Defragmenting Backup Files

[D. Spencer Hines]

Are there any particular dangers involved in using Disk Defragmenter to
defragment an external hard drive used for storing XP backups of everything
on the computer?

DSH

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Are there any particular dangers involved in using Disk Defragmenter
to defragment an external hard drive used for storing XP backups of
everything on the computer?

If power were interrupted at the wrong moment while defragmenting, it's
possible for data to be lost. I don't know any details, but I understand
that modern defarg programs are much better in this regard than they used to
be, and the risk is low. Nevertheless I assume that at least some risk still
remains. It's for that reason that I only defrag the original drive
immediately after backing it up.

So I wouldn't want to defrag a backup drive. Why would you want to do this
anyway?

 

[D. Spencer Hines]

I've done it several times now -- just to compress everything on the WD
External Hard Drive. I saved 2GB.

The .bkf file is about 9 GB and takes a very long time to defragment --
about 15-20 minutes -- even with a USB2 connection. There are also some
other smaller files on the WD drive for a total of about 12GB.

The WD drive is a 160GB drive, formatted as an NTFS drive.

The system recognizes it in Disk Defragmenter [the XP tool] as well as in
Disk Cleanup and told me how defragmented it was [34%] and that I SHOULD
defragment it.

DSH

 

[GALAracunala]

Hello D. Spencer Hines,

NONE WHATSOEVER

D> Are there any particular dangers involved in using Disk Defragmenter
D> to defragment an external hard drive used for storing XP backups of
D> everything on the computer?
D>
D> DSH
D>
GALAracunala
http://free-st.t-com.hr/GALAracunala/