Why are files written already fragmented?

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Mike B - 30 Dec 2007 09:29 GMT

I've got Diskeeper installed now on my Vista Ultimate machine, and notice
that Diskeeper is working in the background on defragmenting some
newly-written files... you can see the name of the file it's working on.

Question is, since there is plenty of space on my disk, and this file is
new, why does it need defragmenting at all?

My guess is that the file is perhaps not being defragmented as such, just
moved... maybe diskeeper is trying to keep all the files in a single block
and doesn't like where the OS put the file in the first place, so is merely
moving it.

Is there any way that Vista would actually write a new file that is already
fragmented (when there is plenty of room to write it as a single block)?

Mike

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DevilsPGD - 30 Dec 2007 11:19 GMT

>I've got Diskeeper installed now on my Vista Ultimate machine, and notice
>that Diskeeper is working in the background on defragmenting some
>newly-written files... you can see the name of the file it's working on.
>
>Question is, since there is plenty of space on my disk, and this file is
>new, why does it need defragmenting at all?

It likely doesn't need defragmenting.

>My guess is that the file is perhaps not being defragmented as such, just
>moved... maybe diskeeper is trying to keep all the files in a single block
>and doesn't like where the OS put the file in the first place, so is merely
>moving it.

This is likely correct, Diskeeper may be "defragmenting directories"
(grouping files within a directory together on the drive)

Whether this is an ideal configuration depends on your environment and
installed software.

>Is there any way that Vista would actually write a new file that is already
>fragmented (when there is plenty of room to write it as a single block)?

In general, no.

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Benjamin - 30 Dec 2007 19:46 GMT

Just because there is a block of space large enough to accomodate the
file contiguously doesn't guarantee that Vista/XP will put it there. If
there are gaps (fragments of free space) in between other files but
ahead of the large block of free space, then NTFS may start writing the
file there, causing it to be fragmented.

If you look at even a clean XP Pro install followed by updates, drivers
and Office XP, (no other programs installed) you can see a badly
fragmented system depsite the vast amount of free space available.

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Benjamin

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