ReclaimNtfsReservedAreas()

[Cherry]

What does it really do?
This is part of some defrag-scripts, but i don't see any(at least not the expected) effect using it.

What was i expecting?
I have 2 Partitions, D: (my Data-Partition, freshly created some days ago on my shiny new Raid5). This has a darkblue area "NTFS reserved Zone" (don't know the exact english words, MyDefrag is in German here), and C: which was on a old, small and quite full WD Raptor. Because this drive got (accidentally) filled up to the last bit at some time in the past, there was no "NTFS reserved Zone" here, even if in normal use it only got filled up to 80-85%. Then i moved C: from the Raptor onto a much bigger drive, so there's now plenty of free space.
Then i did a defrag using a script with ReclaimNtfsReservedAreas(), expecting it to free the space where the mftzone would be, if there were any on this partition. Then a reboot (because i read Windows would recover the MFT-Zone after a reboot, if ther was enough free space), and after this i started mydefrag again, this time with "analyze only". I was hoping for a darkblue "NTFS reserved Zone" on Partition "C:" like it is on "D:", but this didn't happen.

I also played a bit with "fsutil behavior set mftzone" but this didn't change anything.

Can anyone enlighten me where my thoughts went wrong, or why MyDefrag didn't do what i hoped to achieve?

Martin

[jonib]

The "NTFS reserved Zone" is usually placed after the $MFT, so if there is only a small space after the $MFT the "NTFS reserved Zone". ReclaimNtfsReservedAreas() will move away any files from the "NTFS reserved Zone" it will not do anything else with it.

If you don't see the "NTFS reserved Zone" you probably need to zoom in on the diskmap, it should be after the $MFT in the first part of the volume.

jonib

[jeroen]

I am sorry for the confusion. The ReclaimNtfsReservedAreas() should have been deleted, it is a remnant from the past. MyDefrag does it differently now. For more information see the SelectNtfsSystemFiles and PlaceNtfsSystemFiles commands.

[Cherry]

If you don't see the "NTFS reserved Zone" you probably need to zoom in on the diskmap, it should be after the $MFT in the first part of the volume.

Ah, there it is, but it's really small. Did i get this right: the reserved zone will only grow until it hits another file. So if there is unmovable file right behind the MFT, the reserved zone will only fill the gap between the MFT and this file?

I am sorry for the confusion. The ReclaimNtfsReservedAreas() should have been deleted, it is a remnant from the past.

But it's still in your own scripts ;-) I'll have a look into the other stuff,

thanks so far,
Martin

[jonib]

Ah, there it is, but it's really small. Did i get this right: the reserved zone will only grow until it hits another file. So if there is unmovable file right behind the MFT, the reserved zone will only fill the gap between the MFT and this file?

Yes, but the reserved zone is used only if the $MFT needs to grow so it doesn't get fragmented, so its good that it is not too big as it's usually not used anyway, and if the $MFT gets fragmented MyDefrag will defragment it anyway.

jonib

[Cherry]

So in real-world this is a non-issue. Good to hear and thanks for the input.

Martin

[redrock5432]

is ReclaimNtfsReservedAreas() deprecated?

If so, should it be removed from scripts?

[jeroen]

is ReclaimNtfsReservedAreas() deprecated?

In the next release the standard scripts will not be using the ReclaimNtfsReservedAreas() command any more. The command will remain and will still be there, in case somebody wants to use it.