I looked into defragging utilities in order to minimize the wear on my
hard drive. This differs from most people's main motivation, which
is to improve the speed of data acquisition from the hard drive. For
me, that is a beneficial side effectg.

So far, I've found that freeware doesn't cut it. The short story is
that they don't use the proper security privilege so as to be able to
access and derag all files, regardless of the account to which they
below. I ended up trialing Diskeeper, which seems quite awesome in
that it defrags all the files that the freeware could not. It also
defrags in the background, making use of otherwise lull times in CPU
usage. In addition, the premier pro version supposedly has some
intelligence which figures out which files you access most, and
optimizes the access to them.

Unfortunately, the background defragger seems to go against my reason
for defragging, which is to minimize disk wear rather than speeding up
file access. The background defragging seems to keep the hard drive
perpetually spinning, even in the absence of activity that would cause
defragmentation. So basically, I'm going to forgo that feature and
possibly continue comparing commercial defraggers.

Are there any considerations that I may be overlooking in this
decision?

In the absence of background defragging, would once a week be frequent
enough for defragging? I don't use the machine for video, audio, or
any kind of media. Just plain old surfing and email.

"AndyHancock" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:c67f6d57-0b65-4eb6-9e08-(E-Mail Removed)...
> I looked into defragging utilities in order to minimize the wear on my
> hard drive. This differs from most people's main motivation, which
> is to improve the speed of data acquisition from the hard drive. For
> me, that is a beneficial side effectg.
>
>


<snip>

defragging or not defragging
one way or the other is *not* going to affect disk wear in any significant
way.

defragging is useful only in terms of performance.

On May 5, 9:04 pm, "philo" <ph...@privacy.net> wrote:
> "AndyHancock" <AndyMHanc...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>
> news:c67f6d57-0b65-4eb6-9e08-(E-Mail Removed)...
>
> > I looked into defragging utilities in order to minimize the wear on my
> > hard drive. This differs from most people's main motivation, which
> > is to improve the speed of data acquisition from the hard drive. For
> > me, that is a beneficial side effectg.
>
> <snip>
>
> defragging or not defragging
> one way or the other is *not* going to affect disk wear in any significant
> way.
>
> defragging is useful only in terms of performance.

Hello, Philo,

Could you please elaborate on why unfragmented files would not extend
disk life? It seems that noticably more disk churning is needed for
the same amount of data access on a fragmented file. Is there not
more head movement as well?

As well, for non-background defragging, is once a week typically
sufficient?

<snip>
> >
> > defragging or not defragging
> > one way or the other is *not* going to affect disk wear in any
significant
> > way.
> >
> > defragging is useful only in terms of performance.
>
> Hello, Philo,
>
> Could you please elaborate on why unfragmented files would not extend
> disk life? It seems that noticably more disk churning is needed for
> the same amount of data access on a fragmented file. Is there not
> more head movement as well?
>
> As well, for non-background defragging, is once a week typically
> sufficient?


With your machine tunred on...unless the drive is in the sleep mode,
it's always rotating...the armature's movement is not what is going to wear
out a drive.

I don't know if this analogy is any good
but it's like saying that your automobile will fail sooner
if you bring a passenger along with you.

As to non-background defragging..
unless you are really using your machine heavily...I doubt if you need to
defrag
more than once a month. I might defrag my machine 5 or 6 times a year.

philo wrote:

> With your machine tunred on...unless the drive is in the sleep mode,
> it's always rotating...the armature's movement is not what is going to wear
> out a drive.

Philo, is there actually evidence for that statement? I don't know first
hand but if I had to guess i would say the constant rotation of the
platter with no starts/stops/speed-changes would involve the least
forces and therefore be the least contributor to wear.

The armature on the other hand *is* accelerating/decelerating/changing
direction with each disk access, so there are constantly changing forces
acting. This is exactly where I would expect the major wear to be. (That
and the platter surface - although I understand that the head rides on
an air gap there so that although any wear would still be a function of
armature movement, it's likely to be minimal).

Sid Elbow wrote:
> philo wrote:
>
>> With your machine tunred on...unless the drive is in the sleep mode,
>> it's always rotating...the armature's movement is not what is going to
>> wear
>> out a drive.
>
>
> Philo, is there actually evidence for that statement? I don't know first
> hand but if I had to guess i would say the constant rotation of the
> platter with no starts/stops/speed-changes would involve the least
> forces and therefore be the least contributor to wear.
>
> The armature on the other hand *is* accelerating/decelerating/changing
> direction with each disk access, so there are constantly changing forces
> acting. This is exactly where I would expect the major wear to be. (That
> and the platter surface - although I understand that the head rides on
> an air gap there so that although any wear would still be a function of
> armature movement, it's likely to be minimal).

FWIW, the repeated defrag activity is more likely to INCREASE the amount
of action the RW head goes through. The additional movement of the heads
to pick up the fragments on a read are nothing compared to activity
caused by a defrag. So one should argue that anal defragging DECREASES
the life expectancy of the drive, NOT increase it.

Bob I wrote:

> FWIW, the repeated defrag activity is more likely to INCREASE the amount
> of action the RW head goes through. The additional movement of the heads
> to pick up the fragments on a read are nothing compared to activity
> caused by a defrag. So one should argue that anal defragging DECREASES
> the life expectancy of the drive, NOT increase it.

