Backup Defragment

[Guest]

I backup my C Drive to an external hard drive weekly. When I use
defragment/analyze I'm told it needs defragmented. I run the defragment and
when it completes the report says that all of the files in the backup could
not be defragmented. What would the effect of the fragmented backup file(s)
be if I needed to restore from the backup? Is there a way to defragment these
files that I'm not aware of?
Thanks for the help.

 

[Guest]

Hi Jerry:

When your backup files were written to media, they were written exactly in a
way that the "restore" operation (if and when needed) would expect to see
them. Manipulating these files in any way would increase the possibilty that
the "restore" function woulld have a hard time reading them. Bottom line:
exclude backup files from your defrag operations despite what your defrag
software reports.

Happy computing

Mark

 

[POP]

In

I backup my C Drive to an external hard drive weekly. When I
use
defragment/analyze I'm told it needs defragmented. I run the
defragment and when it completes the report says that all of
the
files in the backup could not be defragmented. What would the
effect
of the fragmented backup file(s) be if I needed to restore from
the
backup? Is there a way to defragment these files that I'm not
aware
of?
Thanks for the help.

You don't give enough info to give a detailed response, but in
general it's not unusual that some files can not be defragmented.
Certain kinds of files and software insist on files being located
at the specific place they wrote them to. If you move them
around on the disk (which defrag does) then the application can
not find them again.
Defrag is generally smart enough to know which files can and
can not be worked on and will not move a file is it needs to stay
where it was originally written to.

I doubt it's causing problems, right? So, it's a "no big deal"
thing; don't worry about it. Very common.

HTH,
Pop

 

[Abraxas]

There are often a few files that can’t be defragged without heroic
methods. These may be in use or too large to defrag in the allotted
space.

This will have no effect on the operation of your machine or on the
restoration of the backup. It would be a waste of your valuable time
to attempt to defrag these few files

 

[Guest]

Thanks to all who responded so quickly. I'll sleep a little better.

Jerry