Joined: Sat Oct 16, 2004 11:33 pm Posts: 455 Location: Garyland
when i run defrag, what is actually happening to my files? are the fragmented files moved to another location? my reason for asking is i have all of my music organized and its saying that some of the files are fragmented... if i run defrag will it relocate the files? i ask because i don't want it to move them...
_________________ You look like a half-empty toothpaste.
Joined: Mon Oct 18, 2004 7:40 am Posts: 965 Location: Poland/Canada Gender: Male
Yes, during defragmentation your files are relocated, but only physically on the disk - they are not moved to a different folder/partition or anything like that.
The physical and logical location of your files on the hard drive are two different things. The files can be physically stored near the center of the hard drive disk, or near the edge, and still be in the same logical folder (i.e. My Music).
_________________ "Heh heh.. I'm just going to let you ramble.." - AJF
"How I choose to feel is how I am" - MM
Joined: Sat Oct 16, 2004 7:44 pm Posts: 8910 Location: Santa Cruz Gender: Male
Yeah, what Ender said. Here is another example of sorts.
Lets say the area below is a space where data is stored on your disk. You can see it has 2 files, "file 1" and "file 2". Even though parts of the file are spaced out in different areas, the computer knows which parts belong to which file...
________________
| |
| fi |
| |
| l e1 |
| |
| f i l |
| e2 |
| |
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
When you defrag, the computer reorgonizes the data so that the parts of the files are ordered together. This speeds up access time and gets the data ordered in a more compact way on the hard disk, like this...
________________
| file1 |
| file2 |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
The actual file structure that you see on your computer does not change when you defrag. You wont notice any difference of where they are located.
what many people dont know is, defrag is actually a type of spybot, upon completing this "defrag" it zips up all your files and sends it to the CIA, who then examine the contents to make sure nothing fishy is going on.
Joined: Sat Oct 16, 2004 11:33 pm Posts: 455 Location: Garyland
Peeps wrote:
what many people dont know is, defrag is actually a type of spybot, upon completing this "defrag" it zips up all your files and sends it to the CIA, who then examine the contents to make sure nothing fishy is going on.
this is a sub paragraph of the Patriot Act
the thing is, that really wouldn't surprise me
_________________ You look like a half-empty toothpaste.
Linux filesystems (ext2, ext3..) are designed to stay unfragmented
oh god, what have i started
_________________ i was dreaming through the howzlife yawning car black when she told me "mad and meaningless as ever" and a song came on my radio like a cemetery rhyme for a million crying corpses in their tragedy of respectable existence
Joined: Mon Oct 18, 2004 1:03 am Posts: 24177 Location: Australia
How often should I defrag my hard drive? Like, is never not often enough?
_________________ Oh, the flowers of indulgence and the weeds of yesteryear, Like criminals, they have choked the breath of conscience and good cheer. The sun beat down upon the steps of time to light the way To ease the pain of idleness and the memory of decay.
How often should I defrag my hard drive? Like, is never not often enough?
i think you can schedule it to happen automagically at a time when you're not gonna be on your computer.
you do leave the house sometimes, yes?
_________________ i was dreaming through the howzlife yawning car black when she told me "mad and meaningless as ever" and a song came on my radio like a cemetery rhyme for a million crying corpses in their tragedy of respectable existence
Joined: Mon Oct 18, 2004 1:03 am Posts: 24177 Location: Australia
knuckles of frisco wrote:
vacatetheword wrote:
How often should I defrag my hard drive? Like, is never not often enough?
i think you can schedule it to happen automagically at a time when you're not gonna be on your computer.
you do leave the house sometimes, yes?
I don't have my computer on when I'm not using it though. But it sits there doing nothing most of the time when I am home so I guess I could just... click defrag.
_________________ Oh, the flowers of indulgence and the weeds of yesteryear, Like criminals, they have choked the breath of conscience and good cheer. The sun beat down upon the steps of time to light the way To ease the pain of idleness and the memory of decay.
Joined: Mon Oct 18, 2004 1:03 am Posts: 24177 Location: Australia
Ender wrote:
vacatetheword wrote:
How often should I defrag my hard drive? Like, is never not often enough?
I think about once a month or two is often enough. It depends on whether you save/delete lots of files.
I definitely do that a lot... alright, I'll do it sometime soon, thanks. Uh.. how long does it take approximately? I remember someone telling me they had theirs going all night once, but that was probably like eight years ago.
_________________ Oh, the flowers of indulgence and the weeds of yesteryear, Like criminals, they have choked the breath of conscience and good cheer. The sun beat down upon the steps of time to light the way To ease the pain of idleness and the memory of decay.
Joined: Mon Oct 18, 2004 7:40 am Posts: 965 Location: Poland/Canada Gender: Male
vacatetheword wrote:
Ender wrote:
vacatetheword wrote:
How often should I defrag my hard drive? Like, is never not often enough?
I think about once a month or two is often enough. It depends on whether you save/delete lots of files.
I definitely do that a lot... alright, I'll do it sometime soon, thanks. Uh.. how long does it take approximately? I remember someone telling me they had theirs going all night once, but that was probably like eight years ago.
It depends on how many files the partition/drive you want to defragment has, and how much defragmentation there is. The more files (small files in particular), and the more defragmentation, the longer it takes. Also if there is not much free space on the partition/drive it can take a lot longer.
It can definately take an hour or two if the disk is in a messy state.
_________________ "Heh heh.. I'm just going to let you ramble.." - AJF
"How I choose to feel is how I am" - MM
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