What do I think? -Not impressed.

[scanclank]

I have just used Defraggler to defragment an SD card.

After 5 mins or so of busy processing I now have the same % fragmentation and even more file fragments than before, up from 26 to 72.

(Screenshot below).

http://i212.photobucket.com/albums/cc209/viridens/defraggler1.jpg

 

I realise that there is not much free space on this card, but I did not expect to end up with MORE file fragments. Also, I note that processing continued for a long time after the 'status' percentage claimed it was 100% complete.

 

As a new user I'm not impressed.

[redhawk]

To defrag successfully you much have sufficient contiguous free space for files to move around in one piece.

Since your fragmented file is bigger than the free space remaining defragging wouldn't be possible.

To make matters worse FAT32 folders cannot be moved (unlike NTFS) which have can also interfere with the defragging process.

If you want a quick solution to make everything contiguous just move all files and folders to your Desktop or another drive and then move them back.

 

Richard S.

[scanclank]

To defrag successfully you much have sufficient contiguous free space for files to move around in one piece.

Since your fragmented file is bigger than the free space remaining defragging wouldn't be possible.

To make matters worse FAT32 folders cannot be moved (unlike NTFS) which have can also interfere with the defragging process.

If you want a quick solution to make everything contiguous just move all files and folders to your Desktop or another drive and then move them back.

 

Richard S.

 

Thanks for your reply, and I fully understand the points you make. However, I still would not expect a defragmenting application to actually give me more than 100% increase in file fragments after processing, and what about that premature 100% status?

[Augeas]

Assuming that this card is a solid state device, defragging is pointless. There's years of reading about this on Google, and quite a lot on this forum.

[scanclank]

Assuming that this card is a solid state device, defragging is pointless. There's years of reading about this on Google, and quite a lot on this forum.

 

Sorry Moderator, I must disagree. Fragmented cards make a BIG difference to both the camera startup time and the after-clicking-the-button-ready-for-the-next-shot response time when taking a photo on both my Sanyo and Minolta digi cameras. This is why I was defragging this old card in the first place. If you can find the time, experiment with fragmented and defragmented cards for yourself, and I think you will agree.

[redhawk]

Is there a reason why you need to keep files stored on the memory card, surely you would be better off saving them elsewhere and formatting it.

 

Richard S.

[Augeas]

By all means disagree, Scanclank. I guess I should have said that 'the perceived opinion is that defagging an SSD is pointless'. I can find little that would explain why an SSD would benefit by defragging, well nothing really, as by their nature an SSD's controller will distribute (frag) data as it's written.

 

I believe (probably the only one who does on this forum) that the greater part of any defrag performance improvement on an HD is due to the reduction in the logical I/O count, not the reduction in head movement. I would think that an SSD could also benefit from reduced logical I/O, but I am no expert on FATx or SD controllers.

[scanclank]

redhawk - I don't know about your camera memory cards, but mine tend to stay in the camera either until they are full or until I feel the need to empty a card for a coming event, or until my conscience says back 'em up and clear them.

 

Augeas - Digital cameras compress from RAW to Jpeg and the size per image varies with content. If you then review and delete duff images, you are left with free space distributed across the card. The camera then recovers this space and re-writes to these areas, maybe with a larger size image which is then split across these patches = serious fragmentation. If you also record and delete video, (the large file on my card above) things get even worse. This does slow down camera performance as I mentioned.

 

I happened to have a card plugged into my PC today whilst trying this software. It offered to defrag it, and so I gave it the chance. I understand the problems involved, but I still would not expect defrag software to actually more than double the fragmented file count. By experimenting I found that this total reduced to 12 after three more passes, then no further improvement. For reference, another defragger then reduced this to 6.

[redhawk]

As I explained earlier if you want to defrag files and lack free space to perform defragging then move the file from memory card to PC (defrag "free space") and move back to memory card.

 

btw: what Class rating is your SD (there should be a number inside a circle i.e. 2, 4, 6)??

 

Richard S.

[scanclank]

As I explained earlier if you want to defrag files and lack free space to perform defragging then move the file from memory card to PC (defrag "free space") and move back to memory card.

 

btw: what Class rating is your SD (there should be a number inside a circle i.e. 2, 4, 6)??

 

Richard S.

 

redhawk - Thanks again for your reply.

 

As I also explained earlier, I fully understand your comments, and agree that the 'copy off, copy back' method works well for this task.

My original post was prompted by the Piriform invitation to "Tell us what you think". It was my experience of using this software for this particular job. I realise that it it does better with spinning platters...

 

-'nuff said now, I think.

