Tech Question for the Guru's

Very good advice, Cliff....particularly where dust control is concerned.

I doubt there is very much "risk" at all involved in a weekly defragging of a HDD. There may have been 27 years ago, but hard drive technology has come a long way, particularly in terms of durability and life expectancy, so the wear and tear aspect of a defrag is rather insignificant imho. I will agree that most people don't need to defrag that often, but with the amount of changes I make on my system on a regular basis, it's a necessary evil.

As far as people referring to PC cases as "CPU's", I've heard it frequently as well. Always been totally baffled by it. In the technical sense, a CPU is an abbreviation for Central Processing Unit....aka "Processor", and I think most of us know what that is. Now I'm curious. If I were to remove the PSU, HDD's, optical drives and mainboard from my case/tower, would it still be ok to call it a CPU? Maybe I'll try that just to see how much information the chassis can process without the rest of that stuff in place.

I'll get back to you with the results.


Cheers,

Parky
 
Parky,

Sumthin' tells me your 'CPU test' isn't going to work out well :)

Of course, CPU does describe the processor...I think applying the term to chassis dates back a way too; and I think we could agree that (taken as a whole) a system includes peripherals - mouse, monitor, keyboard; in this context the chassis (*with* guts, if you please) is 'central' to the whole arrangement and does all the processing inside the 'magic box'. Hence, chassis roughly equals CPU.

You'd also have to factor in (when all this originated) that people used dumb terminals - the "CPU" was central to everone's usage. Let confusion begin.

I'll tell you what I don't get: How can it properly be called a 'tower', when there are (horizontally-oriented) 'desktop' configurations aplenty? I've never heard anyone call it a 'flat'.

Yes, hard disk technology has come a long way over the years. The risk, however, doesn't come entirely in terms of mechanical failure which would be overcome by technology. De-fragging (as well as disk 'scanning') reads and re-writes the data it moves. So, there's an inherent risk of corruption in *any* disk r/w operation. Yes, today's technology minimizes this as well, but it's not absolute. The trouble is:
a. Once it happens, *if* it happens, you're screwed. Doesn't matter how well the technology *should've* minimized it, you're screwed.
b. If it does hapen, you've got less than a snowball's chance in hell of figuring out *where* it happened. Of all the bajillions of pieces of data on a drive, one single bit flung loose in a boot sector is all it takes to corrupt a disk to the point it won't boot.

Moreover - as I said - it's not the risk that's at issue here. It's the risk versus benefit. Now, for people like us - those who are changing things on systems a lot - yes, you're absolutely right. The system will become fragmented. Then again, I'd bet you'd agree: We are the exception when it comes to PC users.

As you said, most people don't need to do it that often. I was shocked to learn our IT director at work recommends against defrag altogether - and I still disagree with him about it. But his thing is that, again, in a risk v. benefit analysis, most users aren't going to gain much that's worth the risk.

Even with fairly new drives (i.e. those rated multi-hundred k-hours MTBF) I've seen people thrash one to death with excessive de-frag and scan disk, etc.

All that being said; like you, I still do mine fairly often. Thing of it is, with some people, you tell 'em it's a good thing and...well...pushing the button once helps, maybe pushing it 10 times very rapidly will help more. Sound familiar?

Let me say how nice it is to have your attention. I've watched quietly here for some time now...you are highly regarded as an expert here, and I can see why. If I ever get time, I have lots of questions for you about OFF, particularly a recent experience you mentioned about loading it on a very conservative rig.

Probably another thread though :)

Regards.
 
Lol Cliff,

Expert I ain't, but thanks for the vote of confidence. My claim to fame is having been blessed with the inherent ability to screw up my own PC with alarming frequency and proficiency. As a result, I've become reasonably adept at fixing certain problems....lol.

I've been known to do that button pushing thing myself on occasion. Usually it involves an elevator though, and granted, the elevator never gets there any faster, but it's a great form of stress relief and really pisses off anyone who happens to be waiting for the same ride.

Interesting perspective with regard to risk vs benefit of frequent defrags. I'd have to admit that the risk of file corruption does indeed exist. Makes me wonder about some of the 3rd party utilities that encourage defragging in real-time or defrag on reboot. Perhaps not such a good idea after all.

