[jhb] Re: Defrag

  • From: "Paul Reynolds" <paul@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <jhb@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2008 10:11:50 -0000

With how you have FSX I suspect the real load issues are not the FSX files
but the Horizon Scenery.  If they have been ordered alphabetically then that
may not be the most efficient way. For example, I load A12345.bgl B12345.bgl
P12345.bgl as part of a scenery with the alphabetic sorting, the driv head
now reads A12345.bgl then skips over all the other A's and earlier B's to
read B12345.bgl then skips over all those between this and P12345.bgl.  Yet
if A12345.bgl, B12345.bgl and P12345.bgl were stored together this would
have been a much quicker read.

Most derfag programmes allow the disk to be ordered according to how often
files are accessed.  You may find that a better option as it should group
files that are read together and therefore get around this issue.  If the
scenery files are on a separate drive, this should be quite easy to achieve.

Paul

-----Original Message-----
From: jhb-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:jhb-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf
Of Gerry Winskill
Sent: 03 January 2008 09:50
To: jhb@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [jhb] Re: Defrag


Before defrag, time to load = 3 mins 53
After   defrag, time to load = 5 mins 40

??????????????????????????????

Gerry Winskill



Gerry Winskill wrote:

> Thanks Paul, that's clearer.
>
> Having done the Horizon drive I'm now doing the FSX bearing C drive.
> I'm following the instructions to get the FSX files right at the
> beginning, then to have them undisturbed by future defrags. Or summat!
>
> Gerry Winskill
>
> Paul Reynolds wrote:
>
>> Off topic I suppose but should put your mind at rest.  I apologise in
>> advance if I'm teaching Granny about egg sucking...
>>
>> In most cases stopping and restarting a defrag should have no adverse
>> effect
>> on the system.  The purpose of defrag. is to store files without them
>> being
>> scattered in small blocks or fragments of data across the disk, and
>> preferably files that would be used together, stored together. The idea
>> being the less the drive heads have to move to read the data, the
>> quicker
>> the read from disk.
>>
>> However, when we adjust our systems we often change files that would
>> have
>> been stored in one place so they get scattered.
>>
>> What's worse is when we install a file the system will naturally try
>> to write it to the first available space on the disk, if it can't put
>> all the file in the space available then it will move on to the next
>> available space
>> and continue there which is how we get file fragmentation. As it does
>> the
>> same with temporary files, you can see how easily it is for the
>> system to
>> get choked up with fragmented files and the more fragmentation there
>> is, the
>> more your drive heads have to jump about alll over the place to read
>> data
>> and consequently slowing your machine down.
>>
>> When you defrag., what you are doing is re-uniting all the scattered
>> bits of
>> files so they are in one contiguous place: Starting at the beginning
>> of the
>> disk, it will find all the fragmented parts of a file and copy them
>> to empty
>> space, usually at the end of the disk.  It will then do the same for any
>> other files it needs to move to create a space big enough to write the
>> fragmented file back at the beginning of the disk but as one continuous
>> file.  It will keep doing this until all the files have been trated
>> the same
>> way.
>>
>> If it's possible to without causing an issue, I start it defragging
>> over night, stop it when you need to use the machine then re-commence
>> when not needed until the job is complete.  I would then schedule an
>> over-night defrag. Once a week if you can.  This weekly defrag.
>> shouldn't be too bad
>> since it'll only have one weeks mayhem to tidy up after, the majority
>> of the
>> files should be OK.
>>
>> I use a programme called O&O defrag. which has a stealth mode,if it
>> finds
>> excessive fragmentation, it will defrag in background.  This I find
>> extremely useful and allows me to not worry about defrag.  Though I
>> should
>> add that I fell foul of it not long ago as it was active when I did a
>> hard
>> reset and that's how I corrupted my C drive.  Having said that, I've
>> been
>> running it several years without a problem otherwise.
>>
>> Hope that helps,
>>
>> Paul
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: jhb-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:jhb-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
>> Behalf
>> Of Peter Dodds
>> Sent: 02 January 2008 18:20
>> To: jhb@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> Cc: pdodds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> Subject: [jhb] Re: Defrag
>>
>>
>> I've always assumed that if I stop it prematurely (which is quite
>> safe by
>> the way) it would start all over again when I restart it.  I had a
>> laptop
>> once that always restarted a defrag every 10 minutes or so because
>> "new data
>> has been written to disk".  I never found out what caused it and I never
>> defragged that drive! (because I couldn't).
>>
>> Peter
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>


Other related posts: