FDISR Archive

Discussion in 'FirstDefense-ISR Forum' started by WWS, Jan 28, 2006.

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  1. WWS

    WWS Registered Member

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    Updating an archive does go pretty fast. Nice.
    But the help file says that too many updates of an archive results in fragmentation.
    When would be the time to just make a new archive?
    How many is too many?
     
    WWS, Jan 28, 2006
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  2. Acadia

    Acadia Registered Member

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    I would simply defrag; yes, a defraging software defrags all of the regular Snapshots, I asked tech support about it once, so I am going to ASSume that defraging also defrags the Archives (perhaps you would want to ask tech support about this just to make sure). You can have as many Archive Snapshots as you want, there is no limit, except drive space, of course.

    Acadia
     
    Acadia, Jan 28, 2006
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  3. WWS

    WWS Registered Member

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    I asked Raxco but won't be hearing anything until after the weekend.
    I'll post back.
    A quick look shows that I can single out that archive with Perfect Disk.
    Keeping an archive snapshop updated will save a lot of time.
     
    WWS, Jan 28, 2006
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  4. WWS

    WWS Registered Member

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    An answer from Raxco!

    "Thank you for contacting Raxco Software Support.

    During a defragmentation pass, these files are worked on by PerfectDisk. PerfectDisk will attempt to keep the file contiguous and allow room for growth so that it doesn’t fragment as fast as it normally would. So I would definitely recommend that you defragment these files.

    The snapshot will not become unreliable due to defragmentation.

    Please let me know if you have any questions.

    Susie Colon
    Raxco Software Support"

    (Using Perfect Disk, I can select this snapshot out of the whole drive for defragmenting. This will save a lot of time and space. Good news)
     
    WWS, Feb 2, 2006
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  5. Acadia

    Acadia Registered Member

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    Thank you for the news, WWS! :cool:

    Acadia
     
    Last edited: Feb 2, 2006
    Acadia, Feb 2, 2006
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  6. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    Interesting topic. I had a long talk with Jason about defragging archives. I built a brand new archive on a newly formated partition, and it had over 33000 excess fragments. Also I've noted that the archives take longer to defrag then to build. Jason went into some of the technical reasons for this dealing with compression, windows, etc etc. Bottom line is it isn't worth defragging the archives. The snapshots yes. One could rebuild them, but in the time it takes to do that, you can test it by restoring to a new snapshot and test it.

    I suspect from what he said an archive integrity tester may be in the future.

    Pete
     
    Peter2150, Feb 2, 2006
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  7. WWS

    WWS Registered Member

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    Fired up Perfect Disk and couldn't get it to defrag an archive.
    Progress stayed at 1% so I quit after 10 minutes.
    It'll defrag everything but an .arx.
    I excluded everything but the .arx and it wouldn't even build a list of excluded files.
    If I include the .arx, PD will build an excluded list and defrag those files. Weird.
     
    WWS, Feb 3, 2006
    #7
  8. WilliamP

    WilliamP Registered Member

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    I have my Archive on an external 2.0 Enclosure and plan to format and re- archive about once a month. That way it shouldn't get too fragmented.
     
    WilliamP, Feb 4, 2006
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  9. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    @williamp If you look you will find the minute you build the archive it is very fragment. Don't worry about it.

    @wws I have the archive in a separate partition on an external drive. It will defrag, but it is extremely time consuming. It's because the archive is compressed and windows(the api call the defraggers use) has to decompress each piece move it, and the recompress it. Takes forever.

    Pete
     
    Peter2150, Feb 4, 2006
    #9
  10. crofttk

    crofttk Registered Member

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    Furthermore, I don't know about others' external drives but my external USB drives just take FOREVER to defragment. I just don't see how defragging a backup or an archive of any kind is worthwhile. I don't think I'll be too picky about having fragment free performance as long as the file is uncorrupted and will refresh and restore properly.
     
    crofttk, Feb 23, 2006
    #10
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