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Forum: General Discussion

Topic: Harddrive Question.

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Is it true, that when a harddrive starts to get full, performance of it slows down. The reason I ask is that, my main one I use at the moment has got only 25% of free space left, but I have not notice any difference in performance. I'll be getting a new one in the next couple of weeks or so.

I would of thought that it's down to how maintained and clean it is, rather than how much data is on it.

 
Inviato Wed 16 Jul 08 @ 3:09 am
Performance degrades due to fragmentation. With Windows, files are more likely to be fragmented if your drive is full, or installations are more likely to be scattered as files will be stored in any free location rather than a block of 400MB e.g. for photoshop. It's slow reading tens or hundreds of library files which are fragmented and scattered across a drive.

(edit) Although, towards the start of a disk, files may be able to be read quicker (if not fragmented and sequential) because the surface area is bigger and seek times would be reduced.
 
the fuller the disk the harder the defrag, as there is less space to move data around and put in order physically on the disk. as long as you defrag after any big writes to the disk it should read quickly. a system disk running the os and other processes is a little different because it is always changing as you work. the drive you keep your music on doesn't change much, that data is static for the most part so should read quickly.
 
Cheer's guys,

Although this drive is about a year old now and I only have 25% free space left, I clean it out and defrag it every week, normally on a Monday, it seems that it is just as good today as it was when it was brand new.

I was just wondering.
 
I have always defraged my computers harddrive but never thought about defraging my externals. I might have to try this. One quick question I have heard people say not to use the built in windows defrag system beacuse it doesnt do as good of a job as others. Is that true? and if so what software do you use to defrag?
 
djkapitalkev wrote :
I have always defraged my computers harddrive but never thought about defraging my externals. I might have to try this.


I would advise you do it mate, and maybe run a disk clean up on them too. I think that's why mine has been good to me.

 
Okay, the Operating system uses the hard drive... Most of the software or files you have up and runing are loaded into memory... Windows uses a swap file, pretty much any system does, when you minimize or swap apps they get written to the drive...

If you have 25% of free space you are pretty much okay... the issue is when you have less then 10%, especially if your swap file is using a good amount of space... IN xp the larges swap file you can set is 4GB... The default setting is 1.5 gb i think...

Fragmentation does slow your system down when you open files, Data gets written to drives in available sectors, the FAT table stores the information on these sectors for the data... Defragging makes your files contiguous so that it is faster when you open, gets fragged when you close...

Run disk clean up, empty out anything you dont need.... I dont see my external getting fragged as much as my internals but when I copy a large amount of files into it, I do run defrag... Windows Defrag will do the same thing as any software out there, dont waste your money on anything else....

I DJ and do computer consulting....
 

Cheer's mroman73,

Very Useful information there mate, thanks.

 
 
Just a tip to the wise as i know of folk who take it for granted. A Harddrive can fail at any time new or old. I have two harddrives backed up with the same as my gig drives. Given the time spent over the years buying ripping tagging sorting etc etc... to lose all that work is far mere than soul distroying it can put you out of work. I have had three drives die over the years, fortunatley year on they get bigger and cheaper to buy.
 
chriso710 wrote :
Just a tip to the wise as i know of folk who take it for granted. A Harddrive can fail at any time new or old. I have two harddrives backed up with the same as my gig drives. Given the time spent over the years buying ripping tagging sorting etc etc... to lose all that work is far mere than soul distroying it can put you out of work. I have had three drives die over the years, fortunatley year on they get bigger and cheaper to buy.


very true, I have my stuff spread across three drives... Being mobile, the hard drives take a beating...

I always carry two drives(500 GB) that are mirrored with the same files for Djing and try to update once a month at least....

Also if you are going with external drives, try to get one with a fan... I currently use cases I bought from ebay and can just swap out the drives when I have issues... I used to use a WD Book or whatever they call it... Had to many issues with it powering down... The ones from the bay only power down when disconnected or when I flip the switch....
 
I agee. Make sure you defrag all the time and back it up. Two months ago I had WD 320 gig external hd go completly blank. Left the club on Friday night everything was fine, only to return Saturday night to find all 280 gig of videos on it wiped out. Labeling promo only video twice sucks ass!!!!
 
similar probs guys i'm still renaming mine and it happened way back on 1st of may, just glad i had back up files pity there was no xml file to go with it, but thats another story...

 


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