Is defraging necessary?
in [Windows XP]
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From: Twayne on 16 May 2010 21:21 In news:%23iAPAYS9KHA.5464(a)TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl, HeyBub <heybub(a)gmail.com> typed: > hello(a)goodbye.com wrote: >> >> Why would anyone NOT defrag? It's so easy to do, and its >> something you can start doing before dinner, or before >> going to bed. By the time you're done eating, or wake up, >> it's finished. NOT defragging slows down your computer. > > Reduced efficiency is not easily detectable or significant > on a heavily-fragmented NTFS drive. Wrong. It isn't how fragmented the drive is, it's WHERE the fragmentation exists. If files you seldom/never use are fragmented, no big dea. If they're files you use a lot, you might very well begin to notice things slowing down, notably at boot times but also in normal running. > >> NOT defragging makes your hard drive work harder, and >> wears it out sooner. > > Nope. The head moves ONE time irrespective of the number of > fragments (on an NTFS drive). How do you figure that? If the fragments are on several tracks, which is the norm, the head has to move to EACH track, get the data, move to the next track, get that data, and so on, all in a particular order, until the data is reconstructed for use in memory. And then, if the pagefile is involved, there are even more head movements to get back and forth to the pagefile which may also be on more than one track. And all of this ignores the number of platters and latencies of getting which head ready for which platter and whether it has to wait for the data to come round again after switching from one track to another. > >> NOT defragging makes it harder to retrieve data in the >> event a hard drive begins to fail. > > That IS true. That IS inconsistant with our prior claims also. If it's just one track, why would it matter? > >> >> The more often you delete files or move them, the more >> often you should defrag. > > Yes. Heavy users could possibly detect some benefit with a > sheduled defrag every couple of years or so. Ordinary user, > perhaps every decade. Not necessarily. Moving a file is often a simple change in a table and nothing at all is done to the data. The tables are simply rearranged to show the file in a new location. You've obviously never done anything data intensive with your machine or your experience would tell you that's incorrect timeframes. > >> Browsers in particular clutter drives with cache >> files. Always clear the cache before defragging. But they "clutter" the drive by putting those files all in one area of the disk under a top level folder, so there really isn't much separation between them if the defrags previously done have left the spacings where they should be. A proper defrag consists of a lot more than simply making file contiguous. You need to do some research on how a drive works and how data structures and the tables work to maintain the drive and decide where to put data. Fragmentation in the often used portions of your disk can definitely bring your machine to a crawl, depending on what you do with it. Your lack of experience and knowledge is clearly putting you at a disadvantage here. Some legitimate research would help you respond to things like this correctly as opposed to making guesses at what might happen. The devil's always in the details. HTH, Twayne` >> Whoever told you this is an idiot !!!
From: Leythos on 16 May 2010 21:32 In article <OxXHsVS9KHA.5412(a)TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl>, heybub(a)gmail.com says... > > Leythos wrote: > > In article <#1wndj28KHA.3176(a)TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl>, heybub(a)gmail.com > > says... > >> > >> Lisa wrote: > >>> I was told by a computer repairman that it's not necessary to defrag > >>> my laptop. If the hard drive gets full, remove files and always > >>> make sure I'm using a virus protection. > >>> What are your thoughts? > >> > >> I can envision a situation in a data center with hundreds of > >> thousands of transactions per minute where defragging may be of some > >> slight benefit (assuming an NTFS file system). > >> > >> I can also imagine a user devoted to daily defragging experiencing a > >> power interruption during a critical directory manipulation process. > > > > On a small computer with many add/delete/grow/shrink operations, > > defrag can significantly impact file access times and can be very > > noticeable to users if their system was badly file fragmented before > > the defrag. > > > > White-Space fragmention is not normally an issue, but a file that is > > fragmented into 8000 parts will have an impact on system performance. > > > > This argument has gone on for decades, but it's the people that > > maintain systems across many areas that know the benefits of defrag. > > Ignorance can be fixed - hence the original question. It's knowing something > that is false that's the bigger problem. > > Considering your example of 8,000 segments, consider: A minimum segment size > of 4096 bytes implies a minimum of 32 meg file. A FAT-32 system requires a > minimum of 16,000 head movements to gather all the pieces. In this case, > with an average access time of 12msec, you'll spend over six minutes just > moving the head around. Factor in rotational delay to bring the track marker > under the head, then rotational delay to find the sector, and so on, you're > up to ten minutes or so to read the file. > > An NTFS system will suck up the file with ONE head movement. You still have > the rotational delays and so forth, but NTFS will cut the six minutes off > the slurp-up time. > > De-fragging an NTFS system DOES have its uses: For those who dust the inside > covers of the books on their shelves and weekly scour the inside of the > toilet water tank, a sense of satisfaction infuses their very being after a > successful operation. > > I personally think Prozac is cheaper, but to each his own. Why do you even consider discussing FAT-32? You do know that the default cluster size for NTFS (anything modern) is 4K in most instances, right? How does that impact your math now? You might want to start learning about drives, formats, RAID, clusters, etc... before you post again. -- You can't trust your best friends, your five senses, only the little voice inside you that most civilians don't even hear -- Listen to that. Trust yourself. spam999free(a)rrohio.com (remove 999 for proper email address)
From: Leythos on 16 May 2010 21:39 In article <#iAPAYS9KHA.5464(a)TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl>, heybub(a)gmail.com says... > Yes. Heavy users could possibly detect some benefit with a sheduled defrag > every couple of years or so. Ordinary user, perhaps every decade. > You should really try studying this subject before you post again: http://www.ntfs.com/ntfs_optimization.htm -- You can't trust your best friends, your five senses, only the little voice inside you that most civilians don't even hear -- Listen to that. Trust yourself. spam999free(a)rrohio.com (remove 999 for proper email address)
From: Bob I on 17 May 2010 09:08 Brian V wrote: > What about defragmentation with a RAID system? Doesn't this system eliminate > file defragmentation? I am under the impression that it is two copies of > everything (one on each drive), it is a faster (and ??more stable system??) > and more reliable system? RAID 0 is nothing more than Mirrored Drives, it won't be faster or more stable, only provides a identical copy in the event a harddrive fails. > > Those new HDD's that are flash drives, SSD I think, they don't need > defragmentation I saw in some tutorials. Since they are flash based, if I > defragment my flash memory cards or my memory sticks, is this a bad idea? Defragging is the term used to describe placing all the fragments of a file into one contiguous section of the drive. The reason this is done is to prevent the drive read/write heads(the slowest part of the entire data access) from having to flip all over the platter surface to get the pieces. SS memory drives don't have heads, so no reason to defrag. Also memory drives have a finite number of writes so you would actually decrease the life expectancy of the drive if did that.
From: Leythos on 17 May 2010 10:11
In article <OJs07Hc9KHA.5476(a)TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl>, birelan(a)yahoo.com says... > > Brian V wrote: > > > What about defragmentation with a RAID system? Doesn't this system eliminate > > file defragmentation? I am under the impression that it is two copies of > > everything (one on each drive), it is a faster (and ??more stable system??) > > and more reliable system? > > RAID 0 is nothing more than Mirrored Drives, it won't be faster or more > stable, only provides a identical copy in the event a harddrive fails. RAID-0 is not a mirror and does NOT provide a COPY at all. RAID-1 IS a MIRROR. -- You can't trust your best friends, your five senses, only the little voice inside you that most civilians don't even hear -- Listen to that. Trust yourself. spam999free(a)rrohio.com (remove 999 for proper email address) |