How often do you guys defrag your drives

[Menehune]

The OS drive w/ standard (4k?) blocks- about every two months or so. The recording drives w/ 64k blocks- never, unless I upgrade the drives and copy my existing video directories over.

[lobosrul]

I use a program called O&O Defrag. It has a schedule to automatically defrag whenever you want. I've set it up to run at 2AM on Sunday morning each week for instance. Its faster and does a better job than the included MS utility.

[Ryokurin]

almost never on either drives. the system drive should only change when updates are being installed, and the only time it surfs the web is when I'm getting updated programs. The media drives are in 64k and rarely fragment. I used to run diskkeeper until I realized that it may work for 5 minutes when its running so I just uninstalled it.

[ybrew]

I defragged my system drive after I had everything pretty much installed/setup. Like others have said, the system drive just doesn't change all that much. Wiz.bin gets larger, more thumbnails get added, but that's really about it.

My recording drives are back to 64K now (I used acronis to fix that Doh! moment). I've been running sage for a little more than a year and haven't defragged yet with no plans to start. I remember reading on the TiVo forums years ago about not needing to worry about fragmentation on recording drives and something about it made sense so good enough for me.

[opy01]

I defrag both system and data drives every night. Like GKusnick said, the system drive is always being altered so it is recomended to defrag it. I record my shows onto another drive then comskip and compress so I know that drive needs defragmenting. Plus I use that drive for data storage for other things like music and pics.

I was under the impression that if any program uses a file at all it is possible for the file to become fragmented even if its not being altered, I could be wrong though. It just makes sence to me though to defrag all drives at least once a month if only to make sure your drive is in optimal running condition no matter what the usage or block size.

[stevech]

Originally Posted by opy01

I was under the impression that if any program uses a file at all it is possible for the file to become fragmented even if its not being altered, I could be wrong though. .

semi-true, for common 4K block sizes. For video, where you should have a dedicated partition formatted as or converted to 64K blocks, to reduce I/Os per second, fragmentation is far less relevant. This is because of the number of clusters per file - much fewer than with 4K block sizes. A file's constituent blocks (and sectors) would not change unless the file is altered or you defrag, as far as I know.

[rickgillyon]

Originally Posted by opy01

I was under the impression that if any program uses a file at all it is possible for the file to become fragmented even if its not being altered

No, that surely isn't true - you're saying that Windows reads a file it doesn't need to update at all, opens it for writing, and rewrites it for no reason? I'm not buying that...

[tipstir]

O&O Defrag 8.5 Pro is set to autosense on the SAGETV Recorder... No problems so to answer your question it done when it's needed..

[opy01]

Originally Posted by stevech

semi-true, for common 4K block sizes. For video, where you should have a dedicated partition formatted as or converted to 64K blocks, to reduce I/Os per second, fragmentation is far less relevant. This is because of the number of clusters per file - much fewer than with 4K block sizes. A file's constituent blocks (and sectors) would not change unless the file is altered or you defrag, as far as I know.

Well since I use the same drive to capture and then compress I would think that it would need defragmenting often since it compresses, writes the new file then deletes the old one. Not to mention all the miscelanious files that get left behind and deleted later.

Originally Posted by rickgillyon

No, that surely isn't true - you're saying that Windows reads a file it doesn't need to update at all, opens it for writing, and rewrites it for no reason? I'm not buying that...

I guess your right. I have never used a system before that never gets fragmented. Of coarse on the systems I use files get altered, added or deleted all the time.

This brings up another question. If I have a 1.5 Tb RAID with my videos on it and a 200Gig system disk, should I have another disk for the paging file and other stuff such as work folder for compession and comskip? I was going to put another anyway fot the paging file just to increase performance. If I do that maybe I won't have to defrag the RAID as much therefor taking stress off the HDs.

[rickgillyon]

Originally Posted by opy01

This brings up another question. If I have a 1.5 Tb RAID with my videos on it and a 200Gig system disk, should I have another disk for the paging file and other stuff such as work folder for compession and comskip? I was going to put another anyway fot the paging file just to increase performance. If I do that maybe I won't have to defrag the RAID as much therefor taking stress off the HDs.

200GB is huge for a system disk. I'd probably just partition that and use 75% of it for my compression stuff and pagefile...

I do my compression on another machine entirely, over the network.

[opy01]

Originally Posted by rickgillyon

200GB is huge for a system disk. I'd probably just partition that and use 75% of it for my compression stuff and pagefile...

I do my compression on another machine entirely, over the network.

The 200GB disk is the smallest one I have. I always found creating different partitions pointless since the read heads have to read the data from the same platters anyways. I thought that if you have the paging file on a seperate physical disk that it would perform alot faster since the read heads dont have to move around as much. I just wasnt sure how much of a performance increase I would get using that drive for compression also. I dont have another computer that can compress as fast as my HTPC. When my Shuttle starts compressing the files it drops to a crawl and thats the only other fast computer I have (for now).

