A
Alias
My goodness, I agree with Leythos. What's the world coming to?
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My goodness, I agree with Leythos. What's the world coming to?
L
Leythos
My goodness, I agree with Leythos. What's the world coming to?
Well, that will certainly harm my credibility, having you agree with
something I've written.
K
Ken Blake, MVP
What about defragmentation with a RAID system? Doesn't this system eliminate
file defragmentation?
No.
I am under the impression that it is two copies of everything (one on each drive),
That's only *one* type of RAID, RAID 0.
it is a faster (and ??more stable system??)
and more reliable system?
In theory, yes. In practice, hardly ever.
R
RobertVA
(snip)
Those new HDD's that are flash drives, SSD I think, they don't need
defragmentation I saw in some tutorials. Since they are flash based, if I
defragment my flash memory cards or my memory sticks, is this a bad idea?
The motivation behind defragmenting is avoiding the time necessary for a
mechanical drive head to shift to a different cylinder (track) and
settle into place (they vibrate a little when they stop). On a
fragmented drive you might have a constant situation where the head is
shifting back and forth between two or more cylinders reading successive
segments of a file.
To a lesser extent the drive might have to wait for a particular file
segment to rotate into position under the drive head.
Since flash drives, SSDs and camera memory cards aren't dependent on
rotating disks or heads shifting between cylinders, fragmentation would
be significantly less of a delay (if any at all).
L
Leythos
What about defragmentation with a RAID system? Doesn't this system eliminate
file defragmentation? I am under the impression that it is two copies of
everything (one on each drive), it is a faster (and ??more stable system??)
and more reliable system?
RAID, there are many types, has some performance benefits and some
performance penalties:
RAID-0 fast reads/writes, no redundancy
RAID-1 fast reads/slow writes, redundant
RAID-5 fast reads/slow writes, redundant
RAID-0+1 fast reads/writes, redundant
There are cases to use each one, no one type is best for everyone.
All drives, arrays, become file fragmented, even if you keep the
drives/arrays 50% empty or more, it just happens.
The impact of fragmentation is also individual, meaning that some people
will never feel the difference, others will notice a difference between
very fragmented and not fragmented.
I defragment by workstations every couple months, servers on weekends,
but I'm only one type of user, you might need more or less.
A
Alias
Well, that will certainly harm my credibility, having you agree with
something I've written.
Poor baby. Do you think you'll get over it?
D
Db
Defragging a system won't
do you any harm so you
should try it and make your
own determination if it is a
a worthwhile process.
however, there was a time that
defrag did improve performance
for systems that had hard disks
with limited drive space and
had slow data access speeds.
But nowadays hard drives
are faster and larger and
fragmentation is no longer
a contributing factor in
performance.
as the matter of fact, technical
documentation from microsoft
pertaining to vista state that
defragging disk is no longer
necessary and "does not improve
system performance".
perhaps, it is because the computer
turns right around and creates fragments
of the data that was defrag's
however, the quandary exists at
microsoft because on the one
hand the technicians have tested
and made a thorough analysis
on the ineffectiveness of defragging
large and faster disks in vista,
but at the same time microsoft
includes a defragging utility in
with the o.s.
in any case, everyone has
unique systems that benefit
by unique methodologies.
as stated before you can run
defrag and ascertain a personal
assessment of performance
or if you born back when American
culture was factually experiencing
induced enlightenment,
then you might find unfragmenting
files to be entertaining.
--
do you any harm so you
should try it and make your
own determination if it is a
a worthwhile process.
however, there was a time that
defrag did improve performance
for systems that had hard disks
with limited drive space and
had slow data access speeds.
But nowadays hard drives
are faster and larger and
fragmentation is no longer
a contributing factor in
performance.
as the matter of fact, technical
documentation from microsoft
pertaining to vista state that
defragging disk is no longer
necessary and "does not improve
system performance".
perhaps, it is because the computer
turns right around and creates fragments
of the data that was defrag's
however, the quandary exists at
microsoft because on the one
hand the technicians have tested
and made a thorough analysis
on the ineffectiveness of defragging
large and faster disks in vista,
but at the same time microsoft
includes a defragging utility in
with the o.s.
in any case, everyone has
unique systems that benefit
by unique methodologies.
as stated before you can run
defrag and ascertain a personal
assessment of performance
or if you born back when American
culture was factually experiencing
induced enlightenment,
then you might find unfragmenting
files to be entertaining.
--
U
Unknown
How can you possibly state that fragmentation is no longer a factor in
performance?
If you ONLY had one fragment, it would add a minimum of 10 MS to a read
operation.
performance?
If you ONLY had one fragment, it would add a minimum of 10 MS to a read
operation.
L
Leythos
But nowadays hard drives
are faster and larger and
fragmentation is no longer
a contributing factor in
performance.