As far as questions about OFF itself, those are far better directed at the gentlemen who work in the magic department of the development team. There are also a number of guys like PD and the guys he associates with who are extremely knowledgeable. I have been known to be able to wring some better performance out of the game with a tweak here and there, but that's about the extent of my "expertise" when it comes to OFF.

Cheers Mate,

Parky
 
"...with alarming frequency and proficiency" *lmao* Amen. My Dad says "No lesson learned like a lesson learned losing."

I can't say whether I understand or agree with the wisdom of scheduled frequent defrags. Sometimes, the software developers where I work seem to have an astounding lack of understanding where hardware is concerned. I wonder if there's an assumption that - as you pointed out - today's hardware being *much* more reliable, it's now OK to treat it as if there's no risk at all. <shrug> Who knows? What I do - and I bet you as well - is try to give the best advice I can, based on my understanding, training, skill and (maybe most of all) experiences.

The OFF questions...yes, there are a number of remarkably skilled and talented people here; I watch them as well. I don't say much, 'til now, just absorb and hopefully learn. OFF itself is a magnificent creation, and the people responsbile are due thanks from anyone who likes to fly wooden and canvas crates.

But your hardware experience and 'tweaking' - as they relate to OFF - interests me most. During the time I've lurked here, I've also built/rebuilt/upgraded hardware and tried all sorts of tweaks - both those found here and some blind experimentation on my own - I just can't seem to get things nailed down like it seems they should be.

However, since I do know there are so many combinations of hardware and whatever, I have spent the time reading, trying, testing - trying to nail it down on my own before asking totally stupid questions in public *lol*

So...whaddya say? Are you up for it? I thought, at some point, I would start a thread of my own; but it doesn't seem terribly OT for this thread. And time is always a factor, but after almost three years, I suppose there's little hurry :)
 
Hello,
if it is "defrag" or the very old "compress", both words mean the same (not meaning the "compressed" drive that Mickeysoft once used for packing or zipping the contents of the harddisk - a method that would surely destroy all your data sooner or later).
Usually all data is stored in rings on the circular harddisk, like on an old LP audio record. Then the rings are again partitioned in segments, for finding the data faster. When the data are stored along the outer rims of the disk, the access to it is usually faster, because the speed of the medium passing the hard disk heads is faster towards the outside of the spinning disk. (There is certainly not only one disk today, but several piled ones, and the head rather resembles a comb - but the principle is the same).

When you store e.g. a W*rd document, it is written along a circular line on the disk, and the next file you save will be written right behind it.
Now imagine hundreds of files, all placed after the other, in rings, or segments of rings. If you now open an older file, change it and save it, it will probably be bigger than before, and will not fit into its original space.

So either the new part of the file, or the whole file, will be written to another location somewhere else on the disk, the empty space being left behind, being free for other files, and appearing on an internal table (formerly called FAT or file allocation table) that will be searched everytime the harddisk searches for a file that is opened by the user. These places may again be filled with fragments of large files, when the disk gets full, and if there is no place left to store big files in one piece.
Thus the disk will become fragmented after some time, and needs to be compressed, or de-fragmented.

The problem indeed is that your disk needs to be badly fragmented, to show any sign of slowing down - mostly when the disk is almost filled with data. Real felt slowing of the PC is mostly due to other problems, as well you will probably notice the action of your Harddisk via the HD lamp. As well compressing again and again tends to spread system files all over the disk, for some files are not re-written to their original position they had when you installed the operating system back then.

As well the action of "compress" or "defrag" puts the mechanical components of the heads control under a stress that is much bigger than during normal operation. The wear is even worse in RAID systems.

Greetings,
Catfish
 
cliff527 said:
So...whaddya say? Are you up for it?
Click to expand...

I'm always willing to tamper with other peoples systems. I'll e-mail you the legal disclaimer. You sign and return it, and we'll see what we can do....lol.





Catfish said:
The wear is even worse in RAID systems.
Click to expand...

Cat.....I'm might as well be playing Russian Roulette with a six shot revolver and five loaded chambers then...lol.

Everything except my OS and pagefile are sitting on a RAID 0 array.

Thank God for eSATA drives, regular backup routines and Acronis True Image. (And yes.....Acronis handles RAID arrays quite flawlessly, unlike some imaging programs I've used in the past).


Cheers Guys,

Parky
 
Hello Parky,
a Raid 0 is indeed like russian roulette - striping allows for higher data tranfer rates, but offers no real redundancy for a backup of "lost" files, or a reconstruction.

