FG

Why does Windows Defragmenter do nearly nothing on a disk with 23% empty space?

Fresh3 days ago
Mar 15, 20263225 views
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Problem

While trying to defragment a 80 GB NTFS (4 KB cluster size) volume on Windows XP, I encountered a strange problem: the defragmentation process is very quick, but also very useless. Graphically, I could see some files moving all around, but the fragmentation level remains the same. Here's what it lo…

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Fix for: Why does Windows Defragmenter do nearly nothing on a disk with 23% empty space?

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The defragmenter does not have anywhere to move the big files to: all free space is somewhat evenly distributed in small chunks, so there wouldn't be any improvement if $VERYBIGFILE changed from, say, 20 close pieces to 10 scattered-all-over pieces.…

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