Do It Right, Microsoft!
Fragmentation of files and disk space on secondary storage media like hard drives is a fact of technological life. While computer end users should not have to worry about it, it does affect the daily use of their computer systems. Signs of fragmentation include sluggish or slow performance of the computer. For IT professionals, fighting fragmentation is often overlooked when other more important security issues grab headlines, i.e. viruses and hackers.
To make matters worse, the tools for combating fragmentation are less than stellar in performance and functionality. As a point of reference, in 1988 I was defragmenting 20 MB (yes, megabyte) hard drives on Zenith 8088 PCs in a lab environment with Steve Gibson’s PC defrag tool. The process required 30 minutes per machine. Uggghhhhh! Today, modern processing power has increased alongside the hard drive sizes, but Microsoft defrag tool for NTFS takes much longer than 30 minutes in most cases.
So what is fragmentation and why should we care about fighting it? Fragmentation is a process that occurs as files are stored on the hard drive. The computer splits the files into hundreds of pieces and spreads them out over the drive. This happens to fill hard drive space and achieve optimal space utilization. Of course, over time the computer sacrifices performance for saving space. Today, most file systems still do not have a built in file and disk fragment optimization routine built into the operating system. Fragmentation can lead to slow file access time and early hard drive failure as the hard drive works much harder to open and save files.
Most of the defragmentation tools on the market today are easy-to-use GUI-based software packages like O&O Defrag or Diskeeper, but they are cumbersome and slow in most cases on all but the fastest PCs. Microsoft’s built-in defrag tool is even slower and does not do as good a job. There is however a command line based tool that works exceptionally well. DIRMS stands for “Do It Right Microsoft” and tries to overcome the limitations of the “big boy” utilities. DIRMS has a good combination of features and techniques for most PCs.
In the free software arena, JkDefrag is a fine product that has several good reviews. Its a simple program, fast and has a file placement algorithm that works well in most situations. The program works for Windows 2000/2003/XP/Vista/2008/X64 and works for hard drives, floppies, USB disks, memory sticks, and more.
This article was written by Perry Lund on Saturday, April 5, 2008. Permalink.