Guest Guy Scharf Posted August 23, 2008 Posted August 23, 2008 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 Posted August 23, 2008 Posted August 23, 2008 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 Posted August 23, 2008 Posted August 23, 2008 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.·.. > Posted August 23, 2008 Posted August 23, 2008 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 Posted August 23, 2008 Posted August 23, 2008 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 Posted August 27, 2008 Posted August 27, 2008 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 Posted August 27, 2008 Posted August 27, 2008 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 Posted August 27, 2008 Posted August 27, 2008 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 Posted August 27, 2008 Posted August 27, 2008 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 Posted August 28, 2008 Posted August 28, 2008 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 Posted August 28, 2008 Posted August 28, 2008 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 Posted August 28, 2008 Posted August 28, 2008 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
Recommended Posts