Is defraging necessary?

In ,
HeyBub typed:
wrote:

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.

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.


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).

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.


NOT defragging makes it harder to retrieve data in the
event a hard drive begins to fail.

That IS true.

That IS inconsistant with our prior claims also. If it's just one track, why
would it matter?



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.

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.

Browsers in particular clutter drives with cache
files. Always clear the cache before defragging.

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`

Whoever told you this is an idiot !!!

In article ,
says...

Leythos wrote:
In article ,
says...

Lisa wrote:
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?

I can envision a situation in a data center with hundreds of
thousands of transactions per minute where defragging may be of some
slight benefit (assuming an NTFS file system).

I can also imagine a user devoted to daily defragging experiencing a
power interruption during a critical directory manipulation process.

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.

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.

--
You can't trust your best friends, your five senses, only the little
voice inside you that most civilians don't even hear -- Listen to that.
Trust yourself.
(remove 999 for proper email address)

In article ,
says...
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



--
You can't trust your best friends, your five senses, only the little
voice inside you that most civilians don't even hear -- Listen to that.
Trust yourself.
(remove 999 for proper email address)

Brian V wrote:

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.

In article ,
says...

Brian V wrote:

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.

RAID-0 is not a mirror and does NOT provide a COPY at all.

RAID-1 IS a MIRROR.


--
You can't trust your best friends, your five senses, only the little
voice inside you that most civilians don't even hear -- Listen to that.
Trust yourself.
(remove 999 for proper email address)

Don't read if you don't like.
"WaIIy" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 15 May 2010 14:14:38 -0600, "Bill in Co."
wrote:

The same way that many people thought that Sarah Palin was actually
qualified to be Vice President??? (Hint: that's how).

STFU with the political crap.

Leythos wrote:

In article ,
says...

Brian V wrote:


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.


RAID-0 is not a mirror and does NOT provide a COPY at all.

RAID-1 IS a MIRROR.


Thanks for correcting the typo.

Leythos wrote:
In article ,
says...

Leythos wrote:
In article ,
says...

Lisa wrote:
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?

I can envision a situation in a data center with hundreds of
thousands of transactions per minute where defragging may be of
some slight benefit (assuming an NTFS file system).

I can also imagine a user devoted to daily defragging experiencing
a power interruption during a critical directory manipulation
process.

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.

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?

In a FAT-xx system, the head has to move back to the directory to discover
the next segment. This is not the case with NTFS; pieces are read as they
are encountered and reassembled in the proper order in RAM.


How does that impact your math now?

It doesn't.


You might want to start learning about drives, formats, RAID,
clusters, etc... before you post again.

Heh! I'll wager I know more about the things you mentioned than you can ever
imagine. I started my career designing test suites for 2311 disk drives on
IBM mainframes and have, mostly, kept up.

HeyBub wrote:
Leythos wrote:
In article ,
says...

Leythos wrote:
In article ,
says...

Lisa wrote:
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?

I can envision a situation in a data center with hundreds of
thousands of transactions per minute where defragging may be of
some slight benefit (assuming an NTFS file system).

I can also imagine a user devoted to daily defragging experiencing
a power interruption during a critical directory manipulation
process.

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.

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?

In a FAT-xx system, the head has to move back to the directory to discover
the next segment. This is not the case with NTFS; pieces are read as they
are encountered and reassembled in the proper order in RAM.

But that's not quite the whole story though: The bottom line is that the
files are scattered in fragments all over the hard drive, no matter what
file system you are using, so there will have to be multiple disk sector
seeks and accesses to get them collected together into RAM memory. And if
you've defragged the drive, the number of wildly scattered storage locations
on the drive for these fragments will be greatly reduced (since they will be
in more contiguous sectors), so the net total seek and access times would be
reduced, naturally.

HeyBub schreef:
Leythos wrote:
In article ,
says...
Lisa wrote:
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?
I can envision a situation in a data center with hundreds of
thousands of transactions per minute where defragging may be of some
slight benefit (assuming an NTFS file system).

I can also imagine a user devoted to daily defragging experiencing a
power interruption during a critical directory manipulation process.
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.

Hi Heybub,

This is the second time I hear you claiming this.
How do you 'envision' the head(s) reading all fragments in one go?

In your example: 8000 fragments. If these are scattered all over the
place, the head has to read a lot of different places before all info is in.
Compare this to one continuous sequential set of data where the head
reads all without extra seeking and/or skipping parts.

