I have a 2TB external HD (spinner) which holds Macrium and Windows images, plus backups of my musicDo you turn on the optimization built into windows? It might help on the long run.
DB. I'm constantly updating it (deleting old images and adding new ones). It's now got to the stage
where Macrium takes much longer than it should.
It's become very fragmented, and the why is obvious.
Defragging a disk that size takes days; I don't know of a defragger more intelligent than the
antique method of serial iteration, sector by sector; move blocks to a lay-by, close up the gap,
move blocks back.
Now then, what about a simple copy? I get an empty HD, copy the live one to it, format the live one,
copy back. Everything should have zero percent fragmentation.
Viable or not?
Ed
Big Al wrote:It is old, not sure if 2TB is beyond it's scope. I have a 4TB drive but, like you, I'll be damned
On 6/1/24 09:38 AM, Ed Cryer wrote:
I have a 2TB external HD (spinner) which holds Macrium and Windows images, plus backups of myDo you turn on the optimization built into windows? It might help on the long run.
music DB. I'm constantly updating it (deleting old images and adding new ones). It's now got to
the stage where Macrium takes much longer than it should.
It's become very fragmented, and the why is obvious.
Defragging a disk that size takes days; I don't know of a defragger more intelligent than the
antique method of serial iteration, sector by sector; move blocks to a lay-by, close up the gap,
move blocks back.
Now then, what about a simple copy? I get an empty HD, copy the live one to it, format the live
one, copy back. Everything should have zero percent fragmentation.
Viable or not?
Ed
I use a defragger called 'my defrag'. It's no longer worked on but it works. It has 3 modes,
daily, weekly, monthly. The daily does as little as possible, defrag + a bit. Weekly does a
bit more, monthly obviously is very intense and sorts the files as well as defrag. The latter
would take forever on 2TB.
Not this program but if you used any defragger and run it weekly maybe it wouldn't be so bad.
How about partitioning the drive and put macrium on one section and other, more static files, on
the other partition? Macrium would frag, but be less to defrag.
I downloaded the latest version; 4.3.1. But the folder already existed when I came to install it.
Don't know how long I've had it resident.
So I ran it, selected the HD for analysis, got lots of colour splattered across the screen, then it
went into pause mode, telling me to hit space bar. I did that, and it crashed.
I ran it again, same outcome.
I think I'll follow your partition advice.
Ed
Big Al wrote:sorts the files as well as defrag. The latter would take forever on 2TB.
On 6/1/24 09:38 AM, Ed Cryer wrote:
I have a 2TB external HD (spinner) which holds Macrium and Windows images, plus backups of my music DB. I'm constantly updating it (deleting old images and adding new ones). It's now got to the stage where Macrium takes much longer than it should.Do you turn on the optimization built into windows? It might help on the long run.
It's become very fragmented, and the why is obvious.
Defragging a disk that size takes days; I don't know of a defragger more intelligent than the antique method of serial iteration, sector by sector; move blocks to a lay-by, close up the gap, move blocks back.
Now then, what about a simple copy? I get an empty HD, copy the live one to it, format the live one, copy back. Everything should have zero percent fragmentation.
Viable or not?
Ed
I use a defragger called 'my defrag'. It's no longer worked on but it works. It has 3 modes, daily, weekly, monthly. The daily does as little as possible, defrag + a bit. Weekly does a bit more, monthly obviously is very intense and
Not this program but if you used any defragger and run it weekly maybe it wouldn't be so bad.
How about partitioning the drive and put macrium on one section and other, more static files, on the other partition? Macrium would frag, but be less to defrag.
I downloaded the latest version; 4.3.1. But the folder already existed when I came to install it. Don't know how long I've had it resident.
So I ran it, selected the HD for analysis, got lots of colour splattered across the screen, then it went into pause mode, telling me to hit space bar. I did that, and it crashed.
I ran it again, same outcome.
I think I'll follow your partition advice.
Ed
I have a 2TB external HD (spinner) which holds Macrium and Windows
images, plus backups of my music DB. I'm constantly updating it
(deleting old images and adding new ones). It's now got to the stage
where Macrium takes much longer than it should.
It's become very fragmented, and the why is obvious.