You are really showing why people don't listen to you - while a small
amount of file fragmentation will hardly be noticed, massive amounts
dramatically impact overall file performance.
H
hello
I was told by a computer repairman that it's not necessary to defrag my
laptop. If the hard drive gets full, remove files and always make sure I'm
using a virus protection.
What are your thoughts?
Why would anyone NOT defrag? It's so easy to do, and its something
you can start doing before dinner, or before going to bed. By the
time you're done eating, or wake up, it's finished.
NOT defragging slows down your computer.
NOT defragging makes your hard drive work harder, and wears it out
sooner.
NOT defragging makes it harder to retrieve data in the event a hard
drive begins to fail.
The more often you delete files or move them, the more often you
should defrag. Browsers in particular clutter drives with cache
files. Always clear the cache before defragging.
Whoever told you this is an idiot !!!
B
Bill in Co.
Unknown said:How can you possibly state that fragmentation is no longer a factor in
performance?
The same way that many people thought that Sarah Palin was actually
qualified to be Vice President??? (Hint: that's how).
B
Bill in Co.
WaIIy said:STFU with the political crap.
If you don't like it, you know where the door is.
J
Jim
The same way that many people thought that Sarah Palin was actually
qualified to be Vice President??? (Hint: that's how).
Seeing her so much in the news/papers I thought she was ;-)
Jim ( UK )
H
HeyBub
Leythos said:On a small computer with many add/delete/grow/shrink operations,
defrag can significantly impact file access times and can be very
noticeable to users if their system was badly file fragmented before
the defrag.
White-Space fragmention is not normally an issue, but a file that is
fragmented into 8000 parts will have an impact on system performance.
This argument has gone on for decades, but it's the people that
maintain systems across many areas that know the benefits of defrag.
Ignorance can be fixed - hence the original question. It's knowing something
that is false that's the bigger problem.
Considering your example of 8,000 segments, consider: A minimum segment size
of 4096 bytes implies a minimum of 32 meg file. A FAT-32 system requires a
minimum of 16,000 head movements to gather all the pieces. In this case,
with an average access time of 12msec, you'll spend over six minutes just
moving the head around. Factor in rotational delay to bring the track marker
under the head, then rotational delay to find the sector, and so on, you're
up to ten minutes or so to read the file.
An NTFS system will suck up the file with ONE head movement. You still have
the rotational delays and so forth, but NTFS will cut the six minutes off
the slurp-up time.
De-fragging an NTFS system DOES have its uses: For those who dust the inside
covers of the books on their shelves and weekly scour the inside of the
toilet water tank, a sense of satisfaction infuses their very being after a
successful operation.
I personally think Prozac is cheaper, but to each his own.
H
HeyBub
Why would anyone NOT defrag? It's so easy to do, and its something
you can start doing before dinner, or before going to bed. By the
time you're done eating, or wake up, it's finished.
NOT defragging slows down your computer.
Reduced efficiency is not easily detectable or significant on a
heavily-fragmented NTFS drive.
NOT defragging makes your hard drive work harder, and wears it out
sooner.
Nope. The head moves ONE time irrespective of the number of fragments (on an
NTFS drive).
NOT defragging makes it harder to retrieve data in the event a hard
drive begins to fail.
That IS true.
The more often you delete files or move them, the more often you
should defrag.
Yes. Heavy users could possibly detect some benefit with a sheduled defrag
every couple of years or so. Ordinary user, perhaps every decade.
T
Twayne
In
Wrong. It isn't how fragmented the drive is, it's WHERE the fragmentation
exists. If files you seldom/never use are fragmented, no big dea. If they're
files you use a lot, you might very well begin to notice things slowing
down, notably at boot times but also in normal running.
How do you figure that? If the fragments are on several tracks, which is the
norm, the head has to move to EACH track, get the data, move to the next
track, get that data, and so on, all in a particular order, until the data
is reconstructed for use in memory. And then, if the pagefile is involved,
there are even more head movements to get back and forth to the pagefile
which may also be on more than one track. And all of this ignores the number
of platters and latencies of getting which head ready for which platter and
whether it has to wait for the data to come round again after switching from
one track to another.
That IS inconsistant with our prior claims also. If it's just one track, why
would it matter?
Not necessarily. Moving a file is often a simple change in a table and
nothing at all is done to the data. The tables are simply rearranged to show
the file in a new location. You've obviously never done anything data
intensive with your machine or your experience would tell you that's
incorrect timeframes.
But they "clutter" the drive by putting those files all in one area of the
disk under a top level folder, so there really isn't much separation between
them if the defrags previously done have left the spacings where they should
be. A proper defrag consists of a lot more than simply making file
contiguous.
You need to do some research on how a drive works and how data structures
and the tables work to maintain the drive and decide where to put data.
