You can check to see if it is enabled by using the Disk Utility application and selecting the "journaled" volume. In the Information Tab under "Format:" it should say "HFS + (journaled)."

To turn FSJ off use:

"sudo diskutil disableJournal /"

Should you enable FSJ? It's really for situations where a lot of writing to disk occurs and a power outage or some other interruption may occur. Still, you never know when the dog may knock your power cord out of the wall while you are copying something.

Does FSJ cause a performance hit? Not in most situations. It's small and largely confined to situations where lots of writing to disk occurs, like when working lots of audio or video files. Most users will never notice it.

We've enabled FSJ on all of our Macs and will post any difficulties that we run into.