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True Risks of Fragmentation

Discussion in 'PC Hardware' started by gplea, 2009/04/05.

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  1. 2009/04/10
    TonyT

    TonyT SuperGeek Staff

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    Agreed.

    There will be a noticable performance increase after defrags, even on large drives, when using a second drive in audio editing.

    For example, one may use a pc in a studio solely for audio editing and recording. This pc has the op sys and programs and even may have the audio files on a different drive or partition. A second pc can be used for audio plugins and sound effects as they place a heavy load on the cpu.

    The second comp is networked to the first via an audio hardware device that is used for the audio plugins, and it pulls the desired plugins as requested via the software on the editing-recording comp.

    Regularly defragging the slave disks on these 2 systems will keep performance up to par. Keep in mind that a recording may be huge in WAV format. A 70 MB tune that ends up on a CD may start out as a 500 MB single WAV split into 64 separate tracks. Or even 5 times larger if the audio file is in a proprietary format.
     
    Last edited: 2009/04/10
    TonyT,
    #21
  2. 2009/04/10
    Bill

    Bill SuperGeek WindowsBBS Team Member

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    Hmmm, I don't know, Tony. I am saying any gains would be marginal, if noticeable at all - so I don't see the agreement. While I can't disagree with your specific example, I think it represents an extreme exception to the norm, and therefore not applicable to the vast majority of users. In your example, that user (aspiring sound technician/engineer?) with an audio editing studio capable of processing 64 discreet channels has totally different computing, temporary storage, and permanent storage needs than the typical forum visitor and home user creating DVDs from videos taken with their camcorders. Most users do not even edit still images - they just archive for safe keeping.

    But having been involved in a little A/V editing in previous duties, if I recall correctly, the dedicated "editing" systems were typically cleared of old samples once the final version was set - it's an editing machine, the files were just there temporarily. The final version was moved off to archiving and reproduction - that is, on to other machines, drives - and tapes. The only files remaining were the "program" files that were on the disk before the editing began. So unless the editing program itself had a major upgrade, I don't see why its files would suddenly become fragmented. I do think, however, that once that editing drive was setup, defragging free space would be a good idea before that system's first editing project. I just don't see it needed again until something big happens to the permanent files. But once again - I am talking about typical home, office, school, and gaming machines too - not specialized computers dedicated to specialized tasks that work with many frequently modified files.
     
    Bill,
    #22


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  4. 2009/04/11
    TonyT

    TonyT SuperGeek Staff

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    What I meant was that defragging the disks that stored the music files and the disks that stored the plugins benefits performance as these disks will become fragmented.

    For example, a 500 MB music file is stored on comp B. Comp A is the editing box. Comp A opens the music file (stored on a disk on Comp B), edits it a bit, uses some effects (stored on a different disk on Comp B), saves it. Makes various edits over time. Repeats with other music files.

    The disks on comp B get fragmented and defragging them will increase performance overall.

    Realize that every time an effect is added to a music file, and that file is reopened for editing later, the effects must "load" again. A music file may have 30 different effects added to it in time. And each time the file is opened, those effects that are stored on comp B must load into memory on comp B and then get sent with the file to comp A.

    And also the audio guy may combine several large audio files into one larger compilation, he may have 10 audio files opened at the same time. The disks that store these files and plugin effects do get fragmented.

    However, I agree completely that this is NOT what the average user faces.

    Also, on Windows servers that run large databases and even content mgmt, defragging is important for network performance. Not applicable though to Linux servers.
     
    TonyT,
    #23
  5. 2009/04/11
    Bill

    Bill SuperGeek WindowsBBS Team Member

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    :) Your statements are in line with my statement above, "...unless you are constantly installing and uninstalling massive programs with 100s of files on all your drives... ".

    I think we've come full circle noting your initial post in this thread,
    However, I still contend that even in a Windows server environment, frequent or in-memory defragging is not necessary when there is still a nice chunk of free disk space for the OS and controllers to work with. I note with 1.5Tb drives for $130 - that's enough cheap space for 3000 500Mb files! It will be quite some time before fragmentation on that drive affects performance. Granted, not many users today have drives that big, but 500Gb drives are common, and certainly 1Tb will be soon. But a 500Mb file will always be seen as considerably larger than average.

    The jury is still out on that (or is out again?). I don't run any Linux boxes, but I don't recall ever defragging UNIX boxes - back when I had a real job. ;) Nevertheless, some say Linux drives may benefit from defragging too - though perhaps they too, are not speaking to the average user - err, if you can call any Linux user, "average ". ;)

    http://www.kdedevelopers.org/node/2270
    http://www.ubuntuhq.com/content/why-and-how-defragment-linux-hard-drive
     
    Bill,
    #24
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