Fragmentation in the often used portions of your disk can definitely bring
your machine to a crawl, depending on what you do with it. Your lack of
experience and knowledge is clearly putting you at a disadvantage here. Some
legitimate research would help you respond to things like this correctly as
opposed to making guesses at what might happen. The devil's always in the
details.
HTH,
Twayne`
HeyBub said:Reduced efficiency is not easily detectable or significant
on a heavily-fragmented NTFS drive.
Wrong. It isn't how fragmented the drive is, it's WHERE the fragmentation
exists. If files you seldom/never use are fragmented, no big dea. If they're
files you use a lot, you might very well begin to notice things slowing
down, notably at boot times but also in normal running.
Nope. The head moves ONE time irrespective of the number of
fragments (on an NTFS drive).
How do you figure that? If the fragments are on several tracks, which is the
norm, the head has to move to EACH track, get the data, move to the next
track, get that data, and so on, all in a particular order, until the data
is reconstructed for use in memory. And then, if the pagefile is involved,
there are even more head movements to get back and forth to the pagefile
which may also be on more than one track. And all of this ignores the number
of platters and latencies of getting which head ready for which platter and
whether it has to wait for the data to come round again after switching from
one track to another.
That IS true.
That IS inconsistant with our prior claims also. If it's just one track, why
would it matter?
Yes. Heavy users could possibly detect some benefit with a
sheduled defrag every couple of years or so. Ordinary user,
perhaps every decade.
Not necessarily. Moving a file is often a simple change in a table and
nothing at all is done to the data. The tables are simply rearranged to show
the file in a new location. You've obviously never done anything data
intensive with your machine or your experience would tell you that's
incorrect timeframes.
But they "clutter" the drive by putting those files all in one area of the
disk under a top level folder, so there really isn't much separation between
them if the defrags previously done have left the spacings where they should
be. A proper defrag consists of a lot more than simply making file
contiguous.
You need to do some research on how a drive works and how data structures
and the tables work to maintain the drive and decide where to put data.
Fragmentation in the often used portions of your disk can definitely bring
your machine to a crawl, depending on what you do with it. Your lack of
experience and knowledge is clearly putting you at a disadvantage here. Some
legitimate research would help you respond to things like this correctly as
opposed to making guesses at what might happen. The devil's always in the
details.
HTH,
Twayne`
L
Leythos
Ignorance can be fixed - hence the original question. It's knowing something
that is false that's the bigger problem.
Considering your example of 8,000 segments, consider: A minimum segment size
of 4096 bytes implies a minimum of 32 meg file. A FAT-32 system requires a
minimum of 16,000 head movements to gather all the pieces. In this case,
with an average access time of 12msec, you'll spend over six minutes just
moving the head around. Factor in rotational delay to bring the track marker
under the head, then rotational delay to find the sector, and so on, you're
up to ten minutes or so to read the file.
An NTFS system will suck up the file with ONE head movement. You still have
the rotational delays and so forth, but NTFS will cut the six minutes off
the slurp-up time.
De-fragging an NTFS system DOES have its uses: For those who dust the inside
covers of the books on their shelves and weekly scour the inside of the
toilet water tank, a sense of satisfaction infuses their very being after a
successful operation.
I personally think Prozac is cheaper, but to each his own.
Why do you even consider discussing FAT-32?
You do know that the default cluster size for NTFS (anything modern) is
4K in most instances, right?
How does that impact your math now?
You might want to start learning about drives, formats, RAID, clusters,
etc... before you post again.
L
Leythos
Yes. Heavy users could possibly detect some benefit with a sheduled defrag
every couple of years or so. Ordinary user, perhaps every decade.
You should really try studying this subject before you post again:
http://www.ntfs.com/ntfs_optimization.htm
B
Bob I
Brian said:What about defragmentation with a RAID system? Doesn't this system eliminate
file defragmentation? I am under the impression that it is two copies of
everything (one on each drive), it is a faster (and ??more stable system??)
and more reliable system?
RAID 0 is nothing more than Mirrored Drives, it won't be faster or more
stable, only provides a identical copy in the event a harddrive fails.
Those new HDD's that are flash drives, SSD I think, they don't need
defragmentation I saw in some tutorials. Since they are flash based, if I
defragment my flash memory cards or my memory sticks, is this a bad idea?
Defragging is the term used to describe placing all the fragments of a
file into one contiguous section of the drive. The reason this is done
is to prevent the drive read/write heads(the slowest part of the entire
data access) from having to flip all over the platter surface to get the
pieces. SS memory drives don't have heads, so no reason to defrag. Also
memory drives have a finite number of writes so you would actually
decrease the life expectancy of the drive if did that.
L
Leythos
RAID 0 is nothing more than Mirrored Drives, it won't be faster or more
stable, only provides a identical copy in the event a harddrive fails.
RAID-0 is not a mirror and does NOT provide a COPY at all.
RAID-1 IS a MIRROR.