What drives are safe to defrag (system, project, sample drives)

[keithl]

I was thinking about defragging, since..well, I have been working on my recording pc for years and never did it.

What drives are safe to defrag?
I have a system drive with my OS
a sample drive, with all my samples (toontrack, eastwest, etc..)
and my project drive (where I keep my protools projects)

Is it ok to defreg them all? I am thinking the project drive may be a no-no, because it will probably mess up the location of all the recording files, but I am not sure.

Thanks for your help!
-k

[albee1952]

One person's opinion only, but I would not defrag any drive(well, MAYBE the system drive). Instead, I would copy everything from one drive to a spare(external, USB, whatever), Reformat the old drive and then copy everything back onto it. Do 1 drive at a time and test. Better yet, save a drive image too, so if all else fails, you can restore the drive exactly as it is right now.

[mykhal c]

hot button topic. many of us follow different schools of thought. best to follow albee's and Digi's advice on how to defrag a volume/disk. personally i defrag but that's just me...bein' hardheaded...successfully

[keithl]

Thanks for the input, guys....I would probably feel better with Albee's way. Something about defragging makes me nervous!

Thanks again

[albee1952]

Originally Posted by keithl

Thanks for the input, guys....I would probably feel better with Albee's way. Something about defragging makes me nervous!

Thanks again

In theory, it should be fine, but I have read just enough horror stories to make me go the other route. It does take longer(and is more "hands on") but it does work

[TOM@METRO]

I would not defrag a drive using any method without a separate full backup offline.