Wise to defrag archives?

Is it safe to defrag my FDISR archives? I have two hard drives - C drive for operating system and D for my data. All archives are stored on the Data drive.

I've noticed that when running defrag prgrams like PerfectDisk, O & O and Ultimate Defrag that everything seems to run fine until I the archives are defragged. Once the defrag programs start work on the archives, the system seems to lock up/come to a halt.

Is it normal practise to defrag FDISR archives?

Also, when I analyze my disks with PD, the fragmentation is usually very low - under 2-3%, yet O & O and UD show a much higher level of fragmentation (?) - 60-70%! Again, is it normal or is PD not checking correctly within FDISR?

Many thanks

 

I have always defragmented my archives, although that is more the result of not being able to exclude them since I only use the in built windows defrag and it doesn't have an option to exclude. Doesn't seem to have done any harm......yet.....But I think if I had the choice I'd leave them alone, I don't think there's anything to be gained and possibly a lot to lose, so not a good risk / reward senario.

 

Like you, Peter2150, my archives are on another drive with larger files and defragging takes hours, but the drive looks a mess as the archives are, as you say, heavily fragmented.

From now on I will exclude them.

Thanks for clearing this up guys

 

So if someone keeps archives in e.g. D drive, it is better not to defrag the D drive right? or choose the defrag program not to defrag the archive specifically. is that right?

 

Right.
If your D-drive contains other files than .arx, then you better exclude .arx-files in your defragger.
If your D-drive contains nothing but .arx-files, I wouldn't defrag the D-drive.
I don't defrag my external harddisk either, because it contains nothing but backups : .arx-files (FDISR) + .spf-files (ShadowProtect).

 

After awhile i delete my daily workarchive(snapshot) and create a new one, and yes defrag. archive take hours ,better yet to create anew in much shorter time.