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what is the use disk defragmenter?will it frees the disk space when it is defragmented r it compresses file?
BENEREE
When a computer is used, bits of data can be thrown around a disk in no particular order, and when you call up a program or file, the OS has to search the disk until it finds all of the data needed to call up that particular program or file. The result is programs and files taking a bit longer to open.
For example, the notepad program may be contigious (meaning all it's data is together in one place, which is good.) But when I open notepad, Windows may move it's data to different places, and next time I open notepad, It will take a little longer to open because Windows is searching for it's data.
Disk Defragmenter moves and data from the "end" of the disk to the "beginning". (or as close to the beginning as possible.) Since Windows searches the beginning of a disk first for data, this will make things a little faster.
Defrag will also put data in the right order at the beginning of a disk, so Windows can find all of the data of a particular program or file all at once.
If i'm correct, defrag will compress some files (for better performance) so this will save some disk space, but I doubt any more than a little.
If you use Windows 9x, the defrag program actually shows the bits of data all over the drive, and you can see it take data from the end of the drive and put it at the beginning.
I hope my rambling on answers your question. :)
-Trent
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Todays History Lesson:-
A defragmentor was never part of original dos.
A person and/or company (not related to Microsoft) realised HDD's required tidying every so often and wrote the program.
Early versions could run for hours and results from speed test programs did not show that much of an improvement. There again who knows what/how were they testing.
Then MS with the 'embrace and enhance' policy (sometimes called piracy) took it on and the function became a standard dos and windows component.
Good Luck -Keep us posted.
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Another aspect to disk defragmenting which has not been mentioned is that it will free up large continous sections of the hard drive. It will not give you more hard drive space, you have to delete or compress files to do that. In normal disk usage, files get scattered all over the drive and gaps between files get created as files are deleted or moved. A defragmenter will rearrange the files in an orderly fashion and fill in the gaps. For example, you may have 5GB of free hard drive space left on the hard drive, but it is maybe broken up in a bunch of 10-500MB chunks. This means that the hard drive has to spend more time seeking empty spots to write files to. After defraging, all the used space is compacted to the front of the drive and a 5GB empty space is available at the end where new files can be quickly written without the hard drive having to jump around the disk looking for sufficient space. This is particular helpful if you work on very large single files like multi-GB video files or if your computer has to create virtual RAM.
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There is a drawback to packing all the files at the front of the drive. When a file is modified near the start of the drive, the new sector might have to be placed a long way from the other sectors of the file. Newer defraggers give you the option of not doing that, and some experts advise just defragging the files without packing them all together.
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A very interesting point from aegis (#6) and worthy food for thought.
From what I've read over the years I doubt that obssesive defragging does any harm but it is totally unecessary. Once a week is more than plenty for most folk.
some other bloke...
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I don't think DOS needed defragging.
QUOTE: " Edwards attributes that to a lucky twist: The computer was running an ancient operating system, DOS, which does not scatter data all over drives as other approaches do."
Source: http://www.spaceandtechnology.com/D...
=]
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DOS used the FAT file system and it could scatter files. It's the file system that controls writing to disk not the Operating System.
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Defragging is necessary to keep the drives performing at their best since accessing a fragmented file will take longer than a contiguous one (wasted seeks). If the drives see a lot of file modification/creation/deletion activity then free space will also fragment badly resulting in slower writes. I've read that even SSD drives are affected by the latter problem.
I take the easy approach to defragging lol. I've got Diskeeper 2008 installed on the system; it automatically defrags all 3 drives in the background when necessary, and it has been doing a fantastic job, and despite being packed with files, drive performance is great.
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I use Diskeeper 2000 for my Compaq Presario (Win 2000 Pro)and TuneUp Drive Defrag 2008 for my Win XP computer.
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There are so many misconceptions when it comes to disk
defrag that it's no wonder people often get disillusioned
when it doesn't produce the desired effects - failing to
use it again and missing out on its actual purpose.If you're expecting a sudden ocean of disk space to reveal
itself, you're probably going to be disappointed. That
said, disk defrag is still well worth the time that it takes to
run.I put it on before I go to bed around once a month and let
it do its thing. I've tried a couple of the third party defrag
tools but those with more experience should be the ones
to tell you which is best there.
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I run Diskeeper and I definitely think there is a performance improvement over using a PC with heavily fragmented drives. Since DK has an automatic option, there is no need to analyze and run defrag manually.
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