Defragment free space?

[Guest Guy Scharf]

Does anyone know of any programs that will consolidate/defragment free

space on a hard drive, *without* defragmenting all the files? On my

drives used for backup, it would seem to make sense to spend some

effort consolidating free space but defragmenting backup files seems a

waste of time as, with luck, they will never be read again. But they

do get replaced and new files written all the time.

[Guest JF]

Re: Defragment free space?

 

*Bonjour Guy Scharf * !

<news:Xns9B032B82E7DBFguyspamcopnet@216.196.97.142>

> Does anyone know of any programs that will consolidate/defragment free

> space on a hard drive, *without* defragmenting all the files? On my

> drives used for backup, it would seem to make sense to spend some

> effort consolidating free space but defragmenting backup files seems a

> waste of time as, with luck, they will never be read again. But they

> do get replaced and new files written all the time.

 

http://jkdefrag.com

http://www.kessels.com/JkDefrag

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jkdefrag

 

==>

"JkDefrag maintains a free space of 1% of the total disk space between

zone 1 (directories) and zone 2 (regular files), and between zone 2 and

zone 3 (SpaceHogs)."

 

==>

"jkdefrag -a 3

3 = Defragment and fast optimize [recommended].

Fast optimization

This optimization strategy is designed for every day use. It moves a

minimum of data on the harddisk and finishes very quickly, but will not

fill all the gaps on the disk. The strategy scans for gaps on the disk

and fills them with files from above."

 

==>

"jkdefrag -a 6

6 = Move to end of disk.

Move all the files to the end of the disk, making more room at the

beginning of the disk. Intended for big and rarely used files such as

log files, backup archives, installation files, and such."

 

--

Regards, Jean-François

[Guest MJ]

Re: Defragment free space?

 

I use Raxco Perfect disk. Most excellent, been using for two years on 2Kws,

2KS, XPpro and two Vista machines. Never had a problem.

 

Try them, you'll be quite happy: http://www.raxco.com/

 

"JF" <JF@-> wrote in message news:enVvncRBJHA.5468@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...

> *Bonjour Guy Scharf * !

> <news:Xns9B032B82E7DBFguyspamcopnet@216.196.97.142>

>

>> Does anyone know of any programs that will consolidate/defragment free

>> space on a hard drive, *without* defragmenting all the files? On my

>> drives used for backup, it would seem to make sense to spend some effort

>> consolidating free space but defragmenting backup files seems a waste of

>> time as, with luck, they will never be read again. But they do get

>> replaced and new files written all the time.

>

> http://jkdefrag.com

> http://www.kessels.com/JkDefrag

> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jkdefrag

>

> ==>

> "JkDefrag maintains a free space of 1% of the total disk space between

> zone 1 (directories) and zone 2 (regular files), and between zone 2 and

> zone 3 (SpaceHogs)."

>

> ==>

> "jkdefrag -a 3

> 3 = Defragment and fast optimize [recommended].

> Fast optimization

> This optimization strategy is designed for every day use. It moves a

> minimum of data on the harddisk and finishes very quickly, but will not

> fill all the gaps on the disk. The strategy scans for gaps on the disk and

> fills them with files from above."

>

> ==>

> "jkdefrag -a 6

> 6 = Move to end of disk.

> Move all the files to the end of the disk, making more room at the

> beginning of the disk. Intended for big and rarely used files such as log

> files, backup archives, installation files, and such."

>

> --

> Regards, Jean-François

>

>

>

[Guest db.·.. >]

Re: Defragment free space?

 

defragging the free

space seems to be

a good idea, but it

only becomes fragmented

again as soon as the computer

begins to process data.

 

--

 

db·´¯`·...¸><)))º>

 

"Guy Scharf" <guy@spamcop.net> wrote in message news:Xns9B032B82E7DBFguyspamcopnet@216.196.97.142...

