#244036 - 14/12/2004 20:26
Defragging
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 08/03/2000
Posts: 12341
Loc: Sterling, VA
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I'm trying to defrag a machine, but I'm having trouble. It looks to me like a whole lot of deleted stuff is hanging around on the drive, taking up space that would be nice to have for moving things around. The drive is a little over 5GB, and everything is showing that about a quarter of it is empty, but the graphical portion of the defrag is showing that there's a very tiny amount of actual free space to move things around with.
Is my assumption correct? Is there stuff hanging on? Is there a way to remove it?
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Matt
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#244037 - 14/12/2004 20:36
Re: Defragging
[Re: Dignan]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 25/08/2000
Posts: 2413
Loc: NH USA
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Resize the defrag window as large as you can, you'll see a different picture. Most likely the stats from Windows are more accurate than the graphical representation. Let defrag run (how long can 5GB take?) and then look again.
-Zeke
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#244038 - 14/12/2004 23:09
Re: Defragging
[Re: Dignan]
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addict
Registered: 03/08/1999
Posts: 451
Loc: Canberra, Australia
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Deleted stuff will hang around on Windows machines; if you really want to clear it out, go into the recycle bin and shift-delete it from there. Think of the recycle bin as simply an intelligent place that files are sent to before they're actually deleted. Due to the way Windows degragments drives, you will need at least 10% and more preferably 20% of the drive space to be unused. At the very minimum you'll need free space at least equal to the largest fragmented file on disk, and possibly up to double that. I've used DisKeeper and OO Defrag as well as Microsoft's own (limited) defragmenter, and the above is still true. It's to do with the kernel APIs for moving a file to another portion of the disk, which they all have to use since Windows doesn't give anyone control over the disk any more... Which, in a way, is a good thing. Have fun, Paul
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Owner of Mark I empeg 00061, now better than ever - (Thanks, Rod!) - and Karma 3930000004550
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#244039 - 15/12/2004 06:32
Re: Defragging
[Re: Dignan]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 12/01/2002
Posts: 2009
Loc: Brisbane, Australia
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And here I was thinking you were trying to put arms and legs back on to torsos....
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Christian
#40104192 120Gb (no longer in my E36 M3, won't fit the E46 M3)
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#244040 - 15/12/2004 07:38
Re: Defragging
[Re: PaulWay]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 08/06/1999
Posts: 7868
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Quote:
Due to the way Windows degragments drives, you will need at least 10% and more preferably 20% of the drive space to be unused. At the very minimum you'll need free space at least equal to the largest fragmented file on disk, and possibly up to double that. I've used DisKeeper and OO Defrag as well as Microsoft's own (limited) defragmenter, and the above is still true.
The Microsoft defragger is actually a very stripped down DiskKeeper in 2000/XP/2003. So the mythical percentage free rules apply there. Whoever came up with a percentage figure should be slapped hard, since 20% of a modern 300 gig drive is an insane 60 gigs of space. Why would a defragger need 60 gigs of space to do the job right?
I'm running the demo of PerfectDisk right now, after getting tired of DiskKeeper whining about my 9% free space on my 100 gig drive. PerfectDisk not only does a better defrag job, it also does some logicial orginazation of the disk. boot files at the very front, most recently used files towards the end, and the MFT and other relevant meta data near the middle to reduce seek times. Based on how well it has done with my disks, I'll be buying it soon.
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#244041 - 15/12/2004 08:53
Re: Defragging
[Re: drakino]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 27/02/2004
Posts: 1919
Loc: London
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I haven't defragged any drives for years, would there be any benefit for me? My PC is used as my MP3 server (via slimserver) and scheduled recordings, got about 400gb of data.
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#244042 - 15/12/2004 10:28
Re: Defragging
[Re: tahir]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 09/08/2000
Posts: 2091
Loc: Edinburgh, Scotland
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I defrag about 4 times a year on the machines I can't rebuild (corporate assets etc) and always notice a speed improvement. If you don't add/remove files much it won't be as necessary, but if you do a lot of installing and uninstalling you're actually better off rebuilding once a quarter or so (which is what I do with my home machines)
Of course all the above only applies to Windows machines. The filesystems I use under *nix have little need for anything like this, and they also cope better with uninstalling correctly.
