I started this going a few hours ago (yeah its a server) ... would you look at the blazing progress! See that blue band of contiguous files? Woohoo we're cruising along.

Sorry, not a WTF really. Except for the WTF that no one ever told me keeping server drive space freed up was suddenly in my job description ... *sigh* I'm a friggin' programmer/analyst not a system admin.  

The real WTF is that the 41% free space doesn't show up in the display. What is up with that?

Isn't it fairly trivial to make windows defrag itself every midnight? As for the massive amounts of red, windows XP introduced a horrible new defragmenter that looks alot prettier than the last one and is inversely as effective. Try this (save as bat run at midnight).

@ECHO OFF
del C:\defrag.log.0
move C:\defrag.log C:\defrag.log.0
defrag C: >>C:\defrag.log 2>&1
defrag D: >>C:\defrag.log 2>&1
defrag E: >>C:\defrag.log 2>&1
defrag F: >>C:\defrag.log 2>&1

 I'm suprised the default defragmenter hasn't committed seppuku. Use JKDefrag or something.

So why do you care at all to defragment NTFS disks? ANd why do you want to have them separate, instead of one large FS?

 My guess is that it's all red because it's just a few large files that have grown at the same time, interleaving each other. You won't gain anything by defragmenting that. You might even lose some performance.

 

Gieron:

The real WTF is that the 41% free space doesn't show up in the display. What is up with that?

Because each pixel represents (hundreds/thousands/milllions) of disk sectors. If just one of those contains a fragmented file, it's red. Obviously this is a busy disk, and the last time it was defragged, the SysAdmin was a wooly mammoth.

 

alegr:

 My guess is that it's all red because it's just a few large files that have grown at the same time, interleaving each other. You won't gain anything by defragmenting that. You might even lose some performance.

Huh Wha????????????????????????

Step... away... from... the mushrooms... 

 

alegr:

 My guess is that it's all red because it's just a few large files that have grown at the same time, interleaving each other.

My bet is that it's one big-arse paging file, scattered throughout all the free space gaps. 

alegr:

So why do you care at all to defragment NTFS disks? ANd why do you want to have them separate, instead of one large FS?

 My guess is that it's all red because it's just a few large files that have grown at the same time, interleaving each other. You won't gain anything by defragmenting that. You might even lose some performance.

 

 

Please explain (1) why NTFS is immune to the physical issue of performing extra seeks to retrieve all of the fragments of a file and (2) how defragmenting would, at best, have no effect, and, at worst, have a deleterious effect, on performance.

 

Its the IPMonitor data drive... if anyone seen the files it generates daily/weekly/monthly that explains a lot. And it got down to 180MB before someone's red light came on and they called me.

 

Lingerance:

Isn't it fairly trivial to make windows defrag itself every midnight? As for the massive amounts of red, windows XP introduced a horrible new defragmenter that looks alot prettier than the last one and is inversely as effective. Try this (save as bat run at midnight).

@ECHO OFF
del C:\defrag.log.0
move C:\defrag.log C:\defrag.log.0
defrag C: >>C:\defrag.log 2>&1
defrag D: >>C:\defrag.log 2>&1
defrag E: >>C:\defrag.log 2>&1
defrag F: >>C:\defrag.log 2>&1

 

I agree with you that its fairly trivial, I just don't want to burn out my hard drive.

Though the script you provided is nice for an overnight defrag script. I didn't know defrag was command-line accessible. Learn something new every day eh...

 

dlikhten:

I didn't know defrag was command-line accessible.

 

What program isn't command line accessible?

The only way something would be less usable through the command line would be if it accepted no arguments... but it would still be accessible.

dlikhten:

Though the script you provided is nice for an overnight defrag script. I didn't know defrag was command-line accessible. Learn something new every day eh...

Supposedly everything you can do through the windows GUI is available through a obscure CLI; I've yet to find the commands for setting up a static IP, mount a hard-drive to a mount-point or drive letter, and a few other things I'd rather use the CLI than the ten click interface GUI.
Actually, in retrospect, a weekly defrag would probably be better.

