defrag a disk using other as temporary placement

[yesgrey]

Hi,
I am trying to find a defrag software in which we could specify a disk for the temporary placement of the sectors being rearragend. Usually the defrag software only use one partition for all the work, which is slower and harsher for the disks. If both disks have the same sector size I don't see any reason for not doing it.

For example: I have partition D: in disk 1 and partition F: in disk 2. Is there any defragger which defrags partition D: using partition F: for the temporary placement of the file parts being moved?

From time to time I do this myself, but I cannot control the place where the files are copied, and I also need a lot of free space for doing it, or the files will be fragmented.

Anybody knows if such a tool exist?

[Dr.Khron]

Not as far as I know, not directly anyway.

But the Windows Defragger uses virtual memory, so you can partially control this by controling where your swap space lies.

[burfadel]

Its for data safety, if you're doing that on your system drive and the power goes off, or another problem, Windows won't start because it can't find the files. The same goes for any programme. The other point is that even if its not system files, you will have to hunt down the files on the temp drive and place them back in the correct spot. Its very possible to do what you suggested, its just highly dangerous and no software developer would be crazy enough to endanger your data like that. The same goes for free defraggers. The amount read before being rewritten and rereferenced can be changed though I believe, try something like the free Auslogics defrag (www.auslogics.com), which is very fast. JKdefrag is also very good (http://www.kessels.com/Jkdefrag/), but requires that you know how to do it otherwise it will defrag all drives. By the command line you have extra options. In my opinion the best paid one is Perfectdisk, and you can do offline defrags to tackle files you can't normally defrag inside windows. It defrags some stuff even diskeeper can't. I haven't had much luck with diskeeper, it seems to make the drive more fragmented in some cases and is much slower...? Windows defrag is based on an old version of it afterall! I'm sure its good for certain circumstances.

[yesgrey]

I forgot about the possibility of the power goes off...
I will give a try to the windows defragger and set the swap disk to the disk I am not defragging and see if it speeds up the process.
I will also look at the free ones and Perfectdisk.
Thank you both for your help and enlightenment! :-)

[Avenger007]

Its for data safety, if you're doing that on your system drive and the power goes off, or another problem, Windows won't start because it can't find the files. The same goes for any programme. The other point is that even if its not system files, you will have to hunt down the files on the temp drive and place them back in the correct spot. Its very possible to do what you suggested, its just highly dangerous and no software developer would be crazy enough to endanger your data like that.
I don't see the difficulty in working around those problems while keeping data safe.
System files are usually small so an exception can be made for them and not use the tmp drive.
If you can specify a tmp folder on the tmp drive then the defragger can save the data and meta data to that folder to allow for both manual and automatic recovery.

I use O&O Defrag 10 in Stealth mode to quickly defrag files using available free space on the same partition. Occasionally I use Space mode to defrag free space so all files move to the outermost track of the partition. However, Space mode is slow when there isn't enough free space just before the file to do one copy, so it has to do two copy ops.

Eg.
####--#####---------- (initially)
####-------#####----- (copy lower down to make space higher up)
#########------------ (copy file into free space)

Using a tmp drive would save a lot of time in avoiding reading and writing from/to the same drive simultaneously since that example occurs quite often.

[dat720]

Is speed that much of a concern???
Run defrag before you stop using the pc for the night.....

[Avenger007]

Is speed that much of a concern???
Run defrag before you stop using the pc for the night.....
I never stop using my pc :D, seriously :cool:

[LoRd_MuldeR]

Is speed that much of a concern???
Run defrag before you stop using the pc for the night.....

You mean: Run defrag before you stop using the pc, because dawn has broken :D

[dat720]

Something like that :)

Unfotunetly i start work at 7am (with a 1 hour drive) so i have to get some sleep :/

BTW LoRd_MuldeR, i have been playing with Avidemux lately and really like it, keep up the good work!

[LoRd_MuldeR]

BTW LoRd_MuldeR, i have been playing with Avidemux lately and really like it, keep up the good work!

The praise should go out to MEAN and Gruntster :o

[vucloutr]

Anyone found a program that can do it ?



But the Windows Defragger uses virtual memory, so you can partially control this by controling where your swap space lies.

Checked it for win 7 x64 and swap space isn't used at all.

[JReiginsei]

I run ccleaner on my pc, then reboot the PC, boot with WinPE, and run defrag with the 'free space consolidation' option from there.

It is worth mentioning that I have a static page file set, which is the first thing I do if I reformat my PC. This way the page file is at the beginning of the drive and is contiguous.