Defragmenting

[Jake]

How often should I need to defragment the disk volume that contains my video
and project files?

It seems that after I import a couple of DV-AVI files from tape, I need to
defragment as they're all over the place. In fact, it's so bad that I'm
considering adopting the following process: import -> defrag -> edit ->
defrag -> render to DV-AVI -> defragment -> save to DVD.

I have a 90GB partition on a 120GB disk formatted as NTFS that I use
exclusively for video projects (i.e.raw video, stills, sound files and
project files). At the moment I have about 60GB of contiguous free space
but the system still insists on fragmenting new imported files.

Jake

 

[Not just a nutter]

How often should I need to defragment the disk volume that contains my video
and project files?

I always do a defrag before I start editing and then again before
burning to DVD....at least that is, that's is what I used to do.

I ended up buying an 80Gb hard drive and an EIDE card. The drive goes
via the new card and is set at DMA mode 5 (Mode 6 is either now out, or will
be soon) This method has a number of benefits, the controller card has only
one drive to look after and that drive does not have to wait its turn on the
primary EIDE port. The drive is only used for capturing/editing etc, and is
cleaned out at the end of the project.

I went to this trouble because of occasional glitches when editing
etc...I have none of those problems anymore.

All the best.....

 

[Jake]

I always do a defrag before I start editing and then again before
burning to DVD....at least that is, that's is what I used to do.

I ended up buying an 80Gb hard drive and an EIDE card. The drive goes
via the new card and is set at DMA mode 5 (Mode 6 is either now out, or will
be soon) This method has a number of benefits, the controller card has only
one drive to look after and that drive does not have to wait its turn on the
primary EIDE port. The drive is only used for capturing/editing etc, and is
cleaned out at the end of the project.

I went to this trouble because of occasional glitches when editing
etc...I have none of those problems anymore.

All the best.....

Thanks - at least I now know that I should expect lots of frags lots of the
time!

A separate controller and disk is probably unneccesary at the moment, but
worth considering for the future - thanks for the tip.

Jake

 

[Just a nutter]

(Mode 6 is either now out, or will
be soon)

What did you mean with the above statement ?

There are two basic types of hard drive ...SCSI and IDE or EIDE

EDIE Drives can be used in PIO or DMA (Direct Memory Allocation...I forget
what PIO stands for) modes. With DMA there are 5 or maybe now 6 modes of
operation and these are referred to as Modes 1 to 5 or 6. The higher the
mode number, the greater the amount of data that can be transferred in a
second. (I think Mode 6 is where they are now manipulating the Weak Force or
is it the Spin on an Electron...can't remember) Mode 6 is I believe at least
one order of magnitude faster than Mode 5....very fast indeed. If you see an
EIDE drive for sale that is 200Gb or more in size, its probably a mode 6
drive

Anyway, As your ability to record live video is directly linked to the speed
at which your computer can process and store that data (Its only as good as
the slowest component) It follows that the faster your hard drive is, the
more chance there is of having a glitch free recording. Generally speaking
your hard drive is one of the slowest components in a computer and it is
therefore important that it should run as fast as possible and that there
should be one contiguous area of the disk that the recording will fit in.
You may notice that some software packages give you the opportunity to
pre-allocate drive space for the recording you are about to make...that
process is an attempt to improve the transfer speed of data onto your hard
drive.

You should note that the story does not end there....The relationship
between your motherboards "BUS" speed and the running speed of your CPU also
has a large impact on whether you will get a good recording or not. A friend
recently acquired a new machine....it runs at something like 3.2GHz...its
quick, but not quicker than my 2.4GHz, the reason...my BUS speed is a lot
faster than his, and his CPU has been overclocked so that it runs
fast....but what is the point of an ultra fast CPU (which will burn out
quicker than a much slower running CPU) if the CPU has to hang around
waiting for a slow BUS to deliver the next piece of data, or to carry away
the last piece of processed data.

Anyway...hope that cast some light on the subject ....(It made my head hurt
anyway!!!)

All the best.....

 

[RonK]

Ok - Thanks for the heasdsup info.

There are two basic types of hard drive ...SCSI and IDE or EIDE

EDIE Drives can be used in PIO or DMA (Direct Memory Allocation...I forget
what PIO stands for) modes. With DMA there are 5 or maybe now 6 modes of
operation and these are referred to as Modes 1 to 5 or 6. The higher the
mode number, the greater the amount of data that can be transferred in a
second. (I think Mode 6 is where they are now manipulating the Weak Force or
is it the Spin on an Electron...can't remember) Mode 6 is I believe at least
one order of magnitude faster than Mode 5....very fast indeed. If you see an
EIDE drive for sale that is 200Gb or more in size, its probably a mode 6
drive

Anyway, As your ability to record live video is directly linked to the speed
at which your computer can process and store that data (Its only as good as
the slowest component) It follows that the faster your hard drive is, the
more chance there is of having a glitch free recording. Generally speaking
your hard drive is one of the slowest components in a computer and it is
therefore important that it should run as fast as possible and that there
should be one contiguous area of the disk that the recording will fit in.
You may notice that some software packages give you the opportunity to
pre-allocate drive space for the recording you are about to make...that
process is an attempt to improve the transfer speed of data onto your hard
drive.

You should note that the story does not end there....The relationship
between your motherboards "BUS" speed and the running speed of your CPU also
has a large impact on whether you will get a good recording or not. A friend
recently acquired a new machine....it runs at something like 3.2GHz...its
quick, but not quicker than my 2.4GHz, the reason...my BUS speed is a lot
faster than his, and his CPU has been overclocked so that it runs
fast....but what is the point of an ultra fast CPU (which will burn out
quicker than a much slower running CPU) if the CPU has to hang around
waiting for a slow BUS to deliver the next piece of data, or to carry away
the last piece of processed data.

Anyway...hope that cast some light on the subject ....(It made my head hurt
anyway!!!)

All the best.....

 

[RonK]

(Mode 6 is either now out, or will
be soon)

What did you mean with the above statement ?

 

[Millicer R]

In my experience the defragger that comes with WinXP is almost useless when
working with large video files. It defrags files OK but does not compact the
drive contents properly, leaving vacant holes all over the place. These
scattered holes then get filled with movie files (captures or saves) which
are thus immediately and inevitably fragmented.

I have used Symantec's Disk Doctor and Iolo's System Mechanic defragger
successfully - they compact the drive contents as well as defrag files.
Iolo's latest version of SM allows you to specify a file to defrag which can
save heaps of time.

My advice is to *always* defrag before attempting to write files back to a
DV camcorder using firewire. (I use this method to backup raw DV files that
I may want to reprocess again as the technology moves forward.) This save to
tape process seems to be extremely intolerant of any glitch in data
transmission. My guess is that there is little or no buffering of data
between the disk and the IEEE 1394 device.

I don't bother to defrag before rendering, say with TMPGenc - it's a disk to
disk operation and seems to be tolerant of input file fragmentation..

Rick