Author Topic: Defragging external hard drive  (Read 3678 times)

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timcan

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Defragging external hard drive
« on: May 31, 2008, 12:42:19 AM »
Hi all,  :)
 Just curious if you should defrag an external hard drive on occasion the same as you would an internal one.
 I make regular backup images and do delete files ect. so files are bound to get fragmented.
 I'd like to know what the forum members here do.   :)
 Thanks in advance for any views,opinions,or facts.  tim

Offline DavidR

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Re: Defragging external hard drive
« Reply #1 on: May 31, 2008, 02:21:46 AM »
I don't have an external drive but if I did I wouldn't treat it any differently to an internal drive. I would first check to see if it need defragmentation, I do the same for may second internal HDD and that is primarily for backups (images of the primary HDD partitions, and other data files, etc.).

If it needs defragmentation then it gets done, but it will frequently take much longer than my primary HDD because the image backups are around 2GB for each one (2) and it takes about 30 minutes for one of these to be defragmented. So if it were left for any length of time it would be a massive task, in fact after doing an image backup, I check and if needs be it will get a defrag right after the backup.
« Last Edit: May 31, 2008, 02:23:48 AM by DavidR »
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Offline alanrf

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Re: Defragging external hard drive
« Reply #2 on: May 31, 2008, 05:42:57 AM »
I perform imaging to an external drive ... it never gets defragmented.  Defragmentation matters for files that get read and especially for files that get read frequently - you do not want to have to wait for the heads to cross the disk looking for all the fragments on frequently accessed information. 

My disk imaging software files (also in the Gb range) are not in this category.  The fragmentation while writing is not an important issue and how often do my backups get read ... once in a very long while and when they do the fragmentation is not really an issue.  The hefting of all that data about the disk to defragment it has no value that I can discern.     

I reserve defragmentation (daily, automatic - set it and forget it - while I have dinner) for those disks that hold data I use all the time.

Which reminds me - time for my weekly incremental imaging.
   
« Last Edit: May 31, 2008, 05:45:34 AM by alanrf »

timcan

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Re: Defragging external hard drive
« Reply #3 on: May 31, 2008, 01:23:04 PM »
Thanks for the replies DavidR & alanrf
My first thoughts were the same as Davids and have defraged a couple of times when the windows disc utility analyzed it
and said it needed. Since then I've read at other forums that support what alanrf wrote.
Maybe it doesn't matter either way  :) anyway, more reading. thanks  tim

Offline DavidR

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Re: Defragging external hard drive
« Reply #4 on: May 31, 2008, 02:18:10 PM »
You're welcome, now you have the two sides of the coin ;D
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