YMMV
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Rory
MkIIa, blue lit buttons, memory upgrade, 1Tb in Subaru Forester STi
MkII, 240Gb in Mark Lord dock
MkII, 80Gb SSD in dock
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#244043 - 15/12/2004 10:53
Re: Defragging
[Re: frog51]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 27/02/2004
Posts: 1919
Loc: London
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I'm always messing around with tags and stuff on my machine at work (which has a removable HD with a backup of everything on it) so there's always stuff being (re)written to my home PC. I might give it a go, wonder how long it'll take though?
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#244044 - 15/12/2004 11:17
Re: Defragging
[Re: drakino]
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addict
Registered: 23/12/2002
Posts: 652
Loc: Winston Salem, NC
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Quote:
I'm running the demo of PerfectDisk right now, after getting tired of DiskKeeper whining about my 9% free space on my 100 gig drive.
Yeah, PerfectDisk gives you a 5% allowance, which is about where I am at. 
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#244045 - 15/12/2004 12:11
Re: Defragging
[Re: PaulWay]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 08/03/2000
Posts: 12341
Loc: Sterling, VA
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Thanks, folks. I guess I'll just keep chugging away at it. Quote:
Think of the recycle bin as simply an intelligent place that files are sent to before they're actually deleted.
Heh, I should hope I know how the recycle bin works I was more talking about how data is still on the drive but hasn't been written over yet or affirmatively deleted from the disk. I wasn't sure if the Windows defragger counted that information, or if it simply disregarded it when moving the file pieces around.
Quote:
Due to the way Windows degragments drives, you will need at least 10% and more preferably 20% of the drive space to be unused.
Like I said, at least 25% of the drive is free, and this is on a machine that wouldn't have any files over 100MB, let alone 1GB. Yet the graphical representation, even when the application is maximized, shows what I would call about 5% of the graph as "free space." On all the other machines I've done this with, the graph has pretty closely matched the drive information I had on hand.
Quote:
how long can 5GB take?
Famous last words! The answer: apparently longer than my 200GB drive at home. I'm just concerned because the drive seems very opposed to being defragged. I've run it several times now (around 10), and I still see the same amount of red I did before.
Quote:
And here I was thinking you were trying to put arms and legs back on to torsos....
LOL 
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Matt
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#244046 - 15/12/2004 13:12
Re: Defragging
[Re: Dignan]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 08/03/2000
Posts: 12341
Loc: Sterling, VA
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Here's a screen shot of the machine I'm trying to defrag. That's after about 12 runs. (sorry about the crap colors. I don't have any image editor other than paint here at work)
Attachments
243438-untitled.gif (195 downloads)
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Matt
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#244047 - 15/12/2004 13:29
Re: Defragging
[Re: Dignan]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
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That is strange. It clearly says 23% free up top. And defragging having no effect would seem to jibe with "hard drive too full". Have you tried running a chkdsk (or whatever it's called these days) on that partition?
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Bitt Faulk
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#244048 - 15/12/2004 13:37
Re: Defragging
[Re: Dignan]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 18/01/2000
Posts: 5683
Loc: London, UK
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Quote:
Here's a screen shot
Man, that's some fragmented disk. Basically, you've got the following problems:
- The graph shows less free disk space than Windows is reporting. This is simply a problem with rounding. Each one of those vertical stripes refers to several sectors(*). I'm guessing that if any of the sectors it's referring to contain fragments, then it's coloured red. So, even if it's showing 10 sectors and 9 of them are free, but the other contains a file fragment, it'll be coloured red. This is where your missing space is hiding.
- Defrag will ignore deleted files when moving things around. Any space they're living in will just get overwritten if it needs to put a file there. This doesn't apply (obviously) to files in the Recycle Bin.
- Windows defrag really sucks if you've got a disk that badly fragmented. When it talks about 10% free disk, it really wants contiguous free space. Some of the other defragmenters do a better job in a tight space.
So, to summarise: don't worry about the discrepancy in the space reports; delete some files to make more room (or move them somewhere else temporarily); run defrag lots more times.
Or buy a bigger disk, of course.
(*) Probably not actually real sectors, but my point's the same.