 

(It's a class 4 card BTW)

[Super Fast]

Sorry Moderator, I must disagree. Fragmented cards make a BIG difference to both the camera startup time and the after-clicking-the-button-ready-for-the-next-shot response time when taking a photo on both my Sanyo and Minolta digi cameras. This is why I was defragging this old card in the first place. If you can find the time, experiment with fragmented and defragmented cards for yourself, and I think you will agree.

I agree with you on some points.

 

Defraggling an SSD can yield improved performance.

A lot of the mods here think that doing so, however, drastically decreases life span of such a media.

Which is WHY they don't recommend it.

______________________________________________

 

For instance, lets say each cell of a flash media can be written to a max of 100,000 times before it is considered "dead". A lot, right?

But the defrag operations may easily stress some cells 1,000 times or more to achieve defragmentation, or even 10,000 just depending on available free space.

For this reason, most perceive that it is better to just move files off the flash media, then copy it back, for a total of just 1 write operation being used on your device.

 

It is much better for your drive life.

Troublesome, yes, but very good for your SSD lifespan.

Yes, defragging helps, but not good for your SSD lifespan!

______________________________________________

 

Of course, unlike others here, I would rather do a copy of all files off the drive, rather than a move. THEN, a format after successful move.

Why? Because copying seems faster than moving, as in a move operation, the files also have to be deleted after each file/folder, so its less stress to just do a read operation, rather than read/delete (write behind), read/delete, etc.

 

In addition to that, you may encounter problems in copying.

Antivirus apps can step in and falsely inform you that Vispa is a virus (when it is NOT, only a Vista settings changer, but due to the NSIS scripts it uses, be falsely flagged as a virus). This will block the file from being moved, and stop your file move operation. You may lose more than just Vispa in this manner, hence the recommendation to use copy instead of Move.

 

Also, sometimes a computer can crap out on you before you have everything moved, so if doing a move instead of a copy (ram errors, computer with low ram, computer needed to reboot because of updates, whatever!), you may lose all that was in memory waiting to be transferred over.

______________________________________________

 

Long story short, just do it this way to preserve your SSD drive life:

 

- Copy all files to a new folder

- Quick format the drive you just copied the files from

- Copy the files back to the SSD drive, & THEN delete the copy of it on your computer

[hazelnut]

 

 

Defraggling an SSD can yield improved performance.

 

SSD drives don't have to access files from platters so there is no need to defrag them. Seek time cannot be increased on a SSD drive as they don't need to seek.

 

 

http://www.intel.com/support/ssdc/hpssd/sb/CS-029623.htm#5

 

Do I need to defragment my Intel? Mainstream Solid-State Drives (using Windows* Disk Defragmenter* or similar program)?

No. SSD devices, unlike traditional HDDs, see no performance benefit from traditional HDD defragmentation tools. Using these tools simply adds unnecessary wear to the SSD. It is recommended that you disable any automatic or scheduled defragmentation utilities for your Intel SSD

[Andavari]

move files off the flash media, then copy it back

That's what I have to occasionally do with my old and most often used 2GB USB thumb drive although I add one extra step and also Quick Format it, and then copy the files back onto it because it really starts getting painfully slow after a while. I've tried defragging it before with no noticeable speed increase, plus a full defrag takes too long.

[scanclank]

SSD drives don't have to access files from platters so there is no need to defrag them. Seek time cannot be increased on a SSD drive as they don't need to seek.

 

 

http://www.intel.com/support/ssdc/hpssd/sb/CS-029623.htm#5

 

I have been digging around and this seems to be be a can of worms. Manufacturers and users are now having to acknowledge that SSD performance IS affected by fragmentation

 

Long article about effects of Intel SSD fragmentation here

Many more articles here

 

Summary: There are 2 kinds of fragmentation that concern SSD disks. The first kind of fragmentation is memory block fragmentation. SSD disks are written in pages (generally 4KB in size) but can only be erased in larger groups called blocks (generally 128 pages or 512KB). This causes fragmentation and results in severe performance loss after the disk has been used for a while. Speed can easily drop by 50% or more. The SSD manufacturers have developed a solution called the TRIM instruction, (see Wikipedia article). This is a hardware solution that needs support in the operating system (windows 7 on), and only applies when files are being deleted. It is not used with SD cards, or with cameras, camcorders & Ipods etc.