> Does anyone know of any programs that will consolidate/defragment free

> space on a hard drive, *without* defragmenting all the files? On my

> drives used for backup, it would seem to make sense to spend some

> effort consolidating free space but defragmenting backup files seems a

> waste of time as, with luck, they will never be read again. But they

> do get replaced and new files written all the time.

[Guest Guy Scharf]

Re: Defragment free space?

 

"MJ" <mj.osullivan@yahoo.ca> wrote:

> I use Raxco Perfect disk. Most excellent, been using for two years

> on 2Kws, 2KS, XPpro and two Vista machines. Never had a problem.

 

While PerfectDisk is a great product, and I have it, PerfectDisk will

not consolidate free space without first defragmenting all files. I

have no need to defrag the files as defragmenting the files takes hours

and isn't that successful because of the huge size of the files.

[Guest Plato]

Re: Defragment free space?

 

Guy Scharf wrote:

>

> Does anyone know of any programs that will consolidate/defragment free

> space on a hard drive, *without* defragmenting all the files? On my

> drives used for backup, it would seem to make sense to spend some

> effort consolidating free space but defragmenting backup files seems a

> waste of time as, with luck, they will never be read again. But they

> do get replaced and new files written all the time.

 

free space is NOT fragmented...

 

--

http://www.bootdisk.com/

[Guest Twayne]

Re: Defragment free space?

 

> Guy Scharf wrote:

>>

>> Does anyone know of any programs that will consolidate/defragment

>> free space on a hard drive, *without* defragmenting all the files?

>> On my drives used for backup, it would seem to make sense to spend

>> some effort consolidating free space but defragmenting backup files

>> seems a waste of time as, with luck, they will never be read again.

>> But they do get replaced and new files written all the time.

>

> free space is NOT fragmented...

 

I think he wants all the free space to be contiguous, which isn't a good

thing to have. With all free space contiguous, refragmentation will

happen again much faster than before. The closest you should get to

that is XP's own defrag.

Strange, considering most people WANT to put space between things on

the disk<g>.

 

Cheers,

[Guest Guy Scharf]

Re: Defragment free space?

 

"Twayne" <nobody@devnull.spamcop.net> wrote:

> I think he wants all the free space to be contiguous, which isn't

> a good thing to have. With all free space contiguous,

> refragmentation will happen again much faster than before.

 

I've never heard that asserted before. Why will refragmentation be

faster if free space is contiguous?

[Guest Twayne]

Re: Defragment free space?

 

> "Twayne" <nobody@devnull.spamcop.net> wrote:

>

>> I think he wants all the free space to be contiguous, which isn't

>> a good thing to have. With all free space contiguous,

>> refragmentation will happen again much faster than before.

>

> I've never heard that asserted before. Why will refragmentation be

> faster if free space is contiguous?

 

I'm pretty tired and that's actually a complex answer, but, in basics,

it's:

Because the normal spacing left between areas will be gone, temporary

files, scratchpads and the actual file itself will have to be pushed

into the non-continguous areas, mostly. When you lock it all i

contiguously, the only place for a file to grow or be added can be a

long ways away (head wise) from where the original file is. That's a

bad explanation I know; I'm a little blotto right now to explain to

well. The fuller the drive is with data, the worse the condition can

be.

In particular, if the pagefile is in that 100% contiguous area, it

instantly becomes fragmented the first time it grows beyond that size.

Same with any other position-sensitive (unmovable) files that may be

created by many apps these days.

With a "normal" defrag process, there are spaces allocated between

areas of the disk where hopefully file growth can occur without having

to put the pieces a long distance (head-wise) away from the original.

You won't see that space with XP's defrag nor even many 3rd party

defraggers, but some will show it and some even allow you to manage it,

putting often-changed files in one area, seldom-changed in another, temp

files another, and so on, with lots of space between them for file

growth both in size and quantity. Norton's speed disk is like that and

it works out pretty well actually.

[Guest Guy Scharf]

Re: Defragment free space?

