advice on 250g partition

[atorifan]

i'm running into the terrible trouble of defragging. with the amount
of newsgroups, i need to defrag often. i've read that some poeple do a
windows only partition, and the remaining space be a data partition.
that would still leave well over 235 or 240gigs of data space that has
to be defragged. maybe i can make a large xp/programs partition of 50
gig or so. and the remaining 200 for saving files etc. that still
leaves defragging 200g of hd routinely, which even with norton, is
proving to take over 12 hrs and more. after 12hrs i'm still at 20%.
the quick fix i've come up with is formatting the data partition
instead of defragging. any thoughts ideas or yays or nays on this
idea? btw i am burning the data to disks, even tho they can prove to
be damaged easy, as there seems to be no other alterantive, other than
two other 250g hd installed on the computer, or external backup of some
kind. i'm sure there's other file people out there, and would love to
hear what you have come up with

 

[Rod Speed]

i'm running into the terrible trouble of defragging.

Best give up on defragging.

with the amount of newsgroups, i need to defrag often.

Bet you dont. Bet you wouldnt be able to pick the
fragmentation in a proper double blind trial without
being able to use a display of the fragmentation.

i've read that some poeple do a windows only partition, and
the remaining space be a data partition. that would still leave
well over 235 or 240gigs of data space that has to be defragged.

It isnt the total space that matters, what matters is
how well the defragger does its job and how much
other stuff in that partition changes between defrags.

maybe i can make a large xp/programs partition
of 50 gig or so. and the remaining 200 for saving
files etc. that still leaves defragging 200g of hd
routinely, which even with norton, is proving to take
over 12 hrs and more. after 12hrs i'm still at 20%.

A decent defragger will do a lot better than that.

the quick fix i've come up with is formatting the data partition instead
of defragging. any thoughts ideas or yays or nays on this idea?

Mindlessly crude.

Best to give up on defragging instead.

btw i am burning the data to disks, even tho they can prove to
be damaged easy, as there seems to be no other alterantive,
other than two other 250g hd installed on the computer, or
external backup of some kind. i'm sure there's other file people
out there, and would love to hear what you have come up with

I backup over the lan to a drive on another drive on the lan
and the most important irreplaceable data is written to more
than one DVD and I use different DVD media for each copy too.

 

[Odie Ferrous]

i'm running into the terrible trouble of defragging. with the amount
of newsgroups, i need to defrag often. i've read that some poeple do a
windows only partition, and the remaining space be a data partition.
that would still leave well over 235 or 240gigs of data space that has
to be defragged. maybe i can make a large xp/programs partition of 50
gig or so. and the remaining 200 for saving files etc. that still
leaves defragging 200g of hd routinely, which even with norton, is
proving to take over 12 hrs and more. after 12hrs i'm still at 20%.
the quick fix i've come up with is formatting the data partition
instead of defragging. any thoughts ideas or yays or nays on this
idea? btw i am burning the data to disks, even tho they can prove to
be damaged easy, as there seems to be no other alterantive, other than
two other 250g hd installed on the computer, or external backup of some
kind. i'm sure there's other file people out there, and would love to
hear what you have come up with

You shouldn't need to defrag more than a couple of times a year if
you're using XP.

And you should never, ever use Norton - not for anything.


Odie

 

[atorifan]

well thanks. I've only decided to defrag at all because of the
enormously slow repsonse of my computer in the last couple days. I
initially tried with xp defrag, then norton, norton is moderately
faster. If it's not the fragmentation that is the problem, then?

 

[Rod Speed]

well thanks. I've only decided to defrag at all because of the
enormously slow repsonse of my computer in the last couple days.

Must be due to something else. I use newsgroups a
hell of a lot more than you do and ever ever bother
to defrag at all, and dont get that effect with mine.

I initially tried with xp defrag, then norton, norton is moderately
faster. If it's not the fragmentation that is the problem, then?

A gross slowdown can be due to a wide variety of things,
the system deliberately running slow because its overheating
due to a clogged cpu fan, a fault that has seen the cpu running
much slower than its supposed to be running, even something
as basic as bad sectors on the hard drive causing the
slowdown due to retrys on the bad sectors, etc etc etc.

 

[atorifan]

Thank you, Rod. I'll go replace my HD, and go from there

 

[Rod Speed]

Thank you, Rod. I'll go replace my HD, and go from there

Thats the least likely possibility.

 

[Rod Speed]

Thank you, Rod. I'll go replace my HD, and go from there

Thats just one possibility.

Post the SMART stats for the hard drive using Everest.
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=4181

Post the Overclock data too.

 

[atorifan]

well i never messed with overclocking, but since my athlon 2600 is
running at 1913, and can max at 3000 i spose i should figure it out.
as far as the stats on the drives, if there are certain ones you want,
i'm not sure. but everest says everything passes.
ID Attribute Description Threshold Value Worst Data Status

