Hey Rad,

Okay, hoping you can answer or might have information on some of the following. (I'm using Win2K if that helps/makes a difference).

1) If you use Speed Disk to defrag a partition, and then re-run it right after the first instance is complete, it will take 2 seconds for the second run to complete (which is what one expects!!).   But why is it that if I've optimized a partition yesterday, and if no use of any kind has been made on that partition, then today SD will still go through a long big ass optimization process?   Actually the same thing sometimes occurs if you run SD, close it, then relaunch it and run optimization again -> it still wants to go through a long optimization process.  I would think It shouldn't do this seeing that if I click on analysis (before starting the defrag process) it reports 0.1% fragmentation.  

Is this a SD bug/flaw or is there some setting I'm missing that should prevent this??  

Ideally, I would like to defrag the partitions reguallarly - such that it should only take a short time to optimize each one.  But if SD is going to needlessly put them through the works (almost everytime), I think the wear on the drive would outweigh any performance and convinence gains.

Have you similar experience?  How often would you recommend running SD?

2) I have a drive divided into 3 partitions: primary (OS-boot), then an extended partition that is divided into two logical partitions.

The primary partition has some of the master file table placed at the start then a large space is left as "free space for system use" (presumably for the the MFT to expand).  Followed by the pagefile yada yada yada .... and some system files in the middle of the partition.

For the first logical partition (music file storage), SD places the music files at the start of the partition and some system & unmoveable files the middle of the partition.  

Whereas, in the last (archieve) partition, SD leaves a large "free space for system use" (like it does in the primary partition containing the OS) then all the archieve files, plus some system files in the middle of the partion.

So, the questions for this one are:

Should there be a master file table on every partition?

Should there be system file stuff placed on non-OS partitions (ie. the system files placed in the middle of each of the logical storage partitions)?  

Any idea why SD is placing all the files at the start of the first storage partition and yet doesn't do the same for the second storage partition??

Lastly, When running SD, do you set any opinions (file placement order) or do you just let SD do its thing?

Thanks, CK

That's normal. If you re-run speeddisk, it'll want to rerun the optimization (the 1st part), but the actual defragging part (the 2nd part) will go much faster if you've recently defragged.

All my partitions are fat32. I have wme, w2k & wxp-rc2. I defrag everything from wme, cuz fat32 is the native file system for wme.

i defrag my boot partitions about weekly, and before I image.

the less you change things, the less you need to defrag. my system has been solid for almost a year now.

i let speed disk do everything normally. but i don't let it check my drives for speed (that optimization thing, part of norton utilities). i tell windows which partitions i want to contains my swap/page files, and norton puts them at the very beginning.

the main thing is that the swap/page file goes at the very beginning. that will affect perf most.

is your boot drive scsi or ide? have u seen?

http://scsi.radified.com/

i haven't looked into exactly what files get placed where. i would guess they're right if everything works.

Hey Rad

The boot drive is a ide.  Seen the guide (enjoyed it and all the others!).

I'm not quite certain what you mean by

"i don't let it check my drives for speed (that optimization thing, part of norton utilities)."

Do you mean the first part (optimization) of SD, right before the defragging process (the 2nd part)?  If so, how do you prevent it from doing that cause I don't see any option for that.  However, I get the feeling your talking about some other "speed cheeck" setting only available to FAT, cause 've never seen SD do this (I'm using NTFS).

On the primary (boot partition) SD (without any input from me) places the MTF first, leaves a gap on the disk (which, estimating by the map, is about 1GB in size), then places the page/swap file, then all the other stuff.   This may be its nature with W2K/NTFS, I don't know.  I can understand it leaving some room for the MTF to grow, but the amount of space it leaves seems a little riddiculus.

What gets me is SD's handling of the files on the 2nd and 3rd partitions.  As I said, it seems to work fine on the second partition - correctly placing everything right at the start of the partition.   However, on the third, it leaves a gap (again, judging by the map, about 1 GB) from the start of the partition.

Cheers, CK
 

There is a feature listed under 'Optimize Performace', but I don't see it in W2K (where I am now). It must be only available from/for WMe/9x. It a 2-part feature that optimizes both 1.) your registry & 2.) your swap file (moves it to the leading edge of the drive). It checks all your drives for speed & puts your swap at the leading edge of the fastest drive. If you're using W2K, fughetaboutit. (No, it's not part of Speeddisk).

Yeah, 1GB is a little much. Perhaps they use some algorithm based on your partition size & disc space.

At least it's putting the swap/page file near the beginning. The boys at Norton know more about disk optimazation that I do, so I'd trust them to do it right. Again, if OS responsiveness is what you crave, I have a four-lettered word for you .. S-C-S-I. :)

Hey Rad

To update:  I just tried using the \**\*.*\*.* drive option on the third partition to get SD to place everything at the beginning of the partition.  No such luck, it still left the gap which the legend describes as "Free Space for System Use"

I'm going to give the help section another glance, but something tells me I'm not going to find much.  Oh well.