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  #16  
Old October 31st 18, 06:19 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
default[_2_]
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Default ssd defrag

On Tue, 30 Oct 2018 20:22:47 -0500, Grease Monkey
wrote:

Replying to 10/30 Paul

AppData might have your email messages. You wouldn't
want to delete those in a sloppy or haphazard way.


I have many aol versions in AppData that are taking up 14 GB which I will
maybe see if I can move to the F: drive to clean up C: since I'm at 2% left
of C and the machine is at a crawl.

I try to keep one spare disk around, for "bozo backups",
where I need to back up something before I ruin it :-)


I have a terabyte external seagate hard drive but its not SSD.

Using Windirstat or Sequoiaview, you should be able
to spot the occasional "porker". I've had file systems
before, where the removal of one really big file,
was all the maintenance it needed.


I can't find it yet but when I do find it I will click on it.


With 1TB SSDs going for ~$150 and less, why not just get a generic
drive and replace it? The old ones make nice external hard drives,
($10-20 case) and a $20 kit can transfer your files and operating
system over to the new drive without a lot of hassle.

As an external drive I use mine as a repository for movies and TV
shows that I can watch on TV, or just to play around with Linux.
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  #17  
Old November 4th 18, 02:34 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general,alt.windows7.general
J. P. Gilliver (John)[_4_]
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Posts: 2,679
Default ssd defrag

In message , Pamela
writes:
On 18:49 30 Oct 2018, Char Jackson wrote in
news

[]
Defragging doesn't reclaim space.


Wouldn't a defrag reclaim slack space hidden in cluster tips?

[]
AFAIK, a fragmented file fills all the clusters it uses except the last
one, just the same as an unfragmented one.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Apologies to [those] who may have been harmed by the scientific inaccuracies
in this post. - Roger Tilbury in UMRA, 2018-3-14
  #18  
Old November 4th 18, 04:02 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general,alt.windows7.general
Frank Slootweg
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Posts: 1,226
Default ssd defrag

"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote:
In message , Pamela
writes:
On 18:49 30 Oct 2018, Char Jackson wrote in
news

[]
Defragging doesn't reclaim space.


Wouldn't a defrag reclaim slack space hidden in cluster tips?

[]
AFAIK, a fragmented file fills all the clusters it uses except the last
one, just the same as an unfragmented one.


What - I think - Pamela is hinting at, is that defragmentation can
combine the used contents of several partially filled clusters into one
or more clusters, thereby potentially freeing up clusters and hence
"reclaim space".

Simple example: 8KB cluster N is filled with 3000 bytes, 8KB cluster M
is filled with 4000 bytes. After a defrag, N has 7000 bytes and M is
free, i.e. the defrag reclaimed 8KB of space.

Whether Grease Monkey's 'defrag' actaully does this, is unknown as
(s)he didn't say *which* 'defrag' (s)he used.
  #19  
Old November 4th 18, 05:50 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general,alt.windows7.general
Char Jackson
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Posts: 10,449
Default ssd defrag

On 4 Nov 2018 15:02:31 GMT, Frank Slootweg
wrote:

"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote:
In message , Pamela
writes:
On 18:49 30 Oct 2018, Char Jackson wrote in
news

[]
Defragging doesn't reclaim space.

Wouldn't a defrag reclaim slack space hidden in cluster tips?

[]
AFAIK, a fragmented file fills all the clusters it uses except the last
one, just the same as an unfragmented one.


What - I think - Pamela is hinting at, is that defragmentation can
combine the used contents of several partially filled clusters into one
or more clusters, thereby potentially freeing up clusters and hence
"reclaim space".


When files are stored on disk, the only partial clusters are each file's
final cluster, so of course you can't combine those.

That would corrupt the files that were using those partially filled
clusters, so AFAIK, no defragger would attempt to do that. They move
things around so that, as much as possible, files are laid out in a
contiguous fashion, but they don't/can't free up any space.

Where I think the idea of freeing up space via defrag comes from is the
edge case where an application wants to write a file to disk, and it
demands that the file be contiguous on disk.** You have enough total
free space, but not enough contiguous free space, so the operation
fails. Some defraggers help in this case because as part of the
defragging operation they "pack everything to the left", which is
largely unnecessary and is mostly done so that the graphic output looks
more pretty. Still, such "packing" would have the effect of creating a
larger contiguous space from the many smaller spaces, but the total free
space would remain unchanged.

