Defraggin your HDD

[lovingHDTV]

All,
I have found that 90% of my stuttering problems are caused by fragmented files. I've also found that defragmenting the HDD at the same time as Sage is recording, causes awful results with the recorded file.

I'm trying to figure out how I can schedule a defrag of the HDD when Sage is not going to be recording. It appears that for my HDD I need ~2 hours to get the drive de-fragmented. So what I've been doing is to manually look to see when Sage will be recording and getting a defrag session in when I can.

Anyone know if there is a way to script this? I've thought about scheduling the defrag at 2:00AM or something like that, to reduce the chance of defragmenting during a recording. Any other ideas? How are others doing this? Can we get sage to dump the recording schedule, then parse this to find big enough windows?

So what is everyone else doing?

[Jere_Jones]

Originally Posted by lovingHDTV

Can we get sage to dump the recording schedule, then parse this to find big enough windows?

That's easy enough. Just edit your sage.properties file. Look for the line "scheduler_export_file=". Add a filename and ta-da!

2 Warnings

1. Make sure that sage is completely closed (not just asleep) before editing.

2. The schedule includes the IR schedule, even if IR is turned off. You'll have to parse your way through that.

Enjoy,
Jere

[GTwannabe]

Are you using 64k clusters on your recording drives? Mine are 99% fragmented and I don't have any trouble with stuttering.

[lovingHDTV]

One of my drives is not formated at 64kB clusters. This is the one that I have to defrag all the time.

The other drives are fine.

[spike5884]

Is the 64k Cluster 'thingy' also good for the drive where I store music files(mp3)?? Since I re-encoded them at cd quality, they average about 4MB each.

[aperry]

It should be fine for your MP3's. The main place it might cause "problems", if any" would be if you had a ton of small (less than 64KB files). Each 1KB file would take 64KB on your drive.

[stanger89]

64k is fine for just about any drive that doesn't have a lot of files <64k on it.

[Jakebucky]

What I do to defrag my drive is to create a batch file with this:
defrag C: -V

Then schedule that to run at 2 am. This works on XP only.

[wexsmith]

Why don't you guys just use a scheduled task to defrag?

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/u...s/gehrke1.mspx

It's been around since Win95 and happens in a DOS shell, which closes after it's finished.


My OS partition is set to defrag every 1st day of the month. The recorded shows partition is set to defrag every 3 days. Last but not least my MP3 partition is set to defrag every 15th day of the month.

I definitely suggest to schedule defrags around your normal recording schedule. 4AM is the primetime for me to defrag since there's mostly infomercials on at that time and nothing records. You can even set it up to wake your computer to defrag, if you don't leave it on all the time.

Good luck and I hope it helps some of you.

[mbrown3]

I use an app called diskeeper (http://www.executive.com/defrag/defrag.asp), which allows you to set recurring defrag schedules for all drives. Great stuff, keeps things defragged nicely without having to worry about it, and has some pretty cool other features too.

[dvd_maniac]

I tried Diskeeper and it works fine for most of my drives, except for my recording drive. It says it will not defrag drives over 500GB. What do any of you here with over 500GB do to defrag?
PS I hate the built-in defrag as it takes WAY TO LONG to defrag my 750GB Raid-5 drive.

[lovingHDTV]

Scheduling a defrag is not a problem. Scheduling a defrag when I can guarantee that Sage will not recording is more difficult, but I looks like I can dump the recording schedule, parse it and then schedule a defrag.

thanks

[seawrx]

howabout partitioning the 500gb drive into smaller partitions. Sage will "span" multiple volumes, and you can set Diskeeper to defrag one partition at time - say each morning 1-3am, etc.

[Blue]

I've read that you need Diskeeper Server edition to defrag drives larger than 500 GB.

A couple other defrag utilities (that I have not tried):
PerfectDisk - www.raxco.com
O&O Defrag - www.oo-software.com

[hmca]

Anybody have problems defraging Sage video files? I have about a dozen unwatched files that Windows XP (SP1) says it can not defrag. Thus I can't get below 88% fragmented.

[rwc]

Is there anyway to change an already formatted partition to use 64k clusters without reformatting it?

thanks,

rwc

[mdmint]

Originally Posted by Blue

I've read that you need Diskeeper Server edition to defrag drives larger than 500 GB.

A couple other defrag utilities (that I have not tried):
PerfectDisk - www.raxco.com
O&O Defrag - www.oo-software.com

WinXP Pro sp2 defrags my 1.495TB recording partition via schedule every Monday morning 6am no problem.

[SHS]

Good list of Defragging Tools
Diskeeper Lite 7.0 it Free
DefragNT 1.9.0 it Free

[dvd_maniac]

@mdmint

I used to use the WinXP built-in utility, but it is WAY too slow.

@seawrx

howabout partitioning the 500gb drive into smaller partitions

I am putting my 1000+ dvd collection (compressed with xvid & Nero Digital) on this drive and if I split it up then I would have to have two Movies directory in my Imported Video Library.

@Blue

I got a copy of Diskeeper Server from work and it works fine. Thanxxx

[Menehune]

Originally Posted by rwc

Is there anyway to change an already formatted partition to use 64k clusters without reformatting it?

I just tried using PM8 to resize a partition and it didn't give a choice for cluster size. When I get home I will check Acronis and see if it will allow a conversion to 64k cluster.