Re: Defragging a directory?

[rubywand@aol.com (RUBYWAND)]

In article <55jlr7$2e7@news.emi.com>, drsmooth@relex.com (Edhel Iaur)
writes:

>
>Is there a way to defrag a ProDOS subdirectory file on a 3.5" disk?
>If so, what is it?


     One problem is that you cannot very well defragment just the
subdirectory (unless it's the only thing on the diskette).  The simplest
way to defrag a 3.5" diskette is to file-copy the contents to another
diskette.

     ProSel-16 will defrag a 3.5" diskette. I experimented using 2
diskettes. One was a new, relatively empty diskette. According to Info
Desk, it had just 8 fragmented files. The other was an old ProDOS 8 'work
horse' diskette which has 135 files, and 1255 used blocks. It had 104
fragmented files.

     Both diskettes went through ProSel-16's Optimizer ("Complete" mode),
after which they showed zero fragmented files.

     ProSel-16 includes tests for Read Efficiency which gives Average Time
in milli-seconds. Here are the Before/After results:

                     Linear Read          Random Read
                   Before     After        Before     After

"New" disk   16.15     16.36       151.07    151.55
"Old" disk    16.34     16.40       151.43    151.26

     No; the "Before" and "After" numbers are not mixed up.

     Most likely, ProSel-16's Read tests are so swamped by 3.5" diskette
drive mechanical delays that they do not discriminate improvements due to
deframentation.

     Even so, it looks like you should not expect a noticeable improvement
in performance. Defragging an 800k 3.5" diskette seems to be a waste of
time.
  

Rubywand