**I'm trying to think of an example. Perhaps a container of some kind,
such as an encrypted volume or something that holds a virtual disk? I'm
struggling to think of an example where a file actually needs to be laid
out contiguously. Even the Windows pagefile doesn't care where it lands
on disk.

Bottom line, if someone is trying to free up disk space, the defragger
is the wrong tool for the job.

--

Char Jackson
  #20  
Old November 4th 18, 07:43 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general,alt.windows7.general
Frank Slootweg
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Posts: 1,226
Default ssd defrag

Char Jackson wrote:
On 4 Nov 2018 15:02:31 GMT, Frank Slootweg
wrote:

"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote:
In message , Pamela
writes:
On 18:49 30 Oct 2018, Char Jackson wrote in
news []
Defragging doesn't reclaim space.

Wouldn't a defrag reclaim slack space hidden in cluster tips?
[]
AFAIK, a fragmented file fills all the clusters it uses except the last
one, just the same as an unfragmented one.


What - I think - Pamela is hinting at, is that defragmentation can
combine the used contents of several partially filled clusters into one
or more clusters, thereby potentially freeing up clusters and hence
"reclaim space".


When files are stored on disk, the only partial clusters are each file's
final cluster, so of course you can't combine those.


Yeah, apparently I was confusing things with another - than NTFS -
filesystem, where multiple small files or small final parts of files can
be stored in one 'cluster'.

That probably was HP's HFS filesystem (an implementation of the
Berkeley Fast File System for UNIX), which has blocks and fragments,
where multiple fragments (f.e. 8, 1KB fragments) make up one (f.e. 8KB)
block and each fragment can contain part of a file or a small file.

Sigh! And then to think that (UNIX) filesystems was one of my
specialities! :-( Well, it has been 15 years, so I'm probably allowed to
'forget' some things.

[...]

Bottom line, if someone is trying to free up disk space, the defragger
is the wrong tool for the job.


Unless, you're use a Real File System (TM)! :-)
  #21  
Old November 4th 18, 07:47 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general,alt.windows7.general
Gene Wirchenko[_2_]
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Posts: 496
Default ssd defrag

On Sun, 04 Nov 2018 10:50:51 -0600, Char Jackson
wrote:

[snip]

**I'm trying to think of an example. Perhaps a container of some kind,
such as an encrypted volume or something that holds a virtual disk? I'm
struggling to think of an example where a file actually needs to be laid
out contiguously. Even the Windows pagefile doesn't care where it lands
on disk.


IIRC (and I might not), the pagefile USED TO have to be
contiguous. I have used non-Windows systems where one could specify
that a file be contiguous; I do not know why it was ever needed
though.

Bottom line, if someone is trying to free up disk space, the defragger
is the wrong tool for the job.


One possibility would be if a directory spanned more than one
cluster but had had files deleted from it such that fewer clusters
could hold all of the file entries. This is an extreme case hardly
worth worrying about.

I have never been able to detect any time difference between
before and after defragging so I no longer bother.

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko
  #22  
Old November 4th 18, 09:03 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general,alt.windows7.general
Char Jackson
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Posts: 10,449
Default ssd defrag

On Sun, 04 Nov 2018 10:47:22 -0800, Gene Wirchenko
wrote:

I have never been able to detect any time difference between
before and after defragging so I no longer bother.


Same here. I stopped worrying about fragmentation somewhere around
2002-2003, in the early days of XP. By then, I had moved to bigger,
faster, drives, where fragmentation was no more than an academic issue.
Even before that, in the days of Norton Utilities in the 90's, I can't
say that I noticed a performance difference before versus after, but the
disk usage chart was a lot prettier after defragging. Everything was
packed nice and tight to the left, at least until the very next time I
did *anything*.

--

Char Jackson
  #23  
Old November 4th 18, 09:41 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general,alt.windows7.general
J. P. Gilliver (John)[_4_]
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Posts: 2,679
Default ssd defrag

In message , Gene Wirchenko
writes:
[]
IIRC (and I might not), the pagefile USED TO have to be
contiguous. I have used non-Windows systems where one could specify
that a file be contiguous; I do not know why it was ever needed
though.


