"Deleting all the 'junk' on my hard drive made my computer run faster"

[Tom]

In general, data is part of a file of some type - there are few
applications or things that write to the drives today that don't put the
DATA in a FILE. Files can and do become fragmented, that would also mean
the data is fragmented across non-consecutive clusters.

1) Files contain data.
2) Files get fragmented - means data is fragmented across clusters.
3) Fragmentation causes the r/w heads to move more than if the files
were not fragmented.
4) Movement of the heads, when not reading files/data, is a performance
loss that can be corrected by defragmenting and packing the drive.
5) Size of drive has nothing to do with fragmentation, all drives become
fragmented sooner or later.
6) When defragging a heavily fragmented file system, performance
increases are easy to feel and determine.

Call it a file, a widget even, it is ALL data, it doesn't matter. My statement stands that the ACTUAL clusters DON'T move, they remain where they are, as it is the data that gets fragmented. I made my point in no other meaning. Alex confused what he though I was meaning to the AMOUNT of files on a disk, as opposed to how they are allocated as they are placed onto it.

 

[Leythos]

Call it a file, a widget even, it is ALL data, it doesn't matter. My statement stands that the ACTUAL clusters DON'T move, they remain where they are, as it is the data that gets fragmented. I made my point in no other meaning. Alex confused what he though I was meaning to the AMOUNT of files on a disk, as opposed to how they are allocated as they are placed onto it.

A cluster is not a file, but a file may reside on one or more clusters.
If you're going to talk about clusters, you should be a little more
specific, no one has suggested that clusters move or that a cluster
becomes fragmented. We we've all said is that files become fragmented
across multiple noncontiguous clusters/sectors. In the case of non-
contiguous cluster reads, there is a dead-time where no data is being
read while the head moves across the non-read areas.

 

[Tom]

A cluster is not a file, but a file may reside on one or more clusters.
If you're going to talk about clusters, you should be a little more
specific, no one has suggested that clusters move or that a cluster
becomes fragmented. We we've all said is that files become fragmented
across multiple noncontiguous clusters/sectors. In the case of non-
contiguous cluster reads, there is a dead-time where no data is being
read while the head moves across the non-read areas.

Maybe Raymond is right, you have comprehension problems! Where did I say a cluster is a file??? No where dude! If you're not going to read comprehensively, at least ASK about, what you are misreading.