Windows 7 - Defragging 2-TB 80%-Used Disc?

My media server is recording TV to a couple of 2-TB onboard
discs.

In trying to track down some weirdnesses in playback, I noticed
that both discs were heavily fragmented:
http://tinyurl.com/d4r7v84

Each pass of defragging only consolidates a very small percentage
of the space.  It seems insignificant for a given pass.

Assuming that defragging is warranted, I am thinking two
possibilities:

- Some sort of .Bat or .Cmd file to iteratively defrag on the
assumption that eventually a disc's data can be mostly
consolidated.

- Buy another 2-TB disc and, instead of de-fragging a disc,
copy it is contents to the third disc and then replace it with
the third disc.


The Questions:

- Could defragging actually have a perceptible effect?   Or is it
one of those things that sounds good in theory but has limited
practicality - at least in the situation of media playback?

- Given that several large new files (seems like about six gigs
for an hour of HD) are being created each day and a like number
deleted on a per-day average over each week, might
fragmentation just be a fact of life and trying to stay on top
of it be something of a fool's errand?

- Is there any hope for the iterative approach?  Or is there isome
inherent limit determined by % usage?
--
Pete Cresswell

Disable System Restore on the data volume. In
Control Panels : System : System Restore you have per-partition
control. There is no point in having System Restore on a videos disc.
Each time a new disk is plugged in, it gets enabled in there. The
only thing that should really be enabled in there, is C:. Doing it
for other partitions is a waste (more disk activity for nothing).

You could change the volume from using 4K to 64K storage. If
you are only storing large files, that might work better.
Note that certain features become disabled when you move away
from the default 4K choice for NTFS (compression, ability to
defrag perhaps...).

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/format.mspx?mfr=true

If more than one writer-process is at work on the disk, then
it is going to get fragmented. So two tuners dumping to one disk,
is going to fill the disk with red.

Even the MFT can become fragmented. I do not know if there
is a way to make it bigger before using the storage on
there or not.

The drive will probably still be "filled with red", but
you can try to make things better.

Comparing defrag to copying the entire disk, it depends
on what the performance monitor shows for read/write rate
while you defrag. When my computer is fixing fragmentation,
I generally see about 3MB/sec transfer rate. How long
would it take to process a 2,000,000 MB disk ? If the whole
disk is fragmented, copying it might be faster. I am not sure
I see a point though. I do not defragment data volumes.
Takes too long.

*******

For video playback, if a disk were heavily fragmented, it might only
manage around 1-3MB/sec playback rate, which might not match
the requirements for some HD video format. Maybe the 64K
size change, would be enough to improve that. You can time the
time it takes to copy one (fragmented) video file, from one disk
to another empty disk, and use that copy time as an estimate of
the average read rate achievable during playback. If the video
format happened to need 8MB/sec playback rate, you could compare
the result to that number. If the copy happened much faster than
that, you might not need to change anything.

Having multiple tuners dumping to the same disk, is as likely
to be a source of trouble, as any other. Having a real-time
defragmenter, might fix it, but again, I do not know what
impact that is going to have on the disk. Just more thrashing.

During movie playback, an AV program could be scanning the
video stream, at the same time as you are viewing it. That's
probably not a big deal. An little more processor perhaps.

Paul

Per Paul:

I already had it turned off for "All Drives".

I think my reasoning at the time was that if the sys goes South,
I am going to re-image from a known good image..... and if
there is a problem with data, it is going tb restored from backup.

Am I missing anything by not including C:?
--
Pete Cresswell

it is just another form of a backup, in case something goes South.  But as
you implied, it is nowhere as good as restoring an image backup or clone of
your system.

It just provides another form of "insurance" in case something goes awry
with the system, and it does not take up all that much disk space.

I also use ERUNT, which I have found invaluable on some occasions, where
restoring an image backup would be a bit overkill and more time consuming,
than simply restoring the registry and its related files).

I think it is handy having all three "tools" in your toolkit.  Each has its
own place.

Il giorno Wed 04 Jul 2012 07:59:46p, *(PeteCresswell)* inviava su
microsoft.public.windowsxp.general il messaggio


consider a software that first packs all files to the end of the disk, then
optimize it to the start: i.e. jkdefrag (I still use version 3.36), there
are several options to make it

--
/-\ /\/\ /\/\ /-\ /\/\ /\/\ /-\ T /-\
-=- -=- -=- -=- -=- -=- -=- -=- - -=-
........... [ al lavoro ] ...........

Not an simple question to answer, however, LARGE files which are highly
fragmented MIGHT cause the issue you describe. If you rely on MS Defrag,
forget it. Try this freeware I have been using for years
http://www.kessels.biz/JKDefrag/

it is highly customizable and can be configured to run whenever with a
scheduler.



Some things in life can only be determined by doing. I think this is one of
them! Personally I defrag OFTEN. Some say it is a waste of time, some say
they do not know what they are talking about. I am of the latter opinion.


Speaking of CPU usage; with your system at idle what is the CPU usage?
Ideally it will be below 5%. Any CPU HOGS running? (Ctrl-Alt-Del, Task
Manager, Processes -- look at System Idle Process -- Looking at mine on a
laptop right and it shows 99%, further below CPU Usage varies showing 1-3%)
A CPU hog could sure explain, jerky, choppy, awful video playback!

Per none:

the mounted, writable, fixed volumes on your computer..."

Snowflakes added by Yours Truly.

Sounds like you are using the command-line version, right?
--
Pete Cresswell

Well, when you say 'command-line version' ... not really. I *DO* use command
line parameters in shortcuts. For example, to defrag my DVD partition I
create a shortcut to JKDefrag.exe and use the following syntax:

K: -a 7 -q -f 0 -l "" -u "DisableDefaults"

K: is the drive letter
-a 7  sorts files by folder + filename  (keeps associated files in their
respective folder, which keeps them close together on the disk -- should
minimize access time file to file as you view video)
-q  closes out defrag window when operation is complete
-f 0  leaves 'free spaces' to a minimum
-l  this is an 'L' lower case, disables the log file  (I see no point in
having that log)
-u "DisableDefaults"  this defrag program has a built-in list of 'space
hogs' which it wants to separate from most frequently used files and place
them on a slower section of the disk. For our specific use (dedicated
logical drive with video files) there no point using his default
optimization routines.

Works for me! Good luck.

Per none:


Thanks!   That's what I was trolling for.    Was intimidated by
the prospect of it defragging all my local drives whether I asked
for it or not.
--
Pete Cresswell