how come my new disk needs defragging?

150G raptor.

120G left.

only installed some newer games on it so far....farcry, HL2, Boiling Point, vice city.

i went to check analyze in defrag...and like the tiny used portion is 80-90% RED! saying "you need to defragment"

am i doing something wrong? how is a 'new' (empty) disk not getting used in a contiguous manner?
 
You are not doing anything wrong. It's very annoying though.

I recommend you defrag (one or two times depending on defragger) after installing a game.
 
Because you're using a sucky OS with a lame File System not even capable of limiting file fragmentation...
(There are file systems able to limit fragmentation by huge margins, but FAT/NTFS aren't those...)

A way to reduce fragmentation is to have two partitions, one with the OS another with your data, so that when you install things, temp files are copied to the OS drive while you install on the other; such limiting fragmentation opportunities.
 
i defragged. all blue now....that is weird. like the os is being busier (fragmenting the writes) than it has to be.

anyway i was wondering if a new disk wasn't actually MT. but was full of 'test' data or something...that was only pseudo present (doesn't show as used space)

maybe it has "patriot act" written all over it!
 
When you install windows itself you get tons of fragmentation, unless you log in in safe mode and clean out all temp files, then run defrag when most services are not loaded so they can be moved. If you do that things will run much more quickly and not be nearly as fragmented.
 
I just wanted to concur that my own experiences have shown that the OS install, itself, and any software installations thereafter will inherently leave fragmentation on your hdd. It's not the drive's fault. Once you have all your stuff installed, defragment, and you should find the fragmenting thereon should be more typical to your regular use experiences.

I also suspect that the impact of fragmentation is highly overrated. I'm not saying you shouldn't defragment occasionally on a Windows machine. Occasional short sessions should be less invasive than one giant session after waiting for fragmentation gets so bad the wheels are falling off. ;) I just mean to say that when you see the fragmentation report, don't get freaked out so quickly, even if you see a good amount of red. It looks nasty, but I suspect it can be allowed to get much, much worse, before there is any real performance impact on the system.

I think once you got all the main OS parts and software in good shape, they should stay that way on their own, and the only thing left to get fragmented are a group of temp files and maybe some frequently moved/copied files. That stuff could tolerate getting chopped up real good, before there is a significant system impact. It may look bad on the defrag report, but it's probably not as serious as it looks. It's still good to keep them spiffed up regularly, but just don't get freaked out if they happen to be a bit straggley when you check.
 
I use a scratch partition for browser cache, downloads, install files, etc. Logically it reduces fragmentation of other partitions, but I'm not really sure if it's worth the bother.
 
Defragmentation is annoying. I defrag once a month though using Perfect Disk. The difference in performance is quite staggering...games load up so much faster after defragging. I hate NTFS.
 
From my experience.. I have always had to defrag drives after clean installs. Seems XP's file system writes to the disc more like a shotgun or exposive diarrhea to me. :(

If I use a defragged image on other systems though... they have no fragmentation...
 
Yeah if you install anything you'll most likely get data that is fragged to hell. I'd swear when windows looks for a place to put chunks of data there is a random number generator involved.

Sometimes the red chunks you see aren't as bad as they look. I've had 20+ GB files that would get stuck in 2 pieces but the defragger shows it all as red. Looks a lot worse than it really is.

Also if you get a drive under about 15% free space it will start fragging really quickly to avoid that. I accidently filled on a few times and ended up with in excess of 10 fragments per file and they weren't even big files. Typically a ton of small ones.

Once you get the data on there it isn't likely to frag itself unless it changes size or does something strange so install your programs, defrag and you should be good to go. Any of windows temp directories will still make it their goal in life to add fragments to your drive however.
 
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