Dumb question--defragment...

Does defragmenting only apply to hard disk? Do we defragment CD/DVD and USB flash drives? If yes how? when I right click to show Properties there's no defragment tool. The Diskkeeper also shows only the hard disk. Thanks for putting up with the dumb question

 

Flash drives are fast enough to not need it. When CDs are created, the data is not segmented. CDRWs could become fragmented, and that would slow things down a lot, but only if it's multisession and erased in segments somehow. In other words, fragmentation is barely an issue for HDDs, and much less so for other media.

Defragment every few months if you have a drive under constant use, using large files, when it is >80% full. Also defragment every few months if it is a FAT filesystem, or other older, fragmentation-prone filesystems.

 

Every few months?
You might want to keep quiet about things you know nothing about.

 

Well, that was unprovoked, unspecific, and unsubstantiated.

True, benchmarks rarely show a significant improvement post-defragmenting, and gains are often from relocating often-accessed files to faster parts of the drive, but I like defragmentation because it simplifies the formatting structures. It's less for the OS to keep track of, but more importantly it's easier and more likely to recover contiginous data from a failing drive. People like to think they can make a difference, and that they can use free time now to optimize time later, so I'll suggest defragmenting occasionally.

NTFS, HFS+ (OS X), etx2, reiserfs etc should not become heavily fragmented unless there isn't enough space for constantly shuffling large files around.

But yeah, don't defragment flash-based media. They have a limited number of writes, and there aren't heads that need to physically move to any location to read data anyway.

 

I would suggest defragging NTFS and FAT32 systems every week or so. That will keep the defrag times down and keep the system nice and tidy.

 

"In other words, fragmentation is barely an issue for HDDs, and much less so for other media."

I disagree with this too. NTFS fragments significantly. When I am doing lots of installations, I defragment after the installation of any product of significant size. I then defragment the system partition about once a week.

 

Well, OK. Defragmentation is a controversial thing. Modern filesystems, when the HDD has enough space to write new files, do not have issues with fragmentation. NTFS is supposed to be modern, though it is from 1993, so it may not be as intelligent as I expected it to be and was told it was. Searching google for benchmarks actually brought up my post above, but if you're really interested, you could probably find some. I did find "The Great Defrag Shootout", and aside from being a 29-part article, the parts I did read showed some defragmenters improving performance, while others reducing performance. This article is telling me that NTFS is fragmentation-resistant-
http://searchwincomputing.techtarget.com/tip/0,289483,sid68_gci1215568,00.html

Fragmentation occurs in all filesystems gradually, so defragmentation yearly isn't a terrible idea. I strongly suggest that anyone defragmenting once a week use a program that defragments only fragmented files rather than a full disk defragmentation (free space, etc), as rewriting the contents of the disk every week is really going to put unnecessary wear on the hardware. HDDs have moving parts, and defragmentation means "putting more miles" on it.

If fragmentation is truly a worry for you, and NTFS truly is prone to fragmentation, then the only option is to switch to a modern filesystem (XFS, ReiserFS, ext3, and HFS+ (not HFS)), and perhaps to use a non-magnetic faster media for the system partition (RAM Disks, SSD, etc). Aside from moving often used files to faster parts of the drive, I haven't seen benchmarks show a significant increase in speed, so I don't lose sleep over it or waste my time with it.

 

Defrag a CD/DVD drive? Not possible AFAIK, and an utter waste of time.

Don’t defrag flash drives either, since they have no moving parts, and are not susceptible to the same type of mechanical drawbacks as HDDs. IIRC, the data distribution in the flash memory is supposedly optimized to lengthen their lifespans and distribute the r/w 'load' evenly across the material, taking into account the limited number of read/write cycles these things can take. (To tell you the truth, I wonder if this r/w limit matters in real life...it ought to be high enough for years of use, although I have no hard numbers to prove/disprove anything.)

Defragmenting a mechanical (ie.magnetic) HDD is to, broadly speaking,
*improve/restore file access times for fragmented files
*improve overall system performance since the HDD is the bottleneck in almost any system due to it’s mechanical nature.
*decrease drive wear and increase drive life and therefore in the long run, probably save a buck or two.
*improve battery consumption [laptops] especially for sequential reads.
*improve chances of recovering data if the drive is in a defragmented state before deletion/failure

So flash drives will not benefit from a defrag in any of the points above.

 

Thanks for the replies! Really appreciate. Does it cause any unwanted result if I happened to defragment a USB flash drive? I think I did it once. Thank you in advance!

 

The is little reason to do that, there is not head movement.

But again I really disagree with Elbitrop. WHat he is suggesting makes as much sense as plugging in another filesystem for Vista.

 

I agree, been using an automatic tool now not just for performance, but to avoid hassles of troubleshooting with 'too much fragmentation - too little space' situations.

 

I used to defragment my NTFS partitions, but I think it was just a carry-over habit from my FAT days. My NTFS partitions never once failed me. Now I primarily use Linux with the ReiserFS. It's truly innovative. I recommend reading up on how it is different from conventional file systems. I was looking forward to Reiser 4 but now I'm worried that if Hans Reiser doesn't get out of jail his dream will fade away. If he is guilty, then he deserves the fate of the courts. Hopefully other willing souls will step in to continue development.

By the way, judging by the amount of discusion that this subject has inspired, this was not a "dumb question".

 

Fragemented NTFS space doesn't fail, they simply cause many time consuming head seeks. NTFS really does fragment and much head movment is required to read fragmented files.

 

On a new laptop i would install everything get everything the way you want it then defrag, then just keep up with it every week or so.

 

Here is what I would suggest you do once a month bare minimum:

1) Clean out excess files (CCleaner)

2) Clean out your registry (Tuneup Utilities or free alternative)

3) Defragment registry (Tuneup Utilities or free alternative)

4) Defragment system files (PerfectDisk or free alternative)

5) Defragment normal files (PerfectDisk or free alternative)

Any current HD needs to be defragmented at least once a month to maintain optimal performance. The file system utilized makes no difference, as long as your medium of storage uses heads fragmentation will bottleneck performance. SSD may be an exception to this rule, but they are not quite a standard yet so they don't count. =)

 

it seems as if we have a troll on this board again...is playmaker back?

 

"You might want to keep quiet about things you know nothing about."

I agree with watchtower7. This guy spoke so authoritatively and was so incorrect in so many things that he has.

After he told someone what they said was unspecific and unsubstantiated and then I read his next sentence and had to laugh.

 

agreeing someone is wrong is one thing..but the way he/she states it is immature

 

I don't mind being called immature.....

 

i wasn't calling you immature!

 

Oh!!!

 

http://tony72.googlepages.com/ppc_frag