Avast free daily fragmentation

[crow]

Hi
I have found out that avast free, gets fragmented[see attached log] every day as per the following description:Fragmentation by size 52%, by count:1%, fragmented files:9 fragmented directories: 3
Avast is defragmented every day. I`ve checked with another machine I have,and I get about the same diagnostic.  Any reason for this high fragmentation?
Thanks

[igor]

Well, every day new virus definitions are downloaded... so that might be the case. Or, it might be some logs that are appended with new information (e.g. about the new downloaded updates).
Since the list of files in your report shows only files with 1 fragment (i.e. defragmented), hard to say.

[Jack 1000]

Interesting that this was brought up about fragmentation.  A little Avast history on my Windows XP system:

When I had Avast 6, and ran Windows Disk Defragmentor in Safe Mode, there would be like one or two files that would remain fragmented.  "ie, some files could not be defraged. See report for details."

Than there was an update to Avast 6, and I could defrag perfectly every time.

Since the update to version 7, I am back to where I used to be where there are a couple files that don't defragment.

Jack

[Lisandro]

Use boot time defragmentation for files in use.
PuranDefrag has this feature.
It's not an error of avast! This is how Windows work.

[Dch48]

I've been wondering lately if Puran Defrag is still in active development. There hasn't been an update in ages (not that it needs one but still). I sent them an email and got no response.

[crow]

Use boot time defragmentation for files in use.
PuranDefrag has this feature.
It's not an error of avast! This is how Windows work.

Thanks for your reply Tech, that does not explain this morning check by WINCONTIG this time: one time after avast manual update and second time after wincontig`s Avast defragmentation, if it would not be able to defragment because as you said, files in use case, wincontig would not have shown "not fragmented' window after fragmentation recheck , please see the attached wincontig`s logs. Thanks again.

[Lisandro]

Well, if it is not a trouble, go ahead and defragment avast each time.
Of course, seems overkilling. Defragmentation is not a panacea.

[DavidR]

This level of fragmentation is a bit of a non-entity, the max file fragments in your image is 6 and that really isn't big by any stretch of the imagination.

This only looks like a big deal because you are only looking at the avast folder and these files would change daily so fragmentation is always going to be there.

Defragging just my firewall program folder and avast doest even feature in the next 10, nor does it appear the next 10 after selectively defragging those specific folders.

So you shouldn't really take these things in isolation, defrag today and you are likely to see the same fragmentation tomorrow as that is the nature of volatile data. This in no way impacts on my system runs just fine, if I defragged them, tomorrow it is likely to be the same and overall my c:\ drive has 3% fragmentation on 225MB, this is minuscule.

Looking at it in context of hard disk fragmentation and you will see there are bigger fish to fry, avast! doesn't have any file feature in the top ten fragmented files. My firewall takes eight of the top ten (first 6 and last 2) and my mailwasher anti-spam takes one and thunderbird the other one.

[MikeBCda]

I'll generally temporarily disable avast's self-protection before defragging, to ensure all avast files are included.  Probably no longer necessary, since I now defrag with Puran's boot-time thing, but I'd gotten into the habit while still using Win's defrag and of course old habits are hard to break.  Probably no harm done, and with the re-design of the avast UI it's more convenient to re-enable self-protection now (plus, of course, there's now the visible reminder which was a long overdue addition).

[Jack 1000]

I'll generally temporarily disable avast's self-protection before defragging, to ensure all avast files are included.  Probably no longer necessary, since I now defrag with Puran's boot-time thing, but I'd gotten into the habit while still using Win's defrag and of course old habits are hard to break.  Probably no harm done, and with the re-design of the avast UI it's more convenient to re-enable self-protection now (plus, of course, there's now the visible reminder which was a long overdue addition).

I defrag as an Amin in Safe Mode.  Prevents stuff from possibly kicking in during the process.

Jack

[crow]

I posted this question as I thought may be something is not working as it should and bring it to the attention of Avast team, but I understand now that it is not something irregular, so I`m of the case then.
Thanks for the replies.

[DavidR]

Yes, nothing irregular; avast has no control of how the files are placed on disk, that is down to the operating system. It may well dictate the folder location, but that in itself is an artificial location, it isn't physical as a folder could be a grouping of files spread all over a drive partition.

When a file is created or modified it is written to disk and frequently it will be fragmented at the time of creation as the OS doesn't look for a free space on the hard disk big enough for the whole file. When modified it is possible that the size of the modification may exceed the size of any free space directly beside the existing file, so it will be written to a different cluster.

The amount of fragmentation also depends on the cluster size 4KB is a usual default though it can be as small as 512bytes or as large as 32KB. The bigger the cluster size tends to be the less fragmentation (usually in smaller files) but that then leads to more wasted space, e.g. a file that is only 1KB being placed in a cluster that is 32KB = 31KB wasted space. So the sweet spot is around the default 4KB.

[crow]

Yes, nothing irregular; avast has no control of how the files are placed on disk, that is down to the operating system. It may well dictate the folder location, but that in itself is an artificial location, it isn't physical as a folder could be a grouping of files spread all over a drive partition.

When a file is created or modified it is written to disk and frequently it will be fragmented at the time of creation as the OS doesn't look for a free space on the hard disk big enough for the whole file. When modified it is possible that the size of the modification may exceed the size of any free space directly beside the existing file, so it will be written to a different cluster.

The amount of fragmentation also depends on the cluster size 4KB is a usual default though it can be as small as 512bytes or as large as 32KB. The bigger the cluster size tends to be the less fragmentation (usually in smaller files) but that then leads to more wasted space, e.g. a file that is only 1KB being placed in a cluster that is 32KB = 31KB wasted space. So the sweet spot is around the default 4KB.

Thank you for the explanation DavidR

[DavidR]

You're welcome.