I wouldn't want to be categorical about it in either direction. Whether,
say, a half-hour of intense activity once a week offsets or exceeds the
additional activity due to fragmentation would depend on individual
circumstances I would think. At least, it isn't obvious to me one way or
the other.

Sid Elbow wrote:
> Bob I wrote:
>
>> FWIW, the repeated defrag activity is more likely to INCREASE the
>> amount of action the RW head goes through. The additional movement of
>> the heads to pick up the fragments on a read are nothing compared to
>> activity caused by a defrag. So one should argue that anal defragging
>> DECREASES the life expectancy of the drive, NOT increase it.
>
>
> I wouldn't want to be categorical about it in either direction. Whether,
> say, a half-hour of intense activity once a week offsets or exceeds the
> additional activity due to fragmentation would depend on individual
> circumstances I would think. At least, it isn't obvious to me one way or
> the other.
>

Actually, the OP appeared to believe that frequent defragging would
somehow extend the drives life expectancy. In the real world, any
difference would not amount to any statistical measurable amount.(in
either direction)

"Sid Elbow" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:48206adc$0$28602$(E-Mail Removed)...
> philo wrote:
>
> > With your machine tunred on...unless the drive is in the sleep mode,
> > it's always rotating...the armature's movement is not what is going to
wear
> > out a drive.
>
> Philo, is there actually evidence for that statement? I don't know first
> hand but if I had to guess i would say the constant rotation of the
> platter with no starts/stops/speed-changes would involve the least
> forces and therefore be the least contributor to wear.
>
> The armature on the other hand *is* accelerating/decelerating/changing
> direction with each disk access, so there are constantly changing forces
> acting. This is exactly where I would expect the major wear to be. (That
> and the platter surface - although I understand that the head rides on
> an air gap there so that although any wear would still be a function of
> armature movement, it's likely to be minimal).



I do not have any scientific tests to back me up of course...
but can come up with another analogy perhaps.

If you drive your car from NY to LA and always stayed in the same lane...

vs. taking the same trip but changing lanes often...would you *really* have
driven your car
any significant distance farther or put significanly more wear and tear on
the car's suspension?


I think that if one wrote some software to purposely stress a HD and the
armature
were *continually* oscillated as fast as possible through the greatest range
of movement...
that something like that could cause damage...

but you also need to consider that the very act of defragging a drive will
cause a lot of movement.

I think that such factors as excess heat would play a much larger role in
premature drive failure.


Anyway all this is simply my 2 cents worth
so with inflation and all...may only be a penny's worth!

Here's what I do (I weighed out all the same concerns plus a few more)

On most machines I set up an automatic defrag once a week during off hours.
This minimizes impact felt by users and tends to keep the disks in an
efficient layout.

I do find that automated tapes backups are faster when the disk is defragged
as is general machine performance but I'm sensitive to these things.

In any event, I weigh out defrag implementations on a per-machine basis. So
if I had one that had a lot of file creation and erasing going on I would
probably defrag it more.

If you defrag once per week then you're probably cutting down on the amount
of times the head on a drive travels. If you do it on a continual background
basis then you'll have speedy disks but you've dramatically increased the
amount of work that they are doing (as you found out).

Given that all my machines are on RAID 5 arrays and each one has a dedicated
spare (that means I can experience two drive failures before I'm up the
creek) I'm not too worried about how hard the drives work.

My servers are all 'old' in comparison to modern machines and many of my
drives have been in use for 5 years. I buy them (literally) off e-bay for
very little and keep spares. For $50 I can get (5) 15K Seagate's with trays
so.....

But of course it all depends on budget/application etc. At any rate, for
most of my machines a defrag once a week keeps the fragments from getting
out of hand and minimizes the impact to the end users :-)

Best!
Dave


"AndyHancock" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:c67f6d57-0b65-4eb6-9e08-(E-Mail Removed)...
> I looked into defragging utilities in order to minimize the wear on my
> hard drive. This differs from most people's main motivation, which
> is to improve the speed of data acquisition from the hard drive. For
> me, that is a beneficial side effectg.
>
> So far, I've found that freeware doesn't cut it. The short story is
> that they don't use the proper security privilege so as to be able to
> access and derag all files, regardless of the account to which they
> below. I ended up trialing Diskeeper, which seems quite awesome in
> that it defrags all the files that the freeware could not. It also
> defrags in the background, making use of otherwise lull times in CPU
> usage. In addition, the premier pro version supposedly has some
> intelligence which figures out which files you access most, and
> optimizes the access to them.
>
> Unfortunately, the background defragger seems to go against my reason
> for defragging, which is to minimize disk wear rather than speeding up
> file access. The background defragging seems to keep the hard drive
> perpetually spinning, even in the absence of activity that would cause
> defragmentation. So basically, I'm going to forgo that feature and
> possibly continue comparing commercial defraggers.
>
> Are there any considerations that I may be overlooking in this
> decision?
>
> In the absence of background defragging, would once a week be frequent
> enough for defragging? I don't use the machine for video, audio, or
> any kind of media. Just plain old surfing and email.