Defragging a disk that size takes days; I don't know of a defragger more intelligent than the antique method of serial iteration, sector by
sector; move blocks to a lay-by, close up the gap, move blocks back.
Now then, what about a simple copy? I get an empty HD, copy the live one
to it, format the live one, copy back. Everything should have zero
percent fragmentation.
Viable or not?
I have a 2TB external HD (spinner) which holds Macrium and Windows
images, plus backups of my music DB. I'm constantly updating it
(deleting old images and adding new ones). It's now got to the stage
where Macrium takes much longer than it should.
It's become very fragmented, and the why is obvious.
I have a 2TB external HD (spinner) which holds Macrium and Windows
images, plus backups of my music DB. I'm constantly updating it
(deleting old images and adding new ones). It's now got to the stage
where Macrium takes much longer than it should.
It's become very fragmented, and the why is obvious.
Defragging a disk that size takes days; I don't know of a defragger more intelligent than the antique method of serial iteration, sector by
sector; move blocks to a lay-by, close up the gap, move blocks back.
Now then, what about a simple copy? I get an empty HD, copy the live one
to it, format the live one, copy back. Everything should have zero
percent fragmentation.
Viable or not?
Ed
Ed Cryer wrote:
Paul wrote:I had a light come on over my head, like with that apeman in 2001 Space Odyssey when he strokes the alien monolith. Luckily it wasn't accompanied with music by György Ligeti (:-
Anyway, here's the insight.
There are more factors involved here than just the external USB disk. There's the internal SSD, Macrium program, computer CPU etc.
So I decided to run a backup with all monitoring available locally.
I ran it, and it worked perfectly; top speed, CPU temp never exceeding 35°C.
Whatever slowed it last time appears to have gone away. And I've done no more than run the USB disk through "chkdsk /f". Maybe that process cleared some passageway.
Ed
Ed Cryer wrote:
I have a 2TB external HD (spinner) which holds Macrium and Windows images, plus backups of my music DB. I'm constantly updating it (deleting old images and adding new ones). It's now got to the stage where Macrium takes much longer than it should.
It's become very fragmented, and the why is obvious.
Defragging a disk that size takes days; I don't know of a defragger more intelligent than the antique method of serial iteration, sector by sector; move blocks to a lay-by, close up the gap, move blocks back.
Now then, what about a simple copy? I get an empty HD, copy the live one to it, format the live one, copy back. Everything should have zero percent fragmentation.
Viable or not?
Ed
Defrag used to use empty disk space. Don't know if it still does that now or uses ram instead, but if the disk is almost full and it needs to use empty space then defrag will take forever.
On 6/2/2024 12:36 AM, Paul in Houston TX wrote:
Ed Cryer wrote:
I have a 2TB external HD (spinner) which holds Macrium and Windows images, plus backups of my music DB. I'm constantly updating it (deleting old images and adding new ones). It's now got to the stage where Macrium takes much longer than it should.
It's become very fragmented, and the why is obvious.
Defragging a disk that size takes days; I don't know of a defragger more intelligent than the antique method of serial iteration, sector by sector; move blocks to a lay-by, close up the gap, move blocks back.
Now then, what about a simple copy? I get an empty HD, copy the live one to it, format the live one, copy back. Everything should have zero percent fragmentation.
Viable or not?
Ed
Defrag used to use empty disk space. Don't know if it still does that now or uses ram instead, but if the disk is almost full and it needs to use empty space then defrag will take forever.
There is some minimum "free space" requirement on a partition,
for defragmentation to work. Whereas if a disk drive was
"100 percent full", you could attempt to copy the data files
to another storage device, format the original partition,
then copy the files back.
The reason that cannot be fragment-free, the disk copy, is
there is a "reserved area" on NTFS, the size of the "reserved area"
changes as the partition fills. If the "writer" hits the
reserved area, it jumps over, and this causes a purposeful
fragment (that we can blame on the "reserved feature"). Even
if you resort to copying the data off and copying it back,
that's a problem. It means typically, the copy method is not
entirely free, and if the partition is too full, the defrag call
may fail to run when it sees that.
