Copying -vs- defragging?

[scooterspal]

I have a 1 TB Sata drive near full with large 2 and 3 gig video files
that PerfectDisk is reporting needs a serious defragging... and it will
take days to do it right. I have deleted files and added files over many
weeks and thus trhe need for the house cleaning.

Question: If I copy this entire drive to another 1TB Sata drive can I
assume the files will now be put back together so no defragging is
necessary?

Thanks!

 

[Leythos]

I have a 1 TB Sata drive near full with large 2 and 3 gig video files
that PerfectDisk is reporting needs a serious defragging... and it will
take days to do it right. I have deleted files and added files over many
weeks and thus trhe need for the house cleaning.

Question: If I copy this entire drive to another 1TB Sata drive can I
assume the files will now be put back together so no defragging is
necessary?

No, not always true.

Copy the files to another location, defrag the first disk, copy them
back. There may be a LITTLE fragmentation, but it should not be serious.

In the case of really bad fragmentation, if you delete the files you can
defrag the drive very quickly, then restore the fragged files and they
should be in a much better shape.

If all you do is copy them, the destination could still fragment them as
well as when you copy them back.

 

[Roger]

No, not always true.

Copy the files to another location, defrag the first disk, copy them
back. There may be a LITTLE fragmentation, but it should not be serious.

In the case of really bad fragmentation, if you delete the files you can
defrag the drive very quickly, then restore the fragged files and they
should be in a much better shape.

If all you do is copy them, the destination could still fragment them as
well as when you copy them back.

WHAT?

 

[Jim]

I have a 1 TB Sata drive near full with large 2 and 3 gig video files
that PerfectDisk is reporting needs a serious defragging... and it will
take days to do it right. I have deleted files and added files over many
weeks and thus trhe need for the house cleaning.

Question: If I copy this entire drive to another 1TB Sata drive can I
assume the files will now be put back together so no defragging is
necessary?

Thanks!

No .

 

[Leythos]

WHAT?

What do you mean What? What part don't you comprehend?

 

[Al Falfa]

What do you mean What? What part don't you comprehend?

LOL. Probably "the destination could still fragment them".
(*I* understand what you mean, but still ...)

 

[Leythos]

LOL. Probably "the destination could still fragment them".
(*I* understand what you mean, but still ...)

If the destination drive is fragmented, there is a very good chance that
the file will be fragmented when moved from Source to Dest.

If you then defrag the source drive there is still a chance the file
will fragment when moved from the Dest to Source drive, but it should
have a LOT LESS fragments than before you moved it.

The only thing that moving highly fragmented files to another drive does
is make it quicker to defrag the source drive.

 

[Lil' Dave]

I have a 1 TB Sata drive near full with large 2 and 3 gig video files that
PerfectDisk is reporting needs a serious defragging... and it will take
days to do it right. I have deleted files and added files over many
weeks and thus trhe need for the house cleaning.

Question: If I copy this entire drive to another 1TB Sata drive can I
assume the files will now be put back together so no defragging is
necessary?

Thanks!

What you seem to be looking for are contiguous files. That's not needed in
the specific instance you noted.

If you insist on such, decide what you want in advance without need of
deletions, and defrag much more often. Need for such "housecleaning" is the
user's opinion. And being so, should be done in process instead of waiting
until its time-expensive.

 

[Tim Meddick]

Hi,
I have twin 37GB hard-disks on my machine and after defragging them only
one, quite large, file is reported as being still fragmented. The file is
an (.ima) image file of 983 MB and is left being reported as having 4,098
file fragments. Even if I copy it to the second drive, defragment the first
so that there are no fragmented files left, copy it back and do a Defragment
"Analyse" on it and it's back again with, more or less, exactly the same
number of fragments (i.e. in about 4,000 parts). So this goes to show that
when copying files to other drives they do seem to retain the number of
fragmented parts as I think "Leythos" was trying to say

 

[Leythos]

What about if you MOVE them over and then back again? I did this a few years ago (circa Win 95) and it completely
defraged the moved files without me defragging the source drive before returning them.

That would only actually work if your source drive was reasonably
unfragmented to start with.

Windows fills sectors on a first come basis - so if you have gaps that
are smaller than the final size, it will fragment the files.

