[tgggd86]

I have a 1TB drive that has only Video_TS folders on it and it is a little over 90% full with 71 GB's free of 931GB. My question is, how full can I get this drive before it slows down when reading data on this disc? Also there is no HD content only DVD rips.

 

[davdev]

I typically try to defrag when there is about 80% left, then I just let it fill up. I don't know if I would want a system disk to be that full, but for movies, you won't notice any speed issues with a full drive. I have a couple drives that only have a few MB left on them, and have no problems with playback

 

[tgggd86]

Thanks for the input. Fortunitly I use jkdefrag which will defrag it even when being extremely full

 

[sotti]

yeah a perfectly full, perfectly defragged drive should have no read issues.


writing to a full disc is another issue.

 

[Bigbird999]

If you are ripping/copying video files/TS folders to your HDD one at a time they will be written contiguously so there should be no need to defrag (since the files are already sorted). If you are recording multiple files (like with multiple TV tuners) then fragmentation will be severe.


For large files (like video) you can get a major performance boost by formatting the drive in 64 K clusters rather than the default 4k clusters. FWIW, in over 2 years I have never defraged my 500 GB TV recording HDD and it has often been 99% full and I have never had any issues with read/write to the drive. In the past with small FAT formatted drives fragmentation was a major performance factor. With modern, large, NTSF formatted drives fragmentation is not an issue that majorly impacts performance (especially with 64 K clusters).


BB


BB

 

[Toxic69]

what OS? linus, mac, windows?


i know Microsoft recommends at least %15 free..

 

[Bigbird999]

XP PRO and yes they do recommend 15% but for me, with 64k clusters, it is simply not an issue. There are lots of guys recording 3+ OTA HD streams simultaneously on their Sage/BTV rigs. This results in tens of thousands of fragments for each recording since they are not contiguous. Some guys schedule a defrag every night and others never do one. IMO, defrags are no longer necessary. With 64 K clusters it is simply not an issue (for me).


Maybe one of the experts with big storage arrays will jump in and back me up or shoot me down!!!!


BB

 

[sotti]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Toxic69 /forum/post/15534955


what OS? linus, mac, windows?


i know Microsoft recommends at least %15 free..

That's because the mediocre defrag tool can't do a good defrag without that much frees pace.

 

[Java Jack]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Bigbird999 /forum/post/15535121


XP PRO and yes they do recommend 15% but for me, with 64k clusters, it is simply not an issue. There are lots of guys recording 3+ OTA HD streams simultaneously on their Sage/BTV rigs. This results in tens of thousands of fragments for each recording since they are not contiguous. Some guys schedule a defrag every night and others never do one. IMO, defrags are no longer necessary. With 64 K clusters it is simply not an issue (for me).


Maybe one of the experts with big storage arrays will jump in and back me up or shoot me down!!!!


BB

Are you losing any space with 64K clusters? I would guess that the large files would use the space effectively, but I know my Video TS files have a mix of large and small file types. I wonder if the space would be lost by not using the full cluster.

 

[Bigbird999]

Yes, files smaller than 64k will consume 64 k each but when you consider that there are 16 64k clusters per MB you would only be wasting

 

[jason.williams14]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Bigbird999 /forum/post/15536985


Yes, files smaller than 64k will consume 64 k each but when you consider that there are 16 64k clusters per MB you would only be wasting