03 Spin Up Time 63 180 179 13834
OK: Value is normal
04 Start/Stop Count 0 253 253 46 OK:
Always passing
05 Reallocated Sector Count 63 253 253 1 OK: Value is
normal
06 Read Channel Margin 100 253 253 0 OK: Value is
normal
07 Seek Error Rate 0 253 252 0 OK:
Always passing
08 Seek Time Performance 187 247 231 64269 OK: Value
is normal
09 Power-On Time Count 0 240 240 28017 OK:
Always passing
0A Spin Retry Count 157 253 252 0 OK: Value
is normal
0B Calibration Retry Count 223 253 252 0 OK: Value
is normal
0C Power Cycle Count 0 253 253 64 OK:
Always passing
C0 Power-Off Retract Count 0 253 253 0 OK: Always
passing
C1 Load/Unload Cycle Count 0 253 253 0 OK: Always
passing
C2 Temperature 0 50 253 53 OK:
Always passing
C3 Hardware ECC Recovered 0 253 252 11812 OK: Always
passing
C4 Reallocation Event Count 0 253 253 0 OK: Always
passing
C5 Current Pending Sector Count 0 253 253 1 OK: Always
passing
C6 Off-Line Uncorrectable Sector Count 0 253 253 0 OK:
Always passing
C7 Ultra ATA CRC Error Rate 0 199 199 0 OK: Always
passing
C8 Write Error Rate 0 253 252 0 OK:
Always passing

 

[Rod Speed]

well i never messed with overclocking,

That was just to let you see what
speed the cpu is actually being run at.

but since my athlon 2600 is running at 1913,

Thats fine for that cpu.

and can max at 3000 i spose i should figure it out.

Best not to overclock.

as far as the stats on the drives, if there
are certain ones you want, i'm not sure.

This data is fine.

but everest says everything passes.

What matters is the actual data. There is one pending
sector and one already reallocated, so the lack of
speed could be the drive retrying on the pending sector.

You didnt incude the drive model details, some
hard drive manufacturers like Seagate have a ute
that allows those pending sectors to be rewritten
and so moved to the reallocated list.

The drive temp is very high, check and see if the
power supply fan is still running and check for fur
in the cpu fan and check that its still running.

 

[atorifan]

the two drives on primary ide do seem a lot hotter than secondary ide
hd/dvd. i'm gonna pick up a front of case fan, and a side fan, since
the side has burned out, even tho i have left off the side of the case.

 

[atorifan]

but ya the cpu and power supply fans are running btw

 

[timeOday]

well thanks. I've only decided to defrag at all because of the
enormously slow repsonse of my computer in the last couple days. I
initially tried with xp defrag, then norton, norton is moderately
faster. If it's not the fragmentation that is the problem, then?

You mentioned newsgroups. My news reader was getting progressively
slower because my reader's default settings never deleted old headers!
I had tens of thousands of old cached headers in some groups.

I set my reader to discard all headers over 2 weeks old and violla,
problem solved.

 

[Rod Speed]

the two drives on primary ide do seem
a lot hotter than secondary ide hd/dvd.

You only posted the SMART data for one drive,
so the problem could be with one of the others.

Could just be stinking hot too.

i'm gonna pick up a front of case fan, and
a side fan, since the side has burned out,
even tho i have left off the side of the case.

Thats a very high temp for a drive in a case
with the side off, in winter presumably.

 

[atorifan]

I set my reader to discard all headers over 2 weeks old and violla,
problem solved.

i've been trying grabit, and it's set to purge on shutdown. which
seems to take at least 5 min each time it shuts down. but i can look
at those settings again. but it's slow when grabit is not running, and
well, even slower when it is running.

 

[atorifan]

w/o posting the smart for the other two drives, as long as it passes
all tests, is there anything other than temp, specifically i should be
looking at? ya it is winter here, but the temp is near 75 inside i'd
guess. i'm going to install the fans tomorrow, and hopefully they will
knock the temp down, and remount the side case wall with it's fan also.

 

[Rod Speed]

w/o posting the smart for the other two drives, as
long as it passes all tests, is there anything other
than temp, specifically i should be looking at?

Basically the parameters with sector in the name
and a few others like the recalibration one.

ya it is winter here, but the temp is near 75 inside i'd guess.

53C is WAY too high for a hard drive with a room temp of that.

 

[atorifan]

it's been only a short time since i installed two fans, and reclosed
the case with the side fan. running everest i see mb temp 28c82f cpu
50c122f and two of 3 drives at 33c91f/31c88f the temps do seem to be
dropping incrementally, even as i typed this. i may need a new power
supply, as 2 of the power cords don't seem to be juiced anymore. one
of the plug pins seems to have been pulled out of the housing at some
point. also the fans have a passthrough type plug, and are currently
plugged into the dvd and one hd as i was out of any other power
sources. i'm not quite a noob, but i appreciate your greater
experience thus far, rod.

 

[Rod Speed]

it's been only a short time since i installed two fans, and
reclosed the case with the side fan. running everest i see mb
temp 28c82f cpu 50c122f and two of 3 drives at 33c91f/31c88f

Those temps are quite acceptible.

The cpu temp is a tad high, but it is an athlon.

the temps do seem to be dropping incrementally, even as i typed this.

Thats normal in those circumstances.

i may need a new power supply, as 2 of the
power cords don't seem to be juiced anymore.

Thats a bit unlikely, losing just two at once.

one of the plug pins seems to have been
pulled out of the housing at some point.

Thats no big deal, they have little spine things down the side
of the pin that keep it in the nylon housing. Just bend them
out a little more with a tiny screwdriver etc with the pin out
of the housing and that should keep it in the housing in future.

also the fans have a passthrough type plug, and are currently plugged
into the dvd and one hd as i was out of any other power sources.

Its best to have both the fan plugs in a chain of their own,
because the hard drive particularly is higher current.

i'm not quite a noob, but i appreciate
your greater experience thus far, rod.

No problem, thats what these technical groups are about.