Is defraging necessary?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Lisa
  • Start date Start date
On 5/15/2010 2:34 AM, Brian V wrote:

> (snip)

>

> 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?

>



The motivation behind defragmenting is avoiding the time necessary for a

mechanical drive head to shift to a different cylinder (track) and

settle into place (they vibrate a little when they stop). On a

fragmented drive you might have a constant situation where the head is

shifting back and forth between two or more cylinders reading successive

segments of a file.



To a lesser extent the drive might have to wait for a particular file

segment to rotate into position under the drive head.



Since flash drives, SSDs and camera memory cards aren't dependent on

rotating disks or heads shifting between cylinders, fragmentation would

be significantly less of a delay (if any at all).
 
In article ,

BrianV@discussions.microsoft.com says...

> 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, there are many types, has some performance benefits and some

performance penalties:



RAID-0 fast reads/writes, no redundancy

RAID-1 fast reads/slow writes, redundant

RAID-5 fast reads/slow writes, redundant

RAID-0+1 fast reads/writes, redundant



There are cases to use each one, no one type is best for everyone.



All drives, arrays, become file fragmented, even if you keep the

drives/arrays 50% empty or more, it just happens.



The impact of fragmentation is also individual, meaning that some people

will never feel the difference, others will notice a difference between

very fragmented and not fragmented.



I defragment by workstations every couple months, servers on weekends,

but I'm only one type of user, you might need more or less.



--

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.

spam999free@rrohio.com (remove 999 for proper email address)
 
On 05/15/2010 04:48 PM, Leythos wrote:

> In article,

> aka@hewhoismasked&anonymous.com says...

>>

>> On 05/15/2010 03:43 AM, Leythos wrote:

>>> In article,

>>> LDS5ZRA@discussions.microsoft.com says...

>>>> There is no evidence that defragging speeds up your system in any

>>>> shape or form. No something you will notice it when using your

>>>> system everyday.

>>>>

>>>

>>> There is plenty of evidence that file defrag improves drive system

>>> performance, only a person with limited experience would suggest

>>> otherwise.

>>>

>>>

>>

>> My goodness, I agree with Leythos. What's the world coming to?

>

> Well, that will certainly harm my credibility, having you agree with

> something I've written.

>



Poor baby. Do you think you'll get over it?



--

Alias
 
Defragging a system won't

do you any harm so you

should try it and make your

own determination if it is a

a worthwhile process.



however, there was a time that

defrag did improve performance

for systems that had hard disks

with limited drive space and

had slow data access speeds.



But nowadays hard drives

are faster and larger and

fragmentation is no longer

a contributing factor in

performance.



as the matter of fact, technical

documentation from microsoft

pertaining to vista state that

defragging disk is no longer

necessary and "does not improve

system performance".



perhaps, it is because the computer

turns right around and creates fragments

of the data that was defrag's





however, the quandary exists at

microsoft because on the one

hand the technicians have tested

and made a thorough analysis

on the ineffectiveness of defragging

large and faster disks in vista,



but at the same time microsoft

includes a defragging utility in

with the o.s.



in any case, everyone has

unique systems that benefit

by unique methodologies.



as stated before you can run

defrag and ascertain a personal

assessment of performance



or if you born back when American

culture was factually experiencing

induced enlightenment,



then you might find unfragmenting

files to be entertaining.



--

>> --

>> db·´¯`·...¸>

>> DatabaseBen, Retired Professional

>> - Systems Analyst

>> - Database Developer

>> - Accountancy

>> - Veteran of the Armed Forces

>> - @Hotmail.com

>> - nntp Postologist

>> ~ "share the nirvana" - dbZen

>>

>> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~





"Lisa" wrote in message

news:1AA94818-B553-4478-9F58-668B6F68C348@microsoft.com...

> 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?
 
How can you possibly state that fragmentation is no longer a factor in

performance?

If you ONLY had one fragment, it would add a minimum of 10 MS to a read

operation.

"Db" wrote in message

news:E5214409-74FB-4E90-BD58-D55FD009AFED@microsoft.com...

> Defragging a system won't

> do you any harm so you

> should try it and make your

> own determination if it is a

> a worthwhile process.

>

> however, there was a time that

> defrag did improve performance

> for systems that had hard disks

> with limited drive space and

> had slow data access speeds.

