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    Defragmenting networked storage

    Discussion in 'Networking and Wireless' started by hehe299792458, Jul 1, 2007.

  1. hehe299792458

    hehe299792458 Notebook Deity

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    I recently bought a DNS 323 network enclosure, and loaded my files on them. However, in the last few days, I noticed that it's taking longer to transfer and explore files. Suspecting that the files are getting fragmented, I suddenly realized that I don't have a way to defragment it. Does anyone know how? Thanks,
     
    hehe299792458, Jul 1, 2007
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  2. blue68f100

    blue68f100 Notebook Virtuoso

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    You may have a HD that is bad. I ran into this on my 4500 with Seagate 400gig drives. I had one drive that was having bad seek times and bad sectors. I ran Spinrite on all of my drives. It corrected/blocked out the bad sectors. Did not help on seek times though. I was forced to replace the drives with some WD RE (server) drives. Problem went away. MFG these day do not check for bad media. They rely on the SMART tech to repair on the fly. This slows every thing up. I have started running SpinRite on all NEW HD, you would be surprise on what you run to.

    As far as defraging, I know of no program that works on my NAS's. If you know which files, just copy to your local drive and delete it off the server. Then re send the file to the server.
     
    blue68f100, Jul 1, 2007
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  3. kegobeer

    kegobeer 1 hr late but moving fast

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    I always recommend spending more cash and getting enterprise drives for network storage. They are designed to be on 24/7/365; desktop drives aren't designed to withstand that type of punishment and will fail more often.
     
    kegobeer, Jul 1, 2007
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  4. hehe299792458

    hehe299792458 Notebook Deity

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    When I get a new HD, I still need a way to defragment it.
     
    hehe299792458, Jul 1, 2007
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  5. kegobeer

    kegobeer 1 hr late but moving fast

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    If the NAS doesn't provide a built-in defrag tool, I think you'd have to remove the drive, slave it into another PC (either by attaching it directly via SATA/IDE cable or by installing it into a USB/Firewire caddy), and then perform a defrag using either the built in Windows defrag or something better like Diskeeper.

    From what I've read, you should never have to defrag a NAS - the NAS software should take care of this for you. However, if you don't have a true NAS (just an enclosure that connects to the LAN), then you may have to perform defrags manually using techniques I posted in the previous paragraph.
     
    kegobeer, Jul 1, 2007
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  6. sanpabloguy

    sanpabloguy Notebook Deity

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    If the drive is used in a NAS device, you shouldn't need to defrag it. The drive is under control of the NAS software, which will manage it.

    I don't think there is any commercially available software to defrag networked drives.
     
    sanpabloguy, Jul 1, 2007
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  7. wave

    wave Notebook Virtuoso

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    NAS is file based storage so you cant defragment it. Some NAS devices have drivers that lets you install them as a network SAN drive under windows. If this is possible you can defragment it.

    NAS: file based, the laptop requests a file from the NAS device and the NAS device sends it. The laptop doesnt know where on the disk the file is stored.

    SAN: Sector based, the laptop requests sectors from the SAN device. The laptop knows which sectors store which files and knows which ones to request.

    Defragmentations moves sectors so it needs sector based access.

    But I dont think it should matter. Even a heavly defragmented hard disk would not be a bottle neck since NAS devices transfer about 15-20MB/s max. Slower 100Mbit devices even less.
     
    wave, Jul 2, 2007
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