DEFRAG OPTIONS?

[vici]

I've heard discussed on DUC's, 4 possible ways to defrag drives:
***NORTON UTILITIES
***FWB
***DISK WARRIOR
***COPYING ALL FILES TO ANOTHER DRIVE

Do all these do the same thing?

Opinions?

Digi talks about FWB a lot, but lots of folks recommend Norton. I've also heard a few warnings about Norton with ProTools.

Is the "directory repair" that Disk Warrior says it deals with the same as defragging... or is it a step you would do BEFORE defragging with another utility?

And is the "copying" method just as good as a defrag utility? And if so, does it work as well if I just copy to another empty partition of the same harddrive?

(DIGI-001,G4,Sawtooth,9.0.4, two internal ATA's)

Thanks,
victor
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[GuitarEasley]

bump

[MusicTrax]

Originally posted by vici:
I've heard discussed on DUC's, 4 possible ways to defrag drives:
***NORTON UTILITIES
***FWB
***DISK WARRIOR
***COPYING ALL FILES TO ANOTHER DRIVE

Do all these do the same thing?

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Essentially, yes. The key is which method is the fastest and most reliable.

Me personally, I'd say if I had enough available drives, I'd just use a new blank drive and copy the stuff over. That's probably the fastest and least-riskiest method, since you automatically get a backup that way.

But in truth, I've wound up using Norton SpeedDisk the most, and never had a problem with it. There was a time where Norton wouldn't work with Firewire drives, and I don't know if that's been solved yet. When I have to defrag Firewire drives (under OS 9.2), I've been using TechTools -- a fifth method you didn't mention before. And so far, TechTools has been flawless.

However: Be SURE you backup all files on the drive before using any kind of defrag utility. Should disaster strike -- for example, if you get a crash in the middle of the defrag process, or lose power, or have some other cataclismic failure, it'll be a nasty mess (and potentially one that'll wipe out your session).

--Marc W.

[aagrp]

I'm not a software designer, but I believe the difference between the defrag in DiskWarrior and Norton is DiskWarrior COPIES data to a new drive sector AND THEN readdresses for the new data. I believe Norton lifts the data and holds it in RAM as it places the data in its optimized position. So technically if power goes out, Norton is more susceptible to data loss. But most people are running a UPS anyway so that shouldn't be much of an issue.

To defrag, it's important that the directory information is fully intact as defragging can damage audio ... if there is any corruption in the directory, bits of audio files will be replaced by other pieces of data as the defrag program thinks that that particular data position is available. IMHO DiskWarrior excels here. I've never had any sort of damage caused or exacerbated from its use (unlike Norton). And DiskWarrior automatically works around auths etc.

If you're thinking of optimizing your audio drives only, my recommendation would be to do a save session copy to a fresh drive rather than using a utility. That way you get a fresh directory, defragged files and an opportunity to consolidate and clean up your session.

Best,

R.