>

> But nowadays hard drives

> are faster and larger and

> fragmentation is no longer

> a contributing factor in

> performance.

>

> as the matter of fact, technical

> documentation from microsoft

> pertaining to vista state that

> defragging disk is no longer

> necessary and "does not improve

> system performance".

>

> perhaps, it is because the computer

> turns right around and creates fragments

> of the data that was defrag's

>

>

> however, the quandary exists at

> microsoft because on the one

> hand the technicians have tested

> and made a thorough analysis

> on the ineffectiveness of defragging

> large and faster disks in vista,

>

> but at the same time microsoft

> includes a defragging utility in

> with the o.s.

>

> in any case, everyone has

> unique systems that benefit

> by unique methodologies.

>

> as stated before you can run

> defrag and ascertain a personal

> assessment of performance

>

> or if you born back when American

> culture was factually experiencing

> induced enlightenment,

>

> then you might find unfragmenting

> files to be entertaining.

>

> --

>>> --

>>> db·´¯`·...¸>

>>> DatabaseBen, Retired Professional

>>> - Systems Analyst

>>> - Database Developer

>>> - Accountancy

>>> - Veteran of the Armed Forces

>>> - @Hotmail.com

>>> - nntp Postologist

>>> ~ "share the nirvana" - dbZen

>>>

>>> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

>

>

> "Lisa" wrote in message

> news:1AA94818-B553-4478-9F58-668B6F68C348@microsoft.com...

>> 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?

>
 
In article ,

databaseben@sbcglobal.net says...

> But nowadays hard drives

> are faster and larger and

> fragmentation is no longer

> a contributing factor in

> performance.

>



You are really showing why people don't listen to you - while a small

amount of file fragmentation will hardly be noticed, massive amounts

dramatically impact overall file performance.



--

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.

spam999free@rrohio.com (remove 999 for proper email address)
 
On Thu, 13 May 2010 09:31:01 -0700, 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?



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.

NOT defragging makes your hard drive work harder, and wears it out

sooner.

NOT defragging makes it harder to retrieve data in the event a hard

drive begins to fail.



The more often you delete files or move them, the more often you

should defrag. Browsers in particular clutter drives with cache

files. Always clear the cache before defragging.



Whoever told you this is an idiot !!!
 
Unknown wrote:

> How can you possibly state that fragmentation is no longer a factor in

> performance?



The same way that many people thought that Sarah Palin was actually

qualified to be Vice President??? (Hint: that's how).



> If you ONLY had one fragment, it would add a minimum of 10 MS to a read

> operation.

> "Db" wrote in message

> news:E5214409-74FB-4E90-BD58-D55FD009AFED@microsoft.com...

>> Defragging a system won't

>> do you any harm so you

>> should try it and make your

>> own determination if it is a

>> a worthwhile process.

>>

>> however, there was a time that

>> defrag did improve performance

>> for systems that had hard disks

>> with limited drive space and

>> had slow data access speeds.

>>

>> But nowadays hard drives

>> are faster and larger and

>> fragmentation is no longer

>> a contributing factor in

>> performance.

>>

>> as the matter of fact, technical

>> documentation from microsoft

>> pertaining to vista state that

>> defragging disk is no longer

>> necessary and "does not improve

>> system performance".

>>

>> perhaps, it is because the computer

>> turns right around and creates fragments

>> of the data that was defrag's

>>

>>

>> however, the quandary exists at

>> microsoft because on the one

>> hand the technicians have tested

>> and made a thorough analysis

>> on the ineffectiveness of defragging

>> large and faster disks in vista,

>>

>> but at the same time microsoft

>> includes a defragging utility in

>> with the o.s.

>>

>> in any case, everyone has

>> unique systems that benefit

>> by unique methodologies.

>>

>> as stated before you can run

>> defrag and ascertain a personal

>> assessment of performance

>>

>> or if you born back when American

>> culture was factually experiencing

>> induced enlightenment,

>>

>> then you might find unfragmenting

>> files to be entertaining.