If you had sufficiently little RAM that your computer was constantly
using the pagefile, which slowed it down considerably (disc access being
so much slower than RAM), then anything that further slowed things down
could make it closer to unusable.
[]
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

"Farc gorillas who live in the plains of the undies ..." - automatic
subtitling seen on BBC one o'clock news, 2016-8-25, by Cynthia Hollingworth.
  #24  
Old November 5th 18, 12:55 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general,alt.windows7.general
Paul[_32_]
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Posts: 11,873
Default ssd defrag

Char Jackson wrote:
On Sun, 04 Nov 2018 10:47:22 -0800, Gene Wirchenko
wrote:

I have never been able to detect any time difference between
before and after defragging so I no longer bother.


Same here. I stopped worrying about fragmentation somewhere around
2002-2003, in the early days of XP. By then, I had moved to bigger,
faster, drives, where fragmentation was no more than an academic issue.
Even before that, in the days of Norton Utilities in the 90's, I can't
say that I noticed a performance difference before versus after, but the
disk usage chart was a lot prettier after defragging. Everything was
packed nice and tight to the left, at least until the very next time I
did *anything*.


If you turn on NTFS compression for a whole partition
(the tick box in "Properties"), then around the 50GB-60GB
or so file size, you can run out of fragments to represent the file.
It's possible no matter how big the disk, to have a problem
with fragments.

But, it only happens with the crappy NTFS compression feature.

I don't regularly use compression, but I think it did hit
me once when trying to get a bit more mileage out of a
storage device.

Paul
  #25  
Old November 5th 18, 01:46 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general,alt.windows7.general
Mark Lloyd[_2_]
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Posts: 1,756
Default ssd defrag

On 11/4/18 10:50 AM, Char Jackson wrote:

[snip]

**I'm trying to think of an example. Perhaps a container of some kind,
such as an encrypted volume or something that holds a virtual disk? I'm
struggling to think of an example where a file actually needs to be laid
out contiguously. Even the Windows pagefile doesn't care where it lands
on disk.


IIRC, some early versions of DOS required the executable code files
(IO.SYS, MSDOS.SYS) to be contiguous (I think it's so the boot code can
just read multiple sectors into memory).

Bottom line, if someone is trying to free up disk space, the defragger
is the wrong tool for the job.


--
51 days until the winter celebration (Tue Dec 25, 2018 12:00:00 AM for 1
day).

Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us/

"The 'evangel' died on the cross. What has been called 'evangel' from
that moment was actually the opposite of that which *he* had lived:
'*ill* tidings,' a *dysangel*." [Nietzsche]
  #26  
Old November 5th 18, 04:01 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general,alt.windows7.general
Char Jackson
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Posts: 10,449
Default ssd defrag

On Sun, 04 Nov 2018 18:55:29 -0500, Paul wrote:

Char Jackson wrote:
On Sun, 04 Nov 2018 10:47:22 -0800, Gene Wirchenko
wrote:

I have never been able to detect any time difference between
before and after defragging so I no longer bother.


Same here. I stopped worrying about fragmentation somewhere around
2002-2003, in the early days of XP. By then, I had moved to bigger,
faster, drives, where fragmentation was no more than an academic issue.
Even before that, in the days of Norton Utilities in the 90's, I can't
say that I noticed a performance difference before versus after, but the
disk usage chart was a lot prettier after defragging. Everything was
packed nice and tight to the left, at least until the very next time I
did *anything*.


If you turn on NTFS compression for a whole partition
(the tick box in "Properties"), then around the 50GB-60GB
or so file size, you can run out of fragments to represent the file.
It's possible no matter how big the disk, to have a problem
with fragments.

But, it only happens with the crappy NTFS compression feature.

I don't regularly use compression, but I think it did hit
me once when trying to get a bit more mileage out of a
storage device.


Good info, but the last time I was in a position where I was running out
of disk space, Stacker was the hot ticket, later replaced (briefly) by
Microsoft's DoubleSpace utility.

Since then, I've managed to keep ahead of my storage needs by adding
ever larger drives.

--

Char Jackson
  #27  
Old November 5th 18, 06:08 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general,alt.windows7.general
Sjouke Burry[_2_]
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Posts: 275
Default ssd defrag

On 5-11-2018 1:46, Mark Lloyd wrote:
On 11/4/18 10:50 AM, Char Jackson wrote:

[snip]

**I'm trying to think of an example. Perhaps a container of some kind,
such as an encrypted volume or something that holds a virtual disk? I'm
struggling to think of an example where a file actually needs to be laid
out contiguously. Even the Windows pagefile doesn't care where it lands
on disk.


