Directories position

[cris]

In a system that is not often defragmented, where you run jkDefrag with option -a 7 and that is subjected to addition and DELETION of directories, the best place to put the directory is just before the files in the directory instead of having them at the beginning of the disk.
You may provide an option to do that.

-Cris

[jeroen]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, I appreciate it! But I'm afraid I have to disagree. If a program requests a file then the operating system has to walk through all the lower directories (starting at the root of the disk) to find the requested file. In your scenario the harddisk would have to jump all over the place. If the directories are all together at the beginning of the disk then finding a file is much faster. This is why on NTFS all directories are in 1 big file called the MFT (Master File Table). They are not separate entities on disk such as files, and cannot be moved to just before their files. It would be possible on FAT, but the same reasons apply and it is better to place all directories together.

p.s. The next version of JkDefrag will have a scripting language that will make just about anything possible, including placing the directories just before their files.