Re: Defrag for //gs

[Rubywand <rubywand@swbell.net>]

Randy Shackelford writes ...
> 
> Rubywand (rubywand@swbell.net) wrote:
> 
> :      Have you done any access time comparisons for File Copy vs. Beach
> : Comber HD partition defrags?
> 
> You were talking floppy disks at first.

     True.


> I never took a stopwatch to it but
> the presence or lack of the grunt sound of the drive heads moving around
> is a pretty good indicator.

     It is one indicator, yes.


 
> Common sense tells me that file access will be faster if all the directory
> blocks are lumped together at the beginning of the volume along with the
> volume directory and bit map.

     That was my feeling, too. When I saw that the defrag utility
(ProSel in this case) claimed that the 800k diskette it had defragged
had Zero fragmentation, Common Sense told me that it would out-perform
the File-copied 800k diskette which ProSel claimed had some small
fragmentation.

     Tests of boot and file access times (for the diskettes) produced a
surprise. The File-copied diskette speed gain was 30%-40% vs. the
original. The ProSel defragged diskette-- the one with everything neatly
arranged-- showed zilch speed gain vs. the original.

     Perhaps hard disks are different.



Rubywand