Guy Scharf

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.

JF

*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

MJ

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
>
>
>

db.·.. >

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.

Guy Scharf

"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.

Plato

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/

Twayne

> 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,

Guy Scharf

"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?

Twayne

> "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.

Guy Scharf

"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.