Tool to compact all data to start of drive?

[cpjust]

Hi,
I've been trying to defrag a server which is extremely fragmented (some files had over 100,000 fragments!), but even with 35% free space on the disk, defrag still can't make a dent. I'm guessing it's because the free space is scattered in little bits all over the drive.

Is there a free tool I can download that moves all the data to the beginning of the drive, so all the free space is at the end?

 

[jfwebber]

What are you using for a defrag program?

Jim W MCSE CCNA
Network Manager

 

[itsp1965]

You can try downloading a trial of Raxco Perfectdisk or Diskeeper (bare in mind you`ll have to remove it after the trial) since these work with less than 10% disk space avail

 

[cpjust]

The one that comes with Windows.

 

[jfwebber]

Try out Diskeeper it will do a better job than the one that comes with Windows.

Jim W MCSE CCNA
Network Manager

 

[cpjust]

Thanks, I'll give it a try.

Any idea if there's any programs that'll just move everything to one side of the disk though (without defragging)? After 30 days, this Raxco program won't help...

 

[technome]

Diskeeper will also do a boot time drefrag which defrags files which are open during normal OS operations

........................................
Chernobyl disaster..a must see pictorial

http://www.kiddofspeed.com/default.htm

 

[cpjust]

Wow, cool! Too bad my company wasn't so cheap, otherwise we could buy it and keep on using it.

 

[cpjust]

But seriously though. When I first did a defrag on this server, the ENTIRE graph was red, except for a few green (unmovable) files! I don't think it's ever been defragged in about 10 years! It had about 15-20% free space, but it was so chopped up that you couldn't see any white in the graph at all. I can't believe that server didn't go belly up a long time ago.

 

[technome]

Cpjust

Freebee with boot time defragger....

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/Utilities/PageDefrag.mspx

........................................
Chernobyl disaster..a must see pictorial

http://www.kiddofspeed.com/default.htm

 

[cpjust]

That only defrags the Registry & Pagefile. My pagefile is only in 3 pieces, whereas most of the data files on the drive are in thousands of pieces. I doubt PageDefrag would work very well without lots of contiguous free space anyways.

 

[LWComputingMVP]

You can always do a manual defrag. Just move the file(s) off to another drive and then move them back. They may still get fragmented, but especially files with MANY fragments, this should significantly reduce them (Remember - MOVE - copies don't work).

Also, you could do a full backup, wipe, and restore.

Just other options - using third party programs can be quite effective as well, of course.

 

[cpjust]

I tried moving some of the biggest files & directories to C:, but since there isn't much free space on C:, I couldn't move enough files to create a big enough hole on D: to move them back without fragmenting them again.

After zipping some large files and defragging, I managed to get the Avg. File Fragment count from 3.0 down to 1.2.

I'm running Raxco PerfectDisk now and it seems to be doing a little more than Windows defrag, so I'll see how it looks when it's done...