Disk Defragmenter - Restrictions on File size?

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Guest

Hello,
Does anyone know if the disk defrag utillity for windows XP has a file size
limitation. Meaning if the file size is x amount of MB or GB in size will the
defrag utility not be able to move the dragments around the Hard drive as
needed?
Thank you,
 
This may be a problem if you don't have large "blocks" of
unfragmented free space or limited free space and may
require multiple runs of the defrag program to accomplish
the desired results. The XP's defrag program's (a limited
version) big brother (Executive Software's Diskeeper) runs
multiple times to do what you want.

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Clay-ISC said:
Hello,
Does anyone know if the disk defrag utillity for windows XP has a
file size limitation. Meaning if the file size is x amount of MB or
GB in size will the defrag utility not be able to move the dragments
around the Hard drive as needed?
Thank you,
Click to expand...

There is no limitation on file size; it's all in pieces per sector anyway,
so all defrag really does is make those sectors contiguous.

If a drive or file is seriously fragmented however, it might take more than
one defrag to straighten things out. I experienced that just yesterday in
fact; my C drive was much more fragmented than I thought it would be. The
first time thru it said I didn't need to defrag again, but from the visual
analysis, it still looked fragmented. So I ran it again and it fragmented.
Third time I ran it, it was done in just a few seconds; nothing to do.
It's not that unusual to have successive runs of things to completely
finish the job. To keep it from happening and wasting your time, simply
defrag more often. I do it weekly now but monthly works for most folks.
Me, I move a lot of files around, create and delete all day long, not
counting the normal traffic just running windows creates so I usually do it
more often.

You CAN have some pretty substantial problems though if less than say 20% of
your drive is unused. Makes it slow, cumbersome and having to run it more
times and more often. At 80% usage, a disk is crying for relief if it's
used for much more than simple storage.

HTH

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