 

"Twayne" <nobody@devnull.spamcop.net> wrote:

> I'm pretty tired and that's actually a complex answer, but, in

> basics, it's:...

 

I understand and agree that, for general use on a partition with

dynamic access, complete free space consolidation is undesirable.

 

However, under some special circumstances, I believe consolidation

should prove helpful. In the partition I am interested in

consolidating free space on, the recycle bin and restore points are

disabled and there is no page file or caches, no extension or other

modification of existing files, and no dynamic activity. The partition

is written to perhaps half a dozen times a day, by only one program at

a time, with new large (multi-GB) files. All files written to the

partition are backup files of one sort or another.

 

With free space scattered as usual, a backup file may have >1500

extents scattered all over the partition. I would expect performance

would be better if free space were consolidated.

[Guest Twayne]

Re: Defragment free space?

 

> "Twayne" <nobody@devnull.spamcop.net> wrote:

>

>> I'm pretty tired and that's actually a complex answer, but, in

>> basics, it's:...

>

> I understand and agree that, for general use on a partition with

> dynamic access, complete free space consolidation is undesirable.

 

Not talking "dynamic access" hard drives unless you just mean lots of

activity as in changes, rewrites, etc.. Dynamic access is also a kind

of disk structure, pretty unusual to find these days.

>

> However, under some special circumstances, I believe consolidation

> should prove helpful. In the partition I am interested in

> consolidating free space on, the recycle bin and restore points are

> disabled and there is no page file or caches, no extension or other

> modification of existing files, and no dynamic activity. The

> partition is written to perhaps half a dozen times a day, by only one

> program at a time, with new large (multi-GB) files. All files

> written to the partition are backup files of one sort or another.

>

> With free space scattered as usual, a backup file may have >1500

> extents scattered all over the partition. I would expect performance

> would be better if free space were consolidated.

 

Hmm, dunno; I fail to see how a regular defrag doesn't create enough

free space to allow the data to be contiguous then. It must be writing

the file in chunks (starting/stopping very quickly) or something

because that kind of fragmentation shouldn't normally happen. I can

copy a 7 Gig file to my rendering drive and if I've degragged recently,

it'll be contiguous. Other very large files exist in that partition,

but they have been defragged before the copy. I seldom see much

fragmentation unless I've been using the editing software which creates

many, many huge buffers of files on disk. THAT causes the final product

to go fragmented to a few hundred pieces but not when I copy an original

over there to work on. However, I don't do that anymore; have a drive

specifically for the editing scratchpads now. THAT disk gets terribly

fragmented, but it's from the apps running.

I tried a 2 Gig write to it just now for grins (larger takes too

long) and it's contiguous.

Any chance you have a mix of different speed drives or unequal

buffers or something? That goes instanly out of my league<g>.

 

Sorry; guess I can't help. >1500 fragments to a defragged drive is

really huge; that would bother me too. Actually, a lot of that info

should have been in your original post.

 

Twayne

[Guest Guy Scharf]

Re: Defragment free space?

 

"Twayne" <nobody@devnull.spamcop.net> wrote:

> Hmm, dunno; I fail to see how a regular defrag doesn't create

> enough free space to allow the data to be contiguous then.

 

It would. But a "regular" defrag of the 700GB partition takes at least

12 hours, defragging huge files (up to 70 GB) that, frankly, don't

benefit from being defragmented because they are likely to be discarded

without being read (they are backup files, so not needed except to

recover from problems).

 

Even trying to defrag the volume more frequently still takes a long

time each time. Which is why I was looking for a quicker way of

consolidating free space.

 

I just did a "Consolidate Free Space" defragment with PerfectDisk 2008,

followed by a backup of the C drive using True Image Home 10 (creating

a 14 GB file). The file is fragmented into 37 pieces scattered all

over free space (at least as shown by PerfectDisk).

 

I'm off to do more tests and exploration to see if I can figure out

what is going on.

 

Guy