This "Acronis" sounds interesting ...

Greetings,
Catfish
 
Parky

More on the questions in a bit, but two things:

RAID0 - I thought about this myself but I'm not currently using a RAID array, just because having striped drives alone (as you are aware) means no redundancy, and I could barely justify the two drives a striped array would require. (And, like you, I image drives - I've heard of Acronis but not used it...I don't think my imaging util would care for a RAID array, although I never tried).

And, as I've understood it, the nature of most games is such that a RAID arrays would help with things like loading times, etc - but (since disk access is minimized during games in general for obvious reasons) I didn't reason the cost-v-benefit would be worth it. Your thoughts? (As always in 'the field', measurable data is preferred)

Back to defrag a moment, you referenced utils that defrag at each boot...I know of sysinternals util for defragging a page file, but that's way different from defragging a whole drive. Is pagefile defrag what you were referring to?

Best, as always.
 
Hi Cliff,

As you know I'm sure, the theoretical performance advantages of a RAID 0 would imply significant read/write speed advantages. Some even claim up to 100% over a non-RAID configuration. Frankly, I think that's rather unrealistic. Too many variables come into play, not the least of which would involve rotational speed of the hard disks involved, software vs hardware controllers, and choice of stripe size. I've experimented with both hardware and softare controllers, and stripe sizes from 64KB right up to 256KB (I won't even delve into altering default cluster sizes, as I'll end up writing a novel here....lol).

Actually, let's keep this as brief as possible. My personal experience has been somewhat disappointing in terms of overall speed benefits. Granted, if all you're doing is using benchmark utilities to test read/write speeds, you may see some fairly impressive results. Some of the "bursts" you'll see are downright impressive.

Unfortunately, when it comes specifically to gaming, the best you'll see in terms of speed increases is moderately improved load times. The increases will NOT manifest themselves in the form of greater overall FPS or gaming performance.

The conclusion I've reached is unless you've got money to burn (and I don't, but the mortgage is paid and I'm not exactly on skidrow), running a RAID 0 array is basically a waste of time, money and effort when it comes to an everyday desktop PC. One thing that certainly can't be ignored is the lack of redundancy involved. If you don't have some kind of backup solution for your RAID 0......DON'T DO IT!

The only reason I've stuck with it is it can be a slight to moderate PITA to disassemble the array and start again from scratch....lol. That, and the fact that if one of my disks goes down, it's simply a matter of replacing the drive in question, booting to an Acronis CD and applying a saved image to the entire array. Already had a 36Gig Raptor that holds the OS go down and Acronis worked flawlessly.

That bit of information may not amount to "measurable data", but I am confident the benchmarks I ran vs realworld performance experiences are responsible for the conclusions I've reached.


My reference to defrag on boot was aimed at those utilities that offer the option to defrag both system files that can't be defragged "on the fly" as they are already in use, as well as the pagefile area. Good in theory, but going back to your position that excessive defragging may not be such a good idea, I'd be inclined to follow your advice and proceed with caution.

Did I say I was gonna' keep this brief??? Geez.....:kilroy:


Cheers,

Parky
 
Well, brevity laid aside :icon_lol: I couldn't agree more. I have built arrays before, and - just as you indicate - the 'measurable' benchmarks may be impressive, but the 'real-world' gain isn't nearly as neat. (Incidentally, I usually ask for the measurable data, because I can't abide with often-subjective opinion such as "It just works way better". Not in my idiom, as it were.)

I know people who apparently have money to heave at their stuff, and RAID seems to be common among the 'gotta have the latest greatest' crowd who really know little about *whether it's worth it or not*. Me, I'm a die-hard 'bang for the buck' kinda guy - and my bucks gotta get all the bang they can :)

Don't worry about being brief (on my part anyway) . You've certainly kept me interested, and that's not a compliment I'd hand out to many of the 'wanna-be' psuedo-experts I've encountered online.
 
Got me . . . . perhaps we are witnessing a pissing contest :isadizzy::kilroy:
 
*lol* Not at all, GG...just some detailed technical discussion. If it *sounds* like anything else, I'd certainly offer my apologies. Parky's been nothing but accomodating and informative; far, far different from most of the people (online) who claim expertise but can't back it up, IMHO. I'm interested in his perspectives, and he probably knows something that will help me get the most of OFF.
 
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