Lingerance:

setting up a static IP

 

netsh interface ip set address name="Local Area Connection" static 192.168.0.100 255.255.255.0 192.168.0.1 1

Lingerance:

mount a hard-drive to a mount-point or drive letter

Never tried this, but: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/300415

Lingerance:

Actually, in retrospect, a weekly defrag would probably be better.

I agree, but probably even more time, depending on your filesystem usage.

mrprogguy:

I thought that professional baseball players couldn't be less than 18 years old anyway.  How many 11-year-olds are there that can compete at the professional level?

I'm more concerned that he considers those younger than 12 years to be better!

Lingerance:

dlikhten:

Though the script you provided is nice for an overnight defrag script. I didn't know defrag was command-line accessible. Learn something new every day eh...

Supposedly everything you can do through the windows GUI is available through a obscure CLI; I've yet to find the commands for setting up a static IP, mount a hard-drive to a mount-point or drive letter, and a few other things I'd rather use the CLI than the ten click interface GUI.
Actually, in retrospect, a weekly defrag would probably be better.

 Agreed to the weekly part.

To be honest I just wish windows command line shell was even a fraction of what bash is. Then again Cygwin to the rescue :P

My favorite of all the things I've ever gotten for windows is UnixUtils -- Win32 native ports of all your favorite core linux commands :) Just put them in your path. The only problem is that cmd.exe does not have coloring like linux shells do so ls --color gives bad output :( Sometimes I wish I could use the putty shell to access my local machine without hosting self as a ssh host. Better for clipboard usage, window resizing, etc...

dlikhten:

The only problem is that cmd.exe does not have coloring like linux shells do so ls --color gives bad output

Why not use MSYS, then? Just tried ls --color, works fine. (Well, except it messes up Cyrillic filenames. Grrr.)

mrprogguy:

"We've certainly improved the probability of improving ..."
- Oakland A's owner Lew Wolff (after the team's recent fire sale wherein all players over 12 years old were traded for younger talent)

 

I thought that professional baseball players couldn't be less than 18 years old anyway.  How many 11-year-olds are there that can compete at the professional level?

 

Erm ... 

MasterPlanSoftware:

What program isn't command line accessible?

Windows update.

(And anything else written in ActiveX crap) 

Spectre:

Well, except it messes up Cyrillic filenames

Non-ASCII filenames are a notoriously hard problem that nobody has ever managed to get working right. You're just seeing a symptom of the particular ways in which the Windows attempt is broken.

asuffield:

MasterPlanSoftware:

What program isn't command line accessible?

Windows update.

(And anything else written in ActiveX crap) 

 

Try wuauclt.exe, but best of luck with finding any documentation on it.  (It's also scriptable (what part of Windows isn't?), but best of luck with finding any documentation on that too.)

asuffield:

Spectre:

Well, except it messes up Cyrillic filenames

Non-ASCII filenames are a notoriously hard problem that nobody has ever managed to get working right. You're just seeing a symptom of the particular ways in which the Windows attempt is broken.

Why is it broken? The ANSI/OEM codepage duaily is broken, but is easily overcome by SetFileApisToOEM or the Unicode functions, and the filenames themselves work just fine. I think the MinGW team is at fault here.

mfah:

Try wuauclt.exe, but best of luck with finding any documentation on it. 

 

Quick google search turns up:

http://technet2.microsoft.com/windowsserver/en/library/26807cd7-72c0-44b1-80f4-a39793801c451033.mspx?mfr=true

http://technet2.microsoft.com/windowsserver/en/library/fdee3ce6-9b4d-4d3d-9a5c-ef341faf507d1033.mspx?mfr=true

 

mfah:

t's also scriptable (what part of Windows isn't?), but best of luck with finding any documentation on that too.

Another google search:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/community/columns/scripts/default.mspx

RayS:

 

alegr:

 My guess is that it's all red because it's just a few large files that have grown at the same time, interleaving each other. You won't gain anything by defragmenting that. You might even lose some performance.

Huh Wha????????????????????????

Step... away... from... the mushrooms... 

 

I was thinking the same thing, but was afraid he might actually know something I don't.

Slightly off-topic, but I've always wondered about how Linux filesystems don't need to be defragmented. I understand that they pick the best place to save files, but wouldn't it eventually get fragmented anyway? Does it do some minor defragmenting in the background when there aren't enough contiguous sectors to store the file?