Forcing New files to occupy space between zones 1-2 or 2-3

[vsr]

The heaviest load on my disk drive occurs when I am recording two TV shows and watching a previously recorded show.  I'd like to set up the zones so that new material goes into the area between zone 1 and 2.  Even going into the area between Zone 2 and 3 would be better than adding the new material after zone 3.  I can't figure out how to do this directly, but I'm thinking that if I have 40% free on the disk, I can require the optimization routine to use 20% between each zone and I'd have a pretty good chance of getting the new material onto a part of the disk with faster access and close together.  

Usually after I watch them I blow them away.

Is there any downside to this?  What happens if I tell the program to put 20% between each zone, but there is only 35% free space?

Sometimes I keep them and most of my hogs are seldom accessed audio and video files that I'd just as soon store at the end of the disk.

Thanks for the great program.
-vsr

[vsr]

I have another idea.  Almost all of the files that I want at the end of the disk are in folders called AP and AB.  Would the following set of commands open up a fast access portion of the disk between my system/program files and my AP and AB data files:

JKDefrag C:/AP C:/AB -a 6 -f 0
JKDefrag C:/ -a 8 -e C:/AP/* C:/AB/* -f 0

(Will -e handle a list or do I need a separate -e before each folder?)

Thanks.
-vsr

[WHRoeder]

Would the following set of commands open up a fast access portion of the disk between my system/program files and my AP and AB data files:

JKDefrag C:/AP C:/AB -a 6 -f 0
JKDefrag C:/ -a 8 -e C:/AP/* C:/AB/* -f 0

(Will -e handle a list or do I need a separate -e before each folder?)

First, -e does not handle a list.  you need -e C:\AP\* -e C:\AB\*

Second,  they would put the two directories at the slow end of the disk.

Third, the standard -a 3 -f 20 would put the video files in the space hogs and would allow new videos to be written to the fast part of the disk.  This isn't bad since the old video files would be defragged and would be read in large chunks by the player and the new videos would be written fastest.

[Lundholm]

Hi vsr,

Why do you want to move the files? Do you have any problems? Media files don't have to be placed in the fast part of the disk.

What you do want, is to keep the files together in order to minimize disk head movements.

When you run a defrag, your media files will be considered space hogs, because they are large, and moved to zone 3. So you want new media files to be placed in the free space before or after zone 3, and this is more or less what you get now. Actually, the free space between zone 1 and 2 is the last place you want to place a new file, I think.

If you want to move directories to zone 3, you should use the u option, like -u C:\AP\*

The e option ignores the files.

[jeroen]

if I have 40% free on the disk, I can require the optimization routine to use 20% between each zone

My vote goes to using "-f" to set the size of the free zones. Moving files to the end of the disk is another way, but will take more defrag time. In version 4 of JkDefrag it will be possible to make as many zone's and free spaces as you want. JkDefrag v3 is designed to be completely automatic and is not really suitable for specific configurations like this.

[vsr]

Would the following set of commands open up a fast access portion of the disk between my system/program files and my AP and AB data files:

JKDefrag C:/AP C:/AB -a 6 -f 0
JKDefrag C:/ -a 8 -e C:/AP/* C:/AB/* -f 0

(Will -e handle a list or do I need a separate -e before each folder?)

First, -e does not handle a list.  you need -e C:\AP\* -e C:\AB\*

Thanks.  This is something I need to know.


Second,  they would put the two directories at the slow end of the disk.

This is my goal.  With the directories there, the new files will be forced to the "center of the disk".

Third, the standard -a 3 -f 20 would put the video files in the space hogs and would allow new videos to be written to the fast part of the disk.  This isn't bad since the old video files would be defragged and would be read in large chunks by the player and the new videos would be written fastest.

That is a good point.   A typical video file is 3.5 GB.  My hard drive is 70 GB with 30 GB free.  I end up using almost all of my free space from time to time, before I can erase the files.  So that would mean that some of the files or some fragment of the files would be in the space between 1 and 2 and some would be between 2 and 3, and since I record and play back at the same time, I am accessing three 3.5 GB files in "real time".   In addition I sometimes surf the net or work on other projects while I'm doing this so I am trying to get all of the files that I am accessing under load together in a faster part the disk.  

Thanks for your comments.  They have helped clarify my understanding.  -vsr

[vsr]

Hi vsr,

Why do you want to move the files? Do you have any problems? Media files don't have to be placed in the fast part of the disk.

Please see the answer I gave to WHRoeder, above.   Yes, I do have problems.   I get frame dropouts and momentary freezes.  The computer is extremely sluggish to new commands, even when the CPU is at less than 50% utilization (3.2 GHz P4 Hyperthread on XP Media Center, 2 GB RAM, no ).  I am also an amateur songwriter and my recording software sometimes drops out.

What you do want, is to keep the files together in order to minimize disk head movements.

When you run a defrag, your media files will be considered space hogs, because they are large, and moved to zone 3. So you want new media files to be placed in the free space before or after zone 3, and this is more or less what you get now. Actually, the free space between zone 1 and 2 is the last place you want to place a new file, I think.

I've wondered about this, also.  I don't mind if my computer takes a long time to boot (already takes 5 min).  I don't even mind if my programs take a long time to start, just as long as they can operate on the data files in real time.


If you want to move directories to zone 3, you should use the u option, like -u C:\AP\*

The e option ignores the files.

The reason I proposed to use the -e option is that the previous command causes AP and AB to be written to the end of the disk, the slowest part.  If I don't exempt those folders from the subsequent optimization, they will be moved to zone 3 and take up a faster part of the disk.

With these clarifications of my system and problems, perhaps you can help me to see the best way to accomplish my goals.

