defraging so slow...

  • Thread starter Thread starter Rusty K
  • Start date Start date
R

Rusty K

New member
Good day,

I running 700hz and I just added another 128MRam to make 256. Would this cause my defrag time to roughly double? Also I had to defrag three times today. Admitedly I worked all day with wav's. How did I help myself by adding RAM besides more memory?

Also I've seen posts a long time back about a defrag utility that cut's the time way down. Anybody know about this?

Thanks,
Rusty K
 
Well there is norton speed disk. But I never defrag anyway. Just move the data to another drive and format the old one.
 
Wouldn't moving the data to another disc and then move it back do the trick? No need to format the old disc, right?
 
Rusty,

You need to understand a few things.

Your hard drive is long term storage. When you run a program, all or a portion of that program is loaded from the hard drive to physical memory (RAM). All programs and data are loaded into RAM before they are processed...even though it might seem like you're reading data directly to and from the hard drive when recording.

*You should never refer to a hard drive or any long term storage as memory!!!* Lots of people make this mistake.

Defragmenting is a process which sort of realigns data on your hard disk. Take this very simple case: You write three files to your hard drive. First a large file (1), then a small file (2), then another large file (3). The files are physically written to the disk one after another.... 123. Now let's say you delete the second rather small file and write a new file (4) that is larger than the file you just deleted. If you wrote this file contiguously, one block after another, it would not fit in the gap between file 1 and file 3, so it would have to be written after file 3, leaving that hole there where file 2 used to be. Over time, this would create a big problem in which you'd have a bunch of holes of wasted space on the drive. Not good. In reality, the file will be split and part of the file will be written in the gap between files 1 and 3, and the rest of the file will be written after file 3 like such: 1434. The new file is now "fragmented", which means that it is split into one or more pieces on the disk. It will take longer to load this file than it would if the file was written as one contiguous block. The process of defragmenting rearranges your files to eliminate this fragmentation problem. (in truth the operating system is responsible for the filesystem and may or may not use a more complex means of file management to maintain performance over the long term in regards to fragmentation)

A couple of things to note:

- Defragmenting has nothing to do with physical memory (RAM), except that a severe shortag of RAM can slow the process down.

- Fragmentation can decrease disk efficiency, but only when it becomes severe, typically when you've written and deleted many small files. When working with very large audio files, fragmentation is typically less of a concern but defragging is a good idea after the completion of a project. Defragmenting two or three times a day is not helpful.

- File fragmentation in some cases can improve performance. Consider the case in which your read and write buffers are of equal size (typical of ASIO). Let's say you record 8 track simultaneously. Those tracks are written in a fragmented fashion. A piece of track one is written, then a piece of track two is written, and so on and so forth. When you playback these tracks, they are optimized for speed because the system will read a piece of track one, then a piece of track two, and won't have to do a lot of seeking. Now this is only true in certain situations, and I'm not suggesting anything. I'm just trying to point out that fragmentation is not always a bad thing. In the long term it typically turns out that way, but in the short term don't worry so much.

- Emeric and ola are correct in that moving files from one disk to another and perhaps back again will defragment the files (assuming the location they are written to doesn't contain large holes). This in many respects duplicates the process of a defragmenter, but uses two disks and is therefore faster. When you run defrag, the system is reading and writing files around on one disk, and performance drops to a crawl...which is why it takes so damn long.

- Increasing your memory doesn't really improve disk performance. Not having enough memory will increase swapfile usage, decreasing your performance when multitracking. Your swapfile will be used regardless of how much memory you have, but you don't want shit being swapped in and out of memory during recording.

- Excess memory for hard drive multitracking will be "wasted". The reason that files are read and written to the hard drive in such small blocks is that the files are so huge, you'd need gigabytes of memory to work with them without using the hard drive. You will enjoy your new memory though. You'll be able to run more programs at once with less performance degredation. Also, looping programs can and will use memory, so if you're doing any creation in software (Acid, Fruity Loops), memory can help.

Well, I just felt like writing a book this morning....sorry for being long winded.

Slackmaster 2000
 
You're back! I haven't seen lenghty posts from you for a while so I thought something had happened to you:)

Spot on though, as always.
 
Ok so.....

Why is my defraging taking twice as long as it did before.

I only defrag when my multitrack/or other program starts acting up and shutting down.

I did at the suggestion of a forum friend add a couple of lines about swapfile usage to the 386 section of system.ini. This was before I added RAM. I thought it might improve my quirky performance. Didn't notice much diff. I removed the two lines last night after posting and haven't worked with my puter yet.

I'm just going on my experience with my computer but the three times I defraged yesterday the files seem really fragmented. I don't know what is different now from before.

So how does one move the data to another disc and reformat?

Thanks for the "book" how about a sequel?

Rusty K
 
Defrag speeds depend on several variables...the amount of fragmentation, the fill level of the disk, the speed of the disk, the condition & efficiency of the rest of the machine. Blah.

I've seen defrag take several hours on a fairly full 7200RPM 15GB drive. I've also seen it finish in under five minutes (ok ok, so the drive wasn't fragmented much, I was just screwing around).

You say that it now takes twice as long to defrag. Does it always take twice as long? Under what conditions? What else did you do besides adding RAM? Take the RAM out and see if things go back to normal.

Basically memory has little to do with it. Now, I have seen bad memory slow a system down...but this should not effect defrag times too much.

Don't screw with your virtual memory. No matter what anybody tells you or how many optimization faqs blab on about it. I have never once seen a study that demonstrated that it would somehow improve performance, because it doesn't. The idea is usually to keep the system from resizing the swapfile, but this only occurs at moments of extremely heavy memory usage when the system is operating at a snail's pace anyways. What you really want to do is minimize swapfile usage...and usage will be at a minimum during recording if a) you have enough physical memory and b) your software is not leaking memory (a problem that no swapfile adjustment is going to help).

For that matter, don't ever do ANY "optimizations" unless a) you have an actual need to and b) you can demonstrate that the optimization actually improved performance noticably. "Optimizations" often start with phrases like "Open up the registry editor and...." or "edit the blah.ini file to read" and they typically have as much an effect as a green stripe around the edge of a CD. (I note a differene between optimization, and configuration. Configuration is the process of setting the machine up properly in regards to hardware and software. Optimization is the process of outwitting a bunch of people who's sole job it is to optimize. Good luck.)

Anyhow, I'm off topic. You need to demonstrate for yourself whether defragging is really taking twice as long in every case. If it is, then change everything back to the way it was and run defrag again. If it is truely the memory stick that is causing problems (which I seriously doubt), then get your money back and buy higher quality memory.

As far as how to defrag by moving files between hard drives... I explained that in my first book....yeah the reading is a bit dry, but I'm sick of typing :)

Slackmaster 2000
 
Also, the fuller the hard drive, the slower the defrag. If your drive is say 70-80% "full," it will really be slow.
 
Just an updated report:

After removing the two lines from the 386 section of system.ini concerning swapfile usage, I had my first long session with processing wav's last night. I just defragged to see how it would go. IT TOOK ROUGHLY 10 MIN.!

To be fair to the friend who suggested the two line addition to 386 sec., it was for optimizing a system short on RAM. I thought I'd try it to see if it made any difference for me. That was before I upgraded to 256M.

Slacks' reference to the fact that competent people have spent countless hours optimizing any given computer system made sense to me though there certainly is a lot of talk floating around about 98lite and such.

Obviously I still have much "nerdiness" to obtain.

Thanks,
Rusty K
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top