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by opy01

The 200GB disk is the smallest one I have. I always found creating different partitions pointless since the read heads have to read the data from the same platters anyways.

Partitioning allows you to reinstall the OS without having to find a place to store your data while you format the OS partition.

[GKusnick]

I've also found that it can improve defrag performance to keep large data files that never change (such as ripped CD images) in a separate partition from data that changes frequently and needs frequent defragmentation.

[opy01]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Partitioning allows you to reinstall the OS without having to find a place to store your data while you format the OS partition.

If I start using Acronis then I dont have to worry about that. I can store the backup and other files on the other drive.

Originally Posted by GKusnick

I've also found that it can improve defrag performance to keep large data files that never change (such as ripped CD images) in a separate partition from data that changes frequently and needs frequent defragmentation.

Thats why I am going to have the 1.5TB RAID. All movies, pictures and other files I want to store go on there.

[stevech]

Originally Posted by opy01

I always found creating different partitions pointless since the read heads have to read the data from the same platters anyways. .

True, except a 2nd partition for mpeg files, formatted as 64K blocks, is very worthwhile in I/O speed for these big files. You do not want 64K blocks for small files.

[opy01]

Originally Posted by stevech

True, except a 2nd partition for mpeg files, formatted as 64K blocks, is very worthwhile in I/O speed for these big files. You do not want 64K blocks for small files.

That is true if your only using one hard drive. If you are using a laptop or a slim PC with limited room inside I would completely agree. If you have multiple hard drives it would much more efficient and faster to format the entire alternate HD in 64k clusters and have your videos on that instead of your OS HD. I have never had a lack of hard drives or space for hard drives so I have never needed to split up a partition since Windows 95 and the limit of block sizes in larger partitions on an older FAT file system.(sweet memories)

I do see the point of the 200GB HD being way too large for an OS but like I said earlier its the smallest SATA HD I have. It is a bit frustrating having 170GB of space just sitting there but maybe I could find some use for it. Maybe I will listen to advice and make a seperate partition then do what GKusnisk said and put ISO files on there that are never used at all so there is no waisted energy reading them and no waisted time defraging that space. That would actually be better than storing that data on my RAID.

[GKusnick]

Originally Posted by opy01

I have never had a lack of hard drives or space for hard drives so I have never needed to split up a partition since Windows 95 and the limit of block sizes in larger partitions on an older FAT file system.

I have plenty of space in my case too, but that doesn't mean I want to fill it up with power-sucking, heat-producing, noise-generating drives. One large drive, partitioned, is generally more cost-effective and energy-efficient (not to mention quieter) than the equivalent amount of space spread out over several smaller drives.

[stevech]

I went with two drives in RAID1 to reduce the impact of a drive failure and let me drive image backup only the OS and not the video storage - which takes too long. And stop using several smaller drives (160GB) for video

[opy01]

Originally Posted by GKusnick

I have plenty of space in my case too, but that doesn't mean I want to fill it up with power-sucking, heat-producing, noise-generating drives. One large drive, partitioned, is generally more cost-effective and energy-efficient (not to mention quieter) than the equivalent amount of space spread out over several smaller drives.

I ony hear the case fans and thats only when the TV is off. If I am watching a show I don't even hear that (even when its a quiet show). My PS2 is noisier than my HTPC. As for heat and power, one or two extra drives may make it a little warmer but they don't suck that much power at all. I mean when you have a 400W PS in your PC and the drive uses +/- 7watts and is more quiet that a cooling fan that takes 2.2 Watts it really doesn't make much difference. Of coarse when I am recording 2 shows at one time, watching another that was recorded the night before and compressing the ones that I want to archive I want all the perfomance I can get. Plus I have an HD tuner so that in itself will use the heck out of a hard drive.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by opy01

I ony hear the case fans and thats only when the TV is off.

I'd be worried about the longevity of the drives then. Drive lifespan is inversely related to how hot it runs. I've had two maybe three drives die on me, and they were all in my server in places not in front of fans.

If I am watching a show I don't even hear that (even when its a quiet show). My PS2 is noisier than my HTPC. As for heat and power, one or two extra drives may make it a little warmer but they don't suck that much power at all.

It doesn't have much to do with power, what makes storage "loud" is the mechanical noise from the drive itself, coupled with the noise to keep them cool. Remember drives are much more sensitive to heat than any other component in the PC.

I mean when you have a 400W PS in your PC and the drive uses +/- 7watts and is more quiet that a cooling fan that takes 2.2 Watts it really doesn't make much difference.

Consider that most PCs use on the order of 100W idle, and it's a bigger difference than you might think, approaching 10% of your power consumption/heat generation.

Of coarse when I am recording 2 shows at one time, watching another that was recorded the night before and compressing the ones that I want to archive I want all the perfomance I can get. Plus I have an HD tuner so that in itself will use the heck out of a hard drive.

Not really, one HD recording won't come close to stressing a drive. HD recordings use maybe 5-10% of a drives capability.