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-- roger
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#244049 - 15/12/2004 14:26
Re: Defragging
[Re: Dignan]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 25/08/2000
Posts: 2413
Loc: NH USA
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Can you post the text report (# files, # of fragments). Perhaps you have a couple of very large files that just can't be defragmented given the available space? After analysis hit the 'View Report' button and then save the .txt file (I've attached one for reference).
-Zeke
Attachments
243444-VolumeE.txt (195 downloads)
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#244050 - 15/12/2004 17:38
Re: Defragging
[Re: Ezekiel]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 08/03/2000
Posts: 12341
Loc: Sterling, VA
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Well, I'm guessing I can tell which two files are the most fragmented! Unfortunately, I don't want to screw with those because they're tied to the user's job. Anything else you can tell from the log?
Attachments
243455-VolumeC.txt (195 downloads)
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Matt
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#244051 - 15/12/2004 17:57
Re: Defragging
[Re: Dignan]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 25/08/2000
Posts: 2413
Loc: NH USA
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No kidding. 260,080 fragments from 1 file is 97.6% of the issue. If you have control of the machine & can access that log file (ie it doesn't have to remain available for read/write to any other process), I'd move 'guardian.log' to another drive, defrag and then put guardian.log back in its original location. That would almost guarantee you'd have at most only a few large fragments of this file. I've done that with large .pst (M$ Outlook) files in the past, with good success.
-Zeke
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#244052 - 15/12/2004 20:40
Re: Defragging
[Re: frog51]
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old hand
Registered: 14/04/2002
Posts: 1172
Loc: Hants, UK
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I didn't defrag my main machine for a couple of years, then one day I thought "what the heck" and started it off and went for lunch and then down the pub, intending to leave it for a while. Sitting at the pub an hour later all the lights suddenly went out and I don't have a UPS....
Was all ok in the end, I think I lost a couple of files of no consequence.
Gareth
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#244053 - 16/12/2004 13:22
Re: Defragging
[Re: Ezekiel]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 08/03/2000
Posts: 12341
Loc: Sterling, VA
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Thanks, Zeke. That did it. I moved that file to a network drive (it was so fragmented it took over 70 minutes just to copy it!), and ran the defrag again. It all went off without a hitch and now I'm seeing glorious blue I'll have to ask the user sometime if she notices any performance improvements. Now I've just got to do this on another machine that's been horribly fragmented. It's like 85% fragmented, has 9% of the disc free, and only 1% free for defragging. It's gonna be interesting. Thanks guys for your help!
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Matt
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#244054 - 16/12/2004 15:25
Re: Defragging
[Re: Dignan]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 25/08/2000
Posts: 2413
Loc: NH USA
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You're welcome. I've found the text report to be very useful on several occasions like the one you'd had.
You can also use the text report to find a few large files that can be moved temporarily to clear up space for defragging.
'Luck!
-Zeke
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#244055 - 16/12/2004 15:46
Re: Defragging
[Re: Dignan]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31600
Loc: Seattle, WA
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Quote:
9% of the disc free, and only 1% free for defragging. It's gonna be interesting.
Use that Scanner program we discussed in another thread to find the worst offenders for disk usage and see if you can delete them.
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#244056 - 16/12/2004 15:55
Re: Defragging
[Re: tfabris]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 08/03/2000
Posts: 12341
Loc: Sterling, VA
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Heh, that's exactly what I'm doing Actually, it's not the reason her machine is so slow. Apparently we were pushing out a program update this morning, and her machine is just way too slow to begin with, so it seemed debilitating.
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Matt
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#244057 - 25/12/2004 01:14
Re: Defragging
[Re: drakino]
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addict
Registered: 23/12/2002
Posts: 652
Loc: Winston Salem, NC
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Quote:
I'm running the demo of PerfectDisk right now, after getting tired of DiskKeeper whining about my 9% free space on my 100 gig drive. PerfectDisk not only does a better defrag job, it also does some logicial orginazation of the disk. boot files at the very front, most recently used files towards the end, and the MFT and other relevant meta data near the middle to reduce seek times. Based on how well it has done with my disks, I'll be buying it soon.
Thanks for mentioning this one! I've been using DisKeeper after getting fed up with Microsoft's Defragger, but I decided to give PerfectDisk a try. I have to say, I've never seen my drives run faster after a defrag.
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