DrivePool and defragment tools

Paaland

I wonder how DrivePool and various defrag tools go together? Is it ok and safe to run a defragment now and again?

Shane

It should be. DrivePool M3 runs "above" NTFS while the Windows defrag API runs "in" or "below" it (depending on your point of view).

JazJon

M4 is a complete re-write, I wouldn't put much effort into figuring out defrag with M3

MaDgamEr

If it's worth anything, I've been running Raxco PerfectDisk 12 for a couple months now (DrivePool installed the whole time) and no issues at all... At least none that I'm aware of.

Alex

NTFS stores each file in 4096 byte sized chunks (usually) called clusters.

The more you create / delete on the disk, the more "holes" you create, because for efficiency, NTFS files are placed randomly on the disk. To fill these holes files have to be split up into smaller chunks, or fragments. That's how your disk gets fragmented.

Since DrivePool doesn't work with the disk, and doesn't care how the files are stored on disk, it is impossible and meaningless to defragment the pool.

The pool is just a virtual construct that sits on top of some number of NTFS volumes, where each NTFS volume writes to the disk and decides how to best store the files.

You should defragment each individual NTFS volume, and that will benefit the pool.

MaDgamEr

Sorry, I should say that perfectdisk has been running on the volumes themselves and NOT the drivepool shares.