Tutorial: Defragmentation

[sharedholder]

I’ve decided to make this tutorial, due some argument with my friend. The main thing is that many computer users do not understand how does computer save its information, and why does computer read write speed slows after using it for sometime. – my friend was misguided by false information. So here it is for all of you, who do not really know meaning of disk fragmentation:

Let’s take a look at the image, given below (part A.).
.

It show an example o flies, stored on our hard disk (of course, this is just an example, - commonly HDD stores much more information and much more files).
Files in part A are stored straight one after another, so it takes much less time for Hard disk Drive (HDD) to find needed file and read it.
Remember, that HDD I a mechanical part, and so its information seek and read time is much bigger than electronic parts (e.g. RAM).
Now let’s delete ‘B’ file from our disk (part B.).
After deletion we have a (part C.) disk – information is found and read at the same speed – hard disk head seeks info without loss on time. Just there is a blank space between files on hard disk.
But now lets watch, what happens if we store a new (part D.) file on the disk…
Look at part D.
Get it? – file is divided into two pieces and one piece is stored into small blank space, where our deleted file was, and the second piece is stored ant the end.
So now it will take some more time for hard disk head to get all information:
It will read a small (10MB) file part, and then JUMP over ‘C’ file! – this will take time for a mechanical unit…

And now imagine, that there were much more small files on your computer, which were scattered all over your disk. And you’ve deleted those files. After that you stored a large file, which was divided into small parts and written into many places of your disk. – it will take much more time for your HDD to read this information now.
This type of file divide is called ‘fragmentation’

So, what to do about it?
- simple – use defragmentation tool .


THANKS TO Seitan

[Cygnuz-Y]

So if i defrag my Hdd then its going to be faster?

[sharedholder]

Yes

[sharedholder]

Freeware tool http://www.webattack.com/get/dkeeperlite.shtml

Shareware http://www.raxco.com/products/perfectdisk2k/

[Cygnuz-Y]

The site you gave me says that is only compatible with 98/nt/me/2000

Right now im running XP, will it work?

[balamm]

XP has a built in defragmenter that works just fine if you use it enough. If you haven't kept it up, it will require a few passes to sort it all out. Look in your system tools folder. Remember to do a clean up before you defragment.

*Nice article sharedholder.

[zapjb]

Good job sharedholder. Haven't seen you around in a bit. Good to hear from you.

balamm, I respectively disagree about: "XP has a built in defragmenter that works just fine if you use it enough. If you haven't kept it up, it will require a few passes to sort it all out."

IMO XP's defrag can take many hours to work 2-5 hours is common. My experience is also once it needs to be done again, it's about another hour at least. And needs to done a LOT more often than Raxco PerfectDisk v6 or O&O Defrag or even Vopt.

I like Raxco PerfectDisk v6. The first time it took less than 2 hours. The 2nd time was around 35 minutes. With the analyze feature RPD says if & what type(s) of defrag passes each volume requires. I've had it over 2 months & used it only 2-3x. Guaranteed I would have used XP's defrag at least 6-10x & spending many more hours also.

[Ninjastyle]

RAXCO PERFECTDISK V6.0 - all the way for me too. Nothing can compete.

[j2k4]

I like Diskeeper; set and forget.

[balamm]

Originally posted by zapjb@27 July 2003 - 01:49


IMO XP's defrag can take many hours to work 2-5 hours is common. My experience is also once it needs to be done again, it's about another hour at least. And needs to done a

Good lord!! either you are trying to defrag a terrabyte sized hard drive or you're running yours in PIO mode. Whatever the problem is, all the third party software in the world won't fix the settings in device manager or the physical size of the drive.
Mine takes no more than 10 minutes per 40 gig.