Thanks for your comments.  -vsr

[vsr]

if I have 40% free on the disk, I can require the optimization routine to use 20% between each zone

My vote goes to using "-f" to set the size of the free zones. Moving files to the end of the disk is another way, but will take more defrag time. In version 4 of JkDefrag it will be possible to make as many zone's and free spaces as you want. JkDefrag v3 is designed to be completely automatic and is not really suitable for specific configurations like this.

Hi Jeron,  In my two replies above I provide some details I should have provided with my original post.  

Given how I use my system, it seems to me that forcing some files that do not require access while my computer is under heavy load to the end, would give me the most consistent performance.   Consistency may be the

hobgobblin of little minds

, but I need to know that my files will be consistently recorded without dropouts.   Breaking up my remaining free space into two separate segments, one a little faster and the other a lot slower, separated by nearly 30 GB of space hogs, seems like it might not accomplish this.  

In addition, once I run all the AP and AB data out to the end of the disk, since it doesn't change much I will  have to defrag it very infrequently.

Once I have sorted the rest of the disk by size, I won't have to defrag it very often either and when I do, I will be dealing with 10 GB+- instead of 40 GB+-.

I should also mention that most of the video files are news so I blow them away after watching them.   Every once in awhile I burn a DVD of a show that I want to keep, so most of my new files are deleted withing 6 hours.

I'd be very interested in your thoughts.  Thanks for the reply.  -vsr

[WHRoeder]

my files will be consistently recorded without dropouts

The problem is writing to the disk.  The -f 20 should help

[jeroen]

I'd be very interested in your thoughts.

Yes, moving files to the end of the disk is a good option for you. Even better would be a second harddisk It could either be a fast disk inside your computer, just for the video files, or an external USB disk to move the slow stuff out of the way. I bought an external 500Gb USB disk 3 months ago and did just that (no room in the laptop for an extra internal disk) and I'm very happy with it. The speed is about 10 megabyte/second, with is not bad at all considering that a typical internal harddisk is about 40 megabyte/sec. I can play avi and video_ts straight from the USB disk, no problem.

[Lundholm]

Hi again vsr,

Interesting situation you have there! Looks like you're trying to make one computer do two computers' work.

I cannot add much to my previous post. I you're recording and viewing at the same time from the same disk, you may have some problems. A separate disk for playback would be fine.

But even if you optimize your disks, it may not help you. If you have CPU loads of 50% and more, then you have a CPU bottleneck, I think.

All in all, this is very interesting from a scientific point of view. You can use DiskView to check that the files are actually placed, where you expect. Keep us posted about your results!

[vsr]

I've held off responding until I got some operating history with the new regime.  I really like the way it works.  

I moved about a third of the files, 25 GB,  to the front based on size.

I moved about a third of the files that I infrequently use or change to the end, call them archive files.

This left me with about a third of the disk of empty space in the middle.

Using HD Tune, my disk transfers about 32.5MB/sec at the beginning and at about a third in transfers 30, about a 7% loss in performance, which is not too bad.  By the end of the second third, performance has dropped to 25MB/s for an additional loss of 15% or a total loss of 22%.   Over the last third of the disk the performance falls to 17.5MB/s which brings the total loss in performance to 45%.  

I think the problems I was having occurred with two or more files were being written towards the end.   Now, this is not possible.  The new files are confined to the space in the middle resulting in pretty good performance.  The dropped frames and jerky playback have disappeared.  

Using process explorer and HD Tune, I also determined the my Zone Alarm was killing my disk performance periodically and I now turn it off when I am doing mission critical work, like audio recording.  Overall ZA is not too bad, but when it periodically writes to the disk, I think some of my other programs' buffers overflow and data is lost.

BTW I did the original defrag in Safe Mode to minimize temp files.  

The process is to move the system and working files to the front, then to move the archives to the back, then move the system and working files to the front again.  This results in the least amount of holes in the defragged disk.  Now I just run this quick defrag routine to keep everything defragged.

Here is the bat file.

cd "C:\Documents and Settings\myname\Local Settings\Temp"
del /q /s /f *.*
cd "C:\Documents and Settings\myname\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files"
del /q /s /f *.*

These get rid of temporary files that will just be deleted and leave holes that will cause whatever file I am working on to fragment.

cleanmgr /sagerun:99

I have this set to clean up unused files and clean out my Recycle Bin so that these files don't leave holes.


jkDefrag.exe -e C:\AC\* -e C:\AP\* -e C:\AB\* -f 0 C: -q

First I move all the working and system files to the front.  This cleans out any working or system files that have been written into the gaps in the archive area.

I now know that I could have used jkDefragCmd and not had to use the -q.  I also read the the cmd form uses less resources, but I don't know what the practical implication of this is when left to run overnight in safe mode.

I use -f 0 to eliminate gaps.  I discovered, using DiskView, that these just collected fragments of the files I working on and filled up quickly anyway.

jkDefrag.exe C:\AC\*  C:\AP\* C:\AB\* -a 6 -q

Then I move the archive files to the end.

jkDefrag.exe -e C:\AC\* -e C:\AP\* -e C:\AB\* -f 0 C: -q

Since some of the files that are to go to the archive area were written in gaps in the system and working file area where there are now holes, it is necessary to recompact this area, or it will just collect fragments again.

I run this in safe mode overnight and it completes by morning.

Hope you find this interesting and that someone finds this useful.

Thanks to all for their help.

-vsr

[Lundholm]

Hi vsr,

This is really impressive, and it shows what a powerful tool JkDefrag is, if you plan carefully. Jeroen ought to add this case to his book of "exceptional case studies".  

Off topic: there are many good and free alternatives to ZA. I suggest that you check out some security forums.

Cheers