 

The second kind of fragmentation is file system fragmentation. Files can be split into numerous data chunks that are placed anywhere in the SSD memory, just like on hard disk platters. Many users believe the hype that this kind of fragmentation does not matter for SSD disks, because the disks have a very low 'seek' time. But all operating systems, (whether camera or Windows) still have to do more work to gather all the fragments when a file is fragmented . There are extra I/O operations and these take time, as does identifying and using many fragmented storage locations when writing. This is made worse by windows NTFS, designed for HDD.

 

Quote: ..."The problem goes back to the NTFS file system, which is employed by all

current Microsoft operating systems. This file system is optimized for

hard drives, but not for SSDs. As data is saved to an SSD, free space is

quickly fragmented. Writing data to these small slices of free space

causes write performance to degrade to as much as 80 percent -- and this

degradation will begin to appear within a month or so of normal use. The

problem erodes speed, which is of course a primary value of an SSD..."

 

And the SD card developers organisation says:

 

"The memory of a card is divided into minimum memory units. The device writes data onto memory units where no data is already stored. As available memory becomes divided into smaller units through normal use, this leads to an increase in non-linear, or fragmented storage. The amount of fragmentation can reduce write speeds, so faster SD memory card speeds help compensate for fragmentation." (Source: here)

 

-So the solution is to keep buying faster cards to mask the problem?!!?.. Oh, that's alright then...

[weaselspleen]

After looking at the screen shot, I just had to comment on this.

 

You've got a 120 megabyte SD card, that has 114 megs in use (less than 6% free space.) On top of that, there's a single file on the drive that is almost 70 megs. Seriously, this use case is ridiculous. It's impossible to derive any meaningful conclusions about Defraggler's performance from this scenario. It's like firing the babysitter because she didn't mow your lawn.

 

You wondered why the file end up more fragmented at the end than at the start? Most likely this is because the option to move large files to the end of the disk was turned on. There's not enough free space available to defrag that file in the first place, but when you tell it to also move the entire file to a different part of the disk, that means it HAS to fragment the file further, because it's literally impossible to move it any other way. Turning this option off would probably (eventually) allow the file to be fully defragmented, but why anyone would ever actually want to go to all this trouble I can't imagine.

 

Don't bother moving the files off and reformatting the card. Throw it in the trash and buy a much bigger, much faster one for $6.

[Super Fast]

SSD drives don't have to access files from platters so there is no need to defrag them. Seek time cannot be increased on a SSD drive as they don't need to seek.

That's true. No platters. Every space on the SSD is supposed to be equi-access since, all areas are instantly available with no moving parts.

SSD drives have fewer & fewer spaces to drop large files as they fill up. This causes the access time to increase, because the drive is having to spend a lot more time calculating where to send the files, since it has to divide them into ever smaller pieces as the drive fills up.

 

The slowdown doesn't come from platters. Everyone knows they don't have a platter in them.

The slowdown does occur because of the way SSD drives use allocatable blocks for data, & also the way TRIM is set to erase blocks. You can find a lot about this if you research it.

 

If you have a fairly large SSD drive, you may not experience too many problems. Or, if you don't have your SSD drive nearly filled up. There are tons of information on SSD drive slowdowns when they begin to fill up. It block units start to become heavily fragmented, & as a result, the throughput suffers because of the way SSD drives utilize the blocks. SSD drives use I/O operations to determine speed, since RPM are no longer relevant with no moving parts.

 

Defragging such a drive definitely yields a performance increase, but it also lessens drive life.

Some say to move files off the drive, then move them back.

 

I say, copy them over, format the drive, then copy them back.

Why copy instead of move?

 

Simple! There are too many ways a move operation can go wrong.

You are trying to move a file, & your antivirus resident shield blocks the move of Vispa because of the NSIS scripts it uses & thinks it is a virus. Guess what? You may lose a file or files, + your place you left off.

 

What happens if you are moving a file & the current goes off? I have APC battery backup to protect me, but many people do not! You will lose the data in the buffer in some cases if this happens.

 

Windows also sometimes blocks you from moving a file "because this file is in use & cannot be moved". This can happen if you are moving a file similar to, or with the same name as some of the files/directory on Windows! Ever tried to hook up an external harddisk that has Windows on it, & try to move it to another drive without using something like Drive Image XML/macrium reflet, etc? Windows will block it!

 

So it is much better to always copy the files over, THEN delete or format the drive, then copy them back, then delete them finally.

Added bonus is that the operation is much faster, since Windows no longer has to delete the files as it is copying them to the other drive. In a move operation, Windows moves the files, then deletes them off the drive they are being moved from. If you do thousands of files, this is thousands of individual drive operations.

 

Definitely much faster to copy first, then delete all the files. That way, you know you still got them all, even if a drive goes out, or you lose power!