mrsnesbitt
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Fragmented filesAm defragmenting my computer.it's taking ages but there are some fragmented files.what are they and what is a contiguous file?
First correct answer on my desk will win a sticker!
D 
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sean
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A fragmented file has the information dotted about your hard drive, so it takes longer to read. A contiguous file is all together so quicker. De-fragmenting puts all the fragments together to make them contiguous.
Sits back and waits for howls of laughter from people who know about computers.
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tahir
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That's more or less it
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Northern_Lad
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| sean wrote: | A fragmented file has the information dotted about your hard drive, so it takes longer to read. A contiguous file is all together so quicker. De-fragmenting puts all the fragments together to make them contiguous.
Sits back and waits for howls of laughter from people who know about computers. |
Broadly true, but a coniguous file may not be on contiguous sectors on the disk - only in contiguous read positions.
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sean
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More or less and broadly are generous terms when applied to my IT knowledge. 
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Mrs Fiddlesticks
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so how often (if ever) should the smart IT person about town, defrag the old laptop then?
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Northern_Lad
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Depends on what you do with it and how much space there is.
If you're creating and deleting lots of large files, then quite often.
If you're browzing with the occasional word document then you probably won't need to for a long time.
It is a reasonably safe way to speed up an old machine though.
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mrsnesbitt
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I have finished the defragmenting bit now and have a report.....
not that I can understand it ofcourse! What should I look for?
Dx
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jema
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| mrsnesbitt wrote: | I have finished the defragmenting bit now and have a report.....
not that I can understand it ofcourse! What should I look for?
Dx |
You should have some before and after figure for % gragmentation. This is what matters mainly.
jema
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dougal
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Fragmentation reduces the apparent speed of the hard disk, because the disk has to do more to-and-fro-ing to bring up (or store) the document you want.
The slower the hard disk, the more of a slowdown you'd see.
And laptop drives are slower than those on mains-powered machines.
The fuller the disk, the more quickly will files become fragmented. (And the longer it will take to de-frag.) Laptops tend to have smaller, hence fuller, disks.
Because the operating system (windows) uses the disk, fragmentation can slow down other things than opening/closing files.
Hence its a 'good thing' to keep your disk no more than perhaps 80% full, and, especially on a laptop, keep the % files fragmented in single figures...
De-fragging is only about efficiency. It is however a bad time to have a power cut! (Shouldn't be a problem on a laptop!)
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