Daily Defrag

[mysterio2099]

I recently purchased a Maxtor 120 Gb 7200 RPM hard drive.
After the day is over, and I analyze it under Windows 2000, it is chock full of fragments. I have to defrag about 5 times to get them down to a decent amount. This is a daily process. With my other Maxtor 40 Gb 5400 RPM hard drive, I only needed to defrag about once or twice a MONTH.

Any ideas why this daily defragment is occuring?

[EzyStvy]

Everytime you open and save a file, chances are it'll get saved to a new location. (or parts of it will)

[mysterio2099]

I don't understand what you're saying....please explain

[PMich]

What he is saying is every time you open up a file and save it the new data will occupy a different physical space on the platter. I don't know to what extent this occurs but it certainly does. A 120GB HDD without any partitions is asking for extended defrag times once you begin to fill it up. I personally don't keep any partitions over 25 GB and that may be a little much even. Partitioning your HDD in a logical manner is one way to reduce defrag times and frequencies. I keep a 10GB for OS (probably overkill but I've got more space than I need), a 25 GB for programs, 20 GB for mp3s, 15 GB for documents, and 10 GB as a FAT32 partition in case I ever need it (again, because I've got more space than I need right now). I have really found no need to defrag my mp3 partition or my documents partition to this point (4 months after completion) and haven't used the FAT32 partition at all. I've got about 12 GB worth of mp3's and 5 GB worth of documents that the computer doesn't have to go through when defragging. It really seems to save a lot of time by having to grind through 17 GB less data.

[doctorgonzo]

Partitioning would help a great deal. 120 GB is a lot for just one partition, and as you have noticed it takes a long time to defrag. What you need to do is split up your drive into partitions. I have an OS partition, an MP3 partition, a games partition, a Linux partition, and a shared FAT32 partition. MP3s, since they are generally read-only, never need to be defragged. The partitions that do get used and need to be defraged (like the games partition and the OS partition) are much smaller so it takes a lot less time.

By logically dividing your drive into parts so that similar files share a partition, you can make things a lot easier.

[DragonNOA1]

What do you save on this drive? Files you use frequently?

[mysterio2099]

I have games, some mp3 files, flash documents, general applications, pictures, that's about it.

I'm no expert on paritioning...

How can I partitoin my HD without losing all of my data, and doing it for FREE?

[DragonNOA1]

It can be done with disk management. Might need to be first converted to a dynamic disk though.

[mysterio2099]

Please explain (again, I have never messed with partitioning this way)

[mysterio2099]

I found where i can make my basic disk, and dynamic disk, but I'm not exactly sure what this will do.... I still need help partitioning.