How full should a hard drive be?

[Paul]

I got a new hard drive and have started moving data off some over full
(90%) hard drives.

What sort of amount of percentage fullness should I aim for?

I'm hoping there's a "knee" in the graph which shows fullness versus
performance which represents the point at which small increases in
fullness have a big effect on performance.

 

[Rod Speed]

I got a new hard drive and have started moving
data off some over full (90%) hard drives.

What sort of amount of percentage fullness should I aim for?

Doesnt matter anymore.

If you still pointlessly defrag, some defraggers do slow down
dramatically as the percentage of free space gets too low
but it makes a lot more sense to stop defragging now.

I'm hoping there's a "knee" in the graph which shows fullness
versus performance which represents the point at which
small increases in fullness have a big effect on performance.

Nope, there is no change at all as the drive gets fuller with
modern drives, essentially because they seek so fast now.

 

[Eric Gisin]

With NTFS, you hit the MFT zone at 87.5%.
Around 85% you get fragmentation, above that the MFT zone also shrinks.

Just do analysis in defragger and look at the graph and stats.

 

[Arno]

I got a new hard drive and have started moving data off some over full
(90%) hard drives.

What sort of amount of percentage fullness should I aim for?

I'm hoping there's a "knee" in the graph which shows fullness versus
performance which represents the point at which small increases in
fullness have a big effect on performance.

Well, depending on filesystem, file sizes, write sizes, read sizes,
OS, RAM for buffers, filesystem fragmentation, etc., you may see
something. But it is very dependent on your particular usage pattern
and set-up.

This means your question is very hard to answer.

Arno

 

[mscotgrove]

With NTFS, you hit the MFT zone at 87.5%.
Around 85% you get fragmentation, above that the MFT zone also shrinks.

Just do analysis in defragger and look at the graph and stats.








- Show quoted text -

As already said, there is no real answer.

For easy use, you want to make sure that a file copy, or edit is not
going to fail due to lack of space, so an answer is look at free space
in GBs rather than percentage. I would not like to less than maybe
2GB free for a drive that is not having files added.

Personally, I think defrag has it's place. The performance benefit is
limited, but in the case of a disk crash when files have not been
backed up, a defraged disks is much easier to recover. It is not a
substitue for good backups though.

Michael
www.cnwrecovery.com

 

[Rod Speed]

(e-mail address removed) wrote

As already said, there is no real answer.

For easy use, you want to make sure that a file copy, or edit is not
going to fail due to lack of space, so an answer is look at free space
in GBs rather than percentage. I would not like to less than maybe
2GB free for a drive that is not having files added.

Just because you wouldnt do it is hardly a rational reason.

Personally, I think defrag has it's place.

More fool you. The modern reality is that hardly any large files
are accessed serially anymore except media files and the speed
of access to those is entirely determined by the media play speed.

If you are moving large files around much, you should stop
doing that, not bother with defragging so the copy goes faster.

The performance benefit is limited,

Virtually non existent in fact.

but in the case of a disk crash when files have not been
backed up, a defraged disks is much easier to recover.

Makes a lot more sense to do better backups than to defrag so you can recover easier.

With modern hard drives so cheap now, decent backup costs peanuts.

It is not a substitue for good backups though.

Yep, good backup makes a lot more sense, automated so it happens every night etc.

 

[David Brown]

With NTFS, you hit the MFT zone at 87.5%.
Around 85% you get fragmentation, above that the MFT zone also shrinks.

Rubbish - windows will fragment files on any file system the first
chance it gets. Even with a smarter operating system and file systems
that are designed to minimize fragmentation (such as xfs and ext4), you
can quickly get fragmentation for some usage patterns.

At around 85% full, any attempt at defragging the disk is doomed - it
will take ages, and do very little good.

Of course, as another poster has said, fragmentation is a very small
issue with modern drives and modern systems, and is seldom worth
bothering about.

 

[Jack]

I got a new hard drive and have started moving data off some over full
(90%) hard drives.

What sort of amount of percentage fullness should I aim for?

I'm hoping there's a "knee" in the graph which shows fullness versus
performance which represents the point at which small increases in
fullness have a big effect on performance.

Old rule was 50%

 

[DevilsPGD]

Old rule was 50%

Even in the FAT days you could go higher then that. NTFS is usually
around the 75%-80% mark, which leaves you a bit of float before hitting
the MFT zones.

Other filesystems will have their own limits.

 

[Juarez]

I got a new hard drive and have started moving data off some over full
(90%) hard drives.

What sort of amount of percentage fullness should I aim for?

I'm hoping there's a "knee" in the graph which shows fullness versus
performance which represents the point at which small increases in
fullness have a big effect on performance.

Depends which defragmenter you use. Most say they need 20% free space to
work efficiently but Perfectdisk claims it can work well with a lot less
free space available. Can't remember the exact figure now but think it
is something like 5% free space needed only.

 

[Juarez]

Old rule was 50%

Nope. 20% free is all it's ever been. 50% is ridiculous.