Also, and especially on systems that need a huge swapfile, after filling
up your HD a few times can lead to heavily fragmented swapfile. This
gives a performance penalty.

I have seen serious performance improvements (on both FAT32 and NTFS)
after defragging (also the systemfiles with
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/s.../bb897426.aspx)

Others claim the same. How do you explain that?

Erwin Moller




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.




--
"There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to
make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the
other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious
deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult."
-- C.A.R. Hoare

In article ,
says...
You do know that the default cluster size for NTFS (anything modern)
is 4K in most instances, right?

In a FAT-xx system, the head has to move back to the directory to discover
the next segment. This is not the case with NTFS; pieces are read as they
are encountered and reassembled in the proper order in RAM.


How does that impact your math now?

It doesn't.


You might want to start learning about drives, formats, RAID,
clusters, etc... before you post again.

Heh! I'll wager I know more about the things you mentioned than you can ever
imagine. I started my career designing test suites for 2311 disk drives on
IBM mainframes and have, mostly, kept up.


And yet you don't seem to understand that on NTFS, file fragmentation
means that the heads still have to MOVE to reach the other fragments.

Try and keep up.

--
You can't trust your best friends, your five senses, only the little
voice inside you that most civilians don't even hear -- Listen to that.
Trust yourself.
(remove 999 for proper email address)

In article ,
says...
I have seen serious performance improvements (on both FAT32 and NTFS)
after defragging (also the systemfiles with
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/s.../bb897426.aspx)

Others claim the same. How do you explain that?


My guess is that he's either a troll or some kid in school that has no
friends so he has to pretend to know something here.

--
You can't trust your best friends, your five senses, only the little
voice inside you that most civilians don't even hear -- Listen to that.
Trust yourself.
(remove 999 for proper email address)

In ,
Bob I typed:
Brian V wrote:

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.

Jeez, quit guessing at what you "think" are the facts, dummy!

A RAID 0 (also known as a stripe set or striped volume) splits data evenly
across two or more disks (striped) with no parity information for
redundancy. It is important to note that RAID 0 was not one of the original
RAID levels and provides no data redundancy. RAID 0 is normally used to
increase performance, although it can also be used as a way to create a
small number of large virtual disks out of a large number of small physical
ones.

In ,
Erwin Moller Since_humans_read_this_I_am_spammed_too_much@spam yourself.com
typed:
....


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.

Hi Heybub,

This is the second time I hear you claiming this.
How do you 'envision' the head(s) reading all fragments in
one go?
In your example: 8000 fragments. If these are scattered all
over the place, the head has to read a lot of different places
before all info is in. Compare this to one continuous
sequential set of data where the head reads all without extra seeking
and/or skipping parts.

Also, and especially on systems that need a huge swapfile,
after filling up your HD a few times can lead to heavily fragmented
swapfile. This gives a performance penalty.

I have seen serious performance improvements (on both FAT32
and NTFS) after defragging (also the systemfiles with
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/s.../bb897426.aspx)

Others claim the same. How do you explain that?

Erwin Moller


....

Remember, this is the guy who can suspend all laws of physics at his will.
There are a couple such people here in fact. It works for him because the
heads are "magnetic" and so are the data. But the head has a super-magnetic
mode: So, the head just comes down and sucks up all the data it needs from
the disk in one fell swoop. It can tell which ones to slurp up by the
arrangement of the magnetic field on the disk; so when the head goes
super-magnetic, it's only for those data parts that are of the right
polarity; the head just has to sit the until they all collect on it, and
then it moves them over to RAM to be used.!
Sounds pretty simple to me! lol!

HTH,

Twayne`

In om,
Leythos typed:
In article ,

says...
I have seen serious performance improvements (on both
FAT32 and NTFS) after defragging (also the systemfiles with
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/s.../bb897426.aspx)

Others claim the same. How do you explain that?


My guess is that he's either a troll or some kid in school
that has no friends so he has to pretend to know something
here.

You may be right, but recall also that there is always the "little knowledge
is dangerous" thing too. e.g. if RAID is used for data redundancy was taught
in school, then RAID 0 is just one of those schemes. He may not have yet
noticed that this is a world of generalities, but very, very specific
generalities that don't intuitively cover all cases.

HTH,

Twayne`