If you made the original partition double the size you actually
wanted, then copied the files back onto it, then used Disk Management
to shrink the partition, you *might* impress your friends with a fragment-free partition. If you shrink the partition right down
to nothing, then you can lie to people about how you defragmented
with zero spare space :-) But most of the time, there just
isn't spare unallocated area on the drive, for such tricks, and
you have to expect some fragments when the disk is getting full.
Another comedic situation, is the defragmenter can be tasked
with moving an object, which takes up more than 50% of the
partition. The defragmenter will copy the stupid thing over
and over again, and the "blocks display" will show the
object "moving up the screen" in a vain attempt to defrag it.
Paul
On Sat, 1 Jun 2024 14:38:05 +0100, Ed Cryer <ed@somewhere.in.the.uk> wrote:
I have a 2TB external HD (spinner) which holds Macrium and Windows
images, plus backups of my music DB. I'm constantly updating it
(deleting old images and adding new ones). It's now got to the stage
where Macrium takes much longer than it should.
It's become very fragmented, and the why is obvious.
I know it's not what you're asking, but I'd be very surprised to learn that fragmentation is an issue in 2024, specifically that it's responsible for a noticeable drop in performance. My best guess would be that something else entirely is responsible, possibly something with the drive itself. How does SMART look?
On 2024-06-02 04:37, Char Jackson wrote:
On Sat, 1 Jun 2024 14:38:05 +0100, Ed Cryer <ed@somewhere.in.the.uk> wrote: >>
I have a 2TB external HD (spinner) which holds Macrium and Windows
images, plus backups of my music DB. I'm constantly updating it
(deleting old images and adding new ones). It's now got to the stage
where Macrium takes much longer than it should.
It's become very fragmented, and the why is obvious.
I know it's not what you're asking, but I'd be very surprised to learn that >> fragmentation is an issue in 2024, specifically that it's responsible for a >> noticeable drop in performance. My best guess would be that something else >> entirely is responsible, possibly something with the drive itself. How does >> SMART look?
2024?
It would be true for SSD disks, but his are mechanical.
On Sun, 2 Jun 2024 21:23:59 +0200, "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
On 2024-06-02 04:37, Char Jackson wrote:
On Sat, 1 Jun 2024 14:38:05 +0100, Ed Cryer <ed@somewhere.in.the.uk> wrote: >>>
I have a 2TB external HD (spinner) which holds Macrium and Windows
images, plus backups of my music DB. I'm constantly updating it
(deleting old images and adding new ones). It's now got to the stage
where Macrium takes much longer than it should.
It's become very fragmented, and the why is obvious.
I know it's not what you're asking, but I'd be very surprised to learn that >>> fragmentation is an issue in 2024, specifically that it's responsible for a >>> noticeable drop in performance. My best guess would be that something else >>> entirely is responsible, possibly something with the drive itself. How does >>> SMART look?
2024?
Yes. I double checked just now, and 2024 is indeed the current year. ;-)
It would be true for SSD disks, but his are mechanical.
I know his are mechanical, that's what 'spinner' means, and I haven't seen or heard of a case of fragmentation that's so severe that it noticeably affects disk performance since the mid to late 1990s. That's why I suggested that something else was in play. I see by Ed's latest post that, indeed, nothing was
seriously wrong with his external drive. That is as I expected.
I use a defragger called 'my defrag'.
monthly obviously is very
intense and sorts the files as well as defrag.
The latter would take forever on 2TB.
Big Al submitted this idea :
I use a defragger called 'my defrag'.
i did too, now it's almost everything on SSD so it's not necessary any more
the last spinning disks are in the NAS that uses EXT partitions
monthly obviously is very intense and sorts the files as well as defrag.
it's since norton commander that I don't sort files, IMHO it's useless, also because I switch quite
often from alphabetic sort, to updated to size, so the best is to leave to the running software
(today is Total Commander) the sort task
The latter would take forever on 2TB.
well, run it overnight, who cares if it takes 5-6 hours to complete?
| Sysop: | Keyop |
|---|---|
| Location: | Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, UK |
| Users: | 361 |
| Nodes: | 16 (2 / 14) |
| Uptime: | 123:26:11 |
| Calls: | 7,716 |
| Files: | 12,861 |
| Messages: | 5,727,955 |