 

[Tim Meddick]

That is what I was trying to say: moving it over to another hard drive,
defragging (both) and moving it back produced the same number of fragments,
that is; no difference at all! Eventually I got the number of fragments
down by using a mixture of Window's Defragmenter tool and 3rd party Defrag
software running consecutively.
--

Cheers, Tim Meddick, Peckham, London.

Hi,
I have twin 37GB hard-disks on my machine and after defragging them
only
one, quite large, file is reported as being still fragmented. The file is
an (.ima) image file of 983 MB and is left being reported as having 4,098
file fragments. Even if I copy it to the second drive, defragment the
first
so that there are no fragmented files left, copy it back and do a
Defragment
"Analyse" on it and it's back again with, more or less, exactly the same
number of fragments (i.e. in about 4,000 parts). So this goes to show
that
when copying files to other drives they do seem to retain the number of
fragmented parts as I think "Leythos" was trying to say

What about if you MOVE them over and then back again? I did this a few years
ago (circa Win 95) and it completely
defraged the moved files without me defragging the source drive before
returning them.
____ _
| __\_\_o____/_|
<[___\_\_-----<------------------<No Spam Please><
| o'

 

[Doug W.]

If the file is an ISO file it wont matter if it is fragmented
anyway as you are only going to access it RARELY and that when
you burn a disk from the ISO info. Leave it be, your ordinary
activities wont even touch this file and it will affect NOTHING
as far as computer speed of operation.
-
Doug W.
======

That is what I was trying to say: moving it over to another
hard drive, defragging (both) and moving it back produced the
same number of fragments, that is; no difference at all!
Eventually I got the number of fragments down by using a
mixture of Window's Defragmenter tool and 3rd party Defrag
software running consecutively.
--

Cheers, Tim Meddick, Peckham, London.

Hi,
I have twin 37GB hard-disks on my machine and after
defragging them only
one, quite large, file is reported as being still fragmented.
The file is
an (.ima) image file of 983 MB and is left being reported as
having 4,098
file fragments. Even if I copy it to the second drive,
defragment the first
so that there are no fragmented files left, copy it back and
do a Defragment
"Analyse" on it and it's back again with, more or less,
exactly the same
number of fragments (i.e. in about 4,000 parts). So this
goes to show that
when copying files to other drives they do seem to retain the
number of
fragmented parts as I think "Leythos" was trying to say

What about if you MOVE them over and then back again? I did
this a few years ago (circa Win 95) and it completely
defraged the moved files without me defragging the source
drive before returning them.
____ _
| __\_\_o____/_|
<[___\_\_-----<------------------<No Spam Please><
| o'

 

[Tim Meddick]

True.
--

Cheers, Tim Meddick, Peckham, London.

If the file is an ISO file it wont matter if it is fragmented anyway as
you are only going to access it RARELY and that when you burn a disk from
the ISO info. Leave it be, your ordinary activities wont even touch this
file and it will affect NOTHING as far as computer speed of operation.
-
Doug W.
======

That is what I was trying to say: moving it over to another hard drive,
defragging (both) and moving it back produced the same number of
fragments, that is; no difference at all! Eventually I got the number of
fragments down by using a mixture of Window's Defragmenter tool and 3rd
party Defrag software running consecutively.
--

Cheers, Tim Meddick, Peckham, London.

Hi,
I have twin 37GB hard-disks on my machine and after defragging them
only
one, quite large, file is reported as being still fragmented. The file is
an (.ima) image file of 983 MB and is left being reported as having 4,098
file fragments. Even if I copy it to the second drive, defragment the
first
so that there are no fragmented files left, copy it back and do a
Defragment
"Analyse" on it and it's back again with, more or less, exactly the same
number of fragments (i.e. in about 4,000 parts). So this goes to show
that
when copying files to other drives they do seem to retain the number of
fragmented parts as I think "Leythos" was trying to say

What about if you MOVE them over and then back again? I did this a few
years ago (circa Win 95) and it completely
defraged the moved files without me defragging the source drive before
returning them.
____ _
| __\_\_o____/_|
<[___\_\_-----<------------------<No Spam Please><
| o'