Fragmented files??

[William]

Even though I de-fragment everyday when I run it the next
day there are 1-200 fragmented files. Isn't this
excessive; what would cause this? Use NTFS. Use "disk
clean". Tx
William

 

[David Candy]

MS refuses to believe fragmentation is a problem. There is a defragger for marketing reasons. On 9x they went to a bit of effort to prevent fragmentation. On NT/XP they maintain fragmentation doesn't do anything.

There is some truth in this as most files get cached so where they are on the disk doesn't matter too much. On the other hand it's stupid to design inefficiency into something.

On the other hand the fragmentation you refer to is insignificant. Windows has to store it's setting and log stuff. Note that first defrag is pretty much the important one. This defrags the great magoriyty of files (program files etc) that never change again. Most documents are small and any decrease in speed wouldn't be noticable.

XP's predessors went 5 to 10 years without being defragged at all.

 

[Alex Nichol]

On the other hand the fragmentation you refer to is insignificant. Windows has to store it's setting and log stuff. Note that first defrag is pretty much the important one. This defrags the great magoriyty of files (program files etc) that never change again. Most documents are small and any decrease in speed wouldn't be noticable.

One comment - the inbuilt defrag does not consolidate free space, thus
leaving a lot of small areas, and even with good algorithms for placing
files, fresh fragmentation soon follows. It is for that reason I prefer
the third party Perfect Disk (raxco) to the inbuilt one or the distantly
related Diskkeeper (Executive Software)

 

[David Candy]

AFAICT 2000/XP have very poor algorithms, The Fat32 driver seems to be more like a 9x Fat16 driver rather than 9x's Fat32 driver (with 500K free space before it writes)

I also use PD for the same reason as you. But I've worked on plenty of servers (NT4 and earlier) that have NEVER been defragged (at least till I get near them).