>>

>> --

>>>> --

>>>> db·´¯`·...¸>

>>>> DatabaseBen, Retired Professional

>>>> - Systems Analyst

>>>> - Database Developer

>>>> - Accountancy

>>>> - Veteran of the Armed Forces

>>>> - @Hotmail.com

>>>> - nntp Postologist

>>>> ~ "share the nirvana" - dbZen

>>>>

>>>> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

>>

>>

>> "Lisa" wrote in message

>> news:1AA94818-B553-4478-9F58-668B6F68C348@microsoft.com...

>>> 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?
 
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.
 
WaIIy wrote:

> 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.



If you don't like it, you know where the door is.
 
On Sat, 15 May 2010 14:14:38 -0600, "Bill in Co."

wrote:



>

>Unknown wrote:

>> How can you possibly state that fragmentation is no longer a factor in

>> performance?

>

>The same way that many people thought that Sarah Palin was actually

>qualified to be Vice President??? (Hint: that's how).





Seeing her so much in the news/papers I thought she was ;-)

Jim ( UK )









>

>> If you ONLY had one fragment, it would add a minimum of 10 MS to a read

>> operation.

>> "Db" wrote in message

>> news:E5214409-74FB-4E90-BD58-D55FD009AFED@microsoft.com...

>>> Defragging a system won't

>>> do you any harm so you

>>> should try it and make your

>>> own determination if it is a

>>> a worthwhile process.

>>>

>>> however, there was a time that

>>> defrag did improve performance

>>> for systems that had hard disks

>>> with limited drive space and

>>> had slow data access speeds.

>>>

>>> But nowadays hard drives

>>> are faster and larger and

>>> fragmentation is no longer

>>> a contributing factor in

>>> performance.

>>>

>>> as the matter of fact, technical

>>> documentation from microsoft

>>> pertaining to vista state that

>>> defragging disk is no longer

>>> necessary and "does not improve

>>> system performance".

>>>

>>> perhaps, it is because the computer

>>> turns right around and creates fragments

>>> of the data that was defrag's

>>>

>>>

>>> however, the quandary exists at

>>> microsoft because on the one

>>> hand the technicians have tested

>>> and made a thorough analysis

>>> on the ineffectiveness of defragging

>>> large and faster disks in vista,

>>>

>>> but at the same time microsoft

>>> includes a defragging utility in

>>> with the o.s.

>>>

>>> in any case, everyone has

>>> unique systems that benefit

>>> by unique methodologies.

>>>

>>> as stated before you can run

>>> defrag and ascertain a personal

>>> assessment of performance

>>>

>>> or if you born back when American

>>> culture was factually experiencing

>>> induced enlightenment,

>>>

>>> then you might find unfragmenting

>>> files to be entertaining.

>>>

>>> --

>>>>> --

>>>>> db·´¯`·...¸>

>>>>> DatabaseBen, Retired Professional

>>>>> - Systems Analyst

>>>>> - Database Developer

>>>>> - Accountancy

>>>>> - Veteran of the Armed Forces

>>>>> - @Hotmail.com

>>>>> - nntp Postologist

>>>>> ~ "share the nirvana" - dbZen

>>>>>

>>>>> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

>>>

>>>

>>> "Lisa" wrote in message

>>> news:1AA94818-B553-4478-9F58-668B6F68C348@microsoft.com...

>>>> 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?

>
 
Leythos wrote:

> In article , heybub@gmail.com

> 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.
 
hello@goodbye.com 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.



> 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).



> NOT defragging makes it harder to retrieve data in the event a hard

> drive begins to fail.



That IS true.



>

> 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.



> Browsers in particular clutter drives with cache

> files. Always clear the cache before defragging.

>

> Whoever told you this is an idiot !!!
 
In news:%23iAPAYS9KHA.5464@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl,

HeyBub typed:

> hello@goodbye.com 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 , heybub@gmail.com

says...

>

> Leythos wrote:

> > In article , heybub@gmail.com

> > 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.

spam999free@rrohio.com (remove 999 for proper email address)
 
In article , heybub@gmail.com

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.

spam999free@rrohio.com (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 , birelan@yahoo.com

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.

spam999free@rrohio.com (remove 999 for proper email address)
 
Don't read if you don't like.

"WaIIy" wrote in message

news:323uu598gkl4jphqe6c6khlm8n5lj0h3nk@4ax.com...

> 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 , birelan@yahoo.com

> 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.
 
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