Fragmentation on harddisks in Windows

Pilsener

I got this thought when I watched the defragmentation display:

I have 67 % free space on my C: drive. The 33 % which contains data seems to be one big mixture of fragmented and contigous files.
Is it possible to write the info to the harddisk in a way that does not fragment the content ?

I still have ca 13 GB of free space. Couldn't some of this space have been used to store the data as unfragmented files ?

Or is there any utils that make this possible ?

The Starglider

To begin with they are written to the hard drive in a way they aren't fragmented. But as time goes on, you delete individual files, put new files on there and computers (not just windows) will use whatever space available to save the data, splitting it over several locations if needs be to get it on there. That's how fragmentation occurs. There's not really much that can be done about it, and I don't know of any program that will ensure that files are always saved in one lump on the hard drive at all times.

AndyC

Also, bear in mind that the performance loss from a file split in two fragments, for example, may not be as bad as if the hard drive had to seek further to reach that nice big unfragmented section.

mel the bell

linux DOESNT fragment files?
so yes there is a way, its just windows crappy way

The Starglider

mel the bell wrote: »

linux DOESNT fragment files?
so yes there is a way, its just windows crappy way

Looking at the many many posts around the net via google about people asking how to defrag hard drives in Linux would suggest that they DO get the same problem - possibly not as much (how much I do not know) as Windows users based on what filesystem they're using.

mel the bell

The Starglider wrote: »

Looking at the many many posts around the net via google about people asking how to defrag hard drives in Linux would suggest that they DO get the same problem - possibly not as much (how much I do not know) as Windows users based on what filesystem they're using.

hmm i never knew they had to defrag on linux

VincentAC

IIRC some versions of Linux do silent defragging automatically.

If you want to do the same on Windows get Diskeeper. The newer versions can defrag automatically when the processor is idle.

The President

The Starglider wrote: »

Looking at the many many posts around the net via google about people asking how to defrag hard drives in Linux would suggest that they DO get the same problem - possibly not as much (how much I do not know) as Windows users based on what filesystem they're using.

Many, many people ask the question out of ignorance based on past experience and expectations. Having said that, fragmentation is a property of the filesystem, not the operating system. Generally, all filesystems get fragmentent in some way or another, and that is not necessarily a bad thing. The problem with filesystem fragmentation occurs when most files, small or large, does not get a continous set of blocks, which happens quite early on in FAT and NTFS filesystems, especially with concurrent use.

An extN filesystem found in Linux goes out of it's way to avoid fragmentation and does usually not require defragmentation. Even if one file gets fragmented, that is not necessarily true for the next files. As long as the filesystem is not full, extN will perform quite reasonable independent of fragmentation.

AndyC

You'll often see advice on Linux (and Mac) forums that you shouldn't allow any volume to get over about 90% full. At that point all their algorithmic attempts to avoid large amounts of fragmentation fall apart very badly and performance drastically drops off. The only way to "defragment" at that point is to copy all the data to a new volume. NT uses similar algorithms though they have a more linear drop off in terms of overall performance, trading off a little against the fact it provides the defragmentation APIs to rectify performance problems if needed.

Doing "live" defragmentation isn't really an option on Linux or Mac OS, since neither has APIs for safe, low-level manipulation of the file system, unlike Windows. It's also why they don't do any kind of background defrag (unlike Vista or Windows 7) other than that which naturally happens as files are read and re-written.

Vampyre

If your (Windows) HD is getting badly fragemented I would recommend Defraggler (http://www.defraggler.com), a free defragmenter rather than the crappy Windoze one they introduced with W2000. That one is utter shite and requires 3 or 4 runs at the very least to solve the problem (the Vista version is even more laughable), Defraggler, although it takes a long time (overnight) can sort it all out in usually two swoops.

Is it such a problem in Windows OS's from XP though? I thought the disc access routines they wrote from XP onwards made fragmentation a minor inconvenience - or so the M$ hyperbole made out. I still like to see my drives in an unfragmented state whatever claims M$ make.

Vertigo

I use O&O Defrag and have found it to be very good although possibly lacking a lot of features of other defraggers, it's better than the built-in one anyway.
Main problem with fragmentation and disk wear in recent times is to do with torrents and p2p file sharing coz it just writes bits to your drive whenever it downloads a random chunk instead of reserving space and filling in the blanks.
Windows has always been shit for disk allocating, surprised it was never properly fixed.

VincentAC

Vertigo wrote: »

I use O&O Defrag and have found it to be very good although possibly lacking a lot of features of other defraggers, it's better than the built-in one anyway.
Main problem with fragmentation and disk wear in recent times is to do with torrents and p2p file sharing coz it just writes bits to your drive whenever it downloads a random chunk instead of reserving space and filling in the blanks.
Windows has always been shit for disk allocating, surprised it was never properly fixed.

I some torrent apps (uTorrent) you can pre allocate the files you're getting.

Preferences -> General.
Tick the box that says pre-allocate.

It writes the whole thing with blank data as soon as you start downloading. Saves a fair bit on defragging.