How to defrag a HDD properly

i have a step by step guide - with pictures - in the first post

 

IMO yes, but then again IMO, you should have windows on another partition, or physical drive to your games.

 

i've had the same bug with that, uncheck the box about moving directories close to the MFT and it stops happening.

 

defraggler is a very basic defragger, none of the advanced options.

 

yeah, but as i've said a few times in this thread: there is a big differnce between defragging fragmented files, and reorganising them/your MFT for better performance.

if you have all files within your games folder located physically next to each other, seek times are cut back - whereas they could be 'defragmented' but having 1000 files scattered all over the drive, it still takes time to locate and read them all.

 

... no.

HDD seek time is in milliseconds, if your drive averages 12 milliseconds, thats 12 milliseconds per file it has to find.


as an example, my company of heroes folder has 536 files.



if it had to go seeking through even half of those, thats an extra 3 seconds on whatever its doing (probably, loading the game/map etc) on top of how long it takes due to the files size (throughput). thats normal, if they're in sequential order.

my estimation (12ms times 250 files) assumes that they're still in sequential order on the disk (sequential read), if they're scattered all to hell that could go well higher. i'll try and find a normal reading for random reads vs sequential.



according to everest, its almost double - so instead of being 3 seconds, its 6. if your game takes 20 seconds to load, it could be halved to 10s, being placed sequentially, as opposed to randomly - even if fully defragged.


is it going to make a large difference? depends on the game, and how many files it has (and how badly they're scattered)

 

i did a big edit to the post above, rejzor. had some of it in the wrong order.

consolidation is not the same as reordering the files, thats merely compacting all the data towards the start of the disk. Udefrag can sort by folder name (so all files in D:\games\Starcraft II\ are physically near each other, which is far superior to merely being randomly shoved as close as possible to the start of the drive.

If you can find me details on defraggler actually sorting them properly, then by all means - thats great.

 

no, its 3s of seek time, added on to the time it takes for the data.

if it takes 20s to move 5GB, then its going to take 23s due to the delays from seeking (20S for a 5GB single file, as opposed to 23s for 5GB in 250 files)


if you dont beleive me, find a collection you have with large amounts of small files. try moving it somewhere, and then raring or zipping them and moving that. the compressed file always goes quicker, since there is only one file (and if its defragmented) - no seeking to worry about.

 

where'd you get that number from?

with the example i gave above, its 3 vs 6 seconds. I also clearly stated that a game with more loose files would be slower.



How about that? could save you 10-15 seconds of loading time.


if its WORTH it, is up to you... but since you defrag in the first place, dont you ALREADY think its worth it?

i've already pointed out some of your misconceptions (thinking it was in nanoseconds) so please, look into your HDD - its random vs sequential read speeds in MB/s, as well as its access times, the amount of files in the games you play and do the math yourself. if the math shows you'll save an amount of time you care about, then its worth it - and if its not, its not.

in my case, waiting around for games to load bores me to death - so yes, it matters to me. i didnt buy a hexa core and a 5870 to sit staring at loading screens.

 

it varies really, since i have no way of knowing how many files the game actually loads, i cant give you accurate figures.

is a 15s reduction possible? yes. but its certainly not going to happen in every game, only the big ones with hundreds (or thousands) of files.