IIRC, some early versions of DOS required the executable code files
(IO.SYS, MSDOS.SYS) to be contiguous (I think it's so the boot code can
just read multiple sectors into memory).

Bottom line, if someone is trying to free up disk space, the defragger
is the wrong tool for the job.


Not only contiguous, but in a preset location as well.
Which the "sys"command did for you on an empty drive.
  #28  
Old November 5th 18, 04:55 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general,alt.windows7.general
Mark Lloyd[_2_]
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Posts: 1,756
Default ssd defrag

On 11/4/18 11:08 PM, Sjouke Burry wrote:

[snip]

IIRC, some early versions of DOS required the executable code files
(IO.SYS, MSDOS.SYS) to be contiguous (I think it's so the boot code can
just read multiple sectors into memory).

Bottom line, if someone is trying to free up disk space, the defragger
is the wrong tool for the job.


Not only contiguous, but in a preset location as well.
Which the "sys"command did for you on an empty drive.


For that reason, SYS would fail if there were already files on the disk.
I forgot just when they changed that.

--
50 days until the winter celebration (Tue Dec 25, 2018 12:00:00 AM for 1
day).

Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us/

"There are ten church members by inheritance for every one by
conviction." [Anonymous]
  #29  
Old December 4th 18, 05:42 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general,alt.windows7.general
Bill in Co[_3_]
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Posts: 303
Default ssd defrag

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Grease Monkey
writes:
I have an old dell xpsl702x laptop with two 256GB ssd drives which are
full and dell won't sell me any larger ssd drives.

Defrag has been running for almost day now.

Is it worth defragging to get space back or is defragging ssd not going
to gain much space when it finally finishes.


With modern OSs and drive sizes, defragging doesn't recover that much
space. But the main thing is, defragging on SSD drives might
significantly reduce their life, as they have significantly fewer write
cycles than HDs. If you really want to defrag them, _move_ their
contents to another drive (preferably an HD one), then move them back:
this will only involve one write (for most of their sectors; two to
their directory sectors). [Obviously if one of them is the OS drive, you
can't move all the files in this way, but it may still be worth doing.]


Has it gotten to the point now that SSDs are considered to be just as
reliable, long term, as the standard hard drives, even with all the
consequent writes and rewrites (also potentially limiting the SSDs
"longevity")? (I mean when used as your main drive)? But maybe SSDs still
haven't been out quite long enough to yet assess their long term reliability
and longevity.


  #30  
Old December 4th 18, 04:20 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general,alt.windows7.general
Paul[_32_]
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Posts: 11,873
Default ssd defrag

Bill in Co wrote:


Has it gotten to the point now that SSDs are considered to be just as
reliable, long term, as the standard hard drives, even with all the
consequent writes and rewrites (also potentially limiting the SSDs
"longevity")? (I mean when used as your main drive)? But maybe SSDs still
haven't been out quite long enough to yet assess their long term reliability
and longevity.


It's gotten to the point you can use them.

They don't insta-brick like they once did.
The user "John Doe" had one insta-brick on him.

They're still potentially susceptible to power events.
Check the SMART table, to see if "the drive thinks
you've been abusing it". There's a field for that
(abrupt power loss). For example, even if I safely
remove an SSD connected to a USB to SATA 2.5" adapter,
the SSD counts my unplugging the cable after
Safely Remove as an abrupt power loss. It should not
do that, if the command was making it through the
protocol layers properly. (The drive should have been
placed in a "spun down" state.)

You still need to back them up.

Don't leave your data files on one. Leave
your OS on the SSD, move your data files to the
HDD. The "end of life" of an HDD today, is much
more gentle than the "brick state" an Intel SSD
drive enters at the end of its wear life counter.
Intel will allow neither read nor write, when the
computed amount of write cycles is exceeded.
Samsung will likely allow the drive to continue,
so you could, say, do a last backup. Intel SSDs
don't allow even that. Dig a hole in the back
yard, and throw your Intel SSD in the hole, when
that happens. "No data recovery for you."

Always research the "end-of-life" behavior of any
SSD you buy, so your backup strategy has you covered.

Paul
 




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