4 hours ago, JaceNZ said:
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Mine had more fragmented files after it finished than it started with!
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Did you read the second post above?
When you are defragmenting (consolidating) a <strong>whole disc</strong> it always means that your <strong>files</strong> will be more fragmented.
I'll try to explain it a bit deeper:
It depends just how you have run the defrag.
There are 2 different methods depending on what results you are looking to get and by default Defraggler does a combination of both, - but it can be set to do either/or.
The issue is that the word 'Defragmenting' is inaccurately used to mean two different things, two things which are mutually exclusive.
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Getting each file into one contiguous piece, rather than split across clusters. (So that they load marginally faster).
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Getting all the files into as small a storage space as possible. (To give more free clusters on the disc).
The first is 'Defragmenting' and means that some clusters on the disc will inevitably have some unused space.
The second is correctly termed 'Consolidation', <u>and means fragmenting some files to 'pack them all in' to the available clusters.</u>
So Consolidation may/will leave each file more fragmented than it was before, but the disc as a whole is less fragmented. (ie. with most of the white space in one piece).
TBH Consolidation is rarely needed these days, drives are big enough that it's not needed.
But people like to see it on the chart displayed, they like to see big blocks of colour with no white 'holes'.
Consolidation also takes much longer, especially on todays (multi) TB drives - simply because they are big drives.
You are probably not short of space on a TB drive, so those in the know do a 'Files only' defragment which is the quicker option to use.
So you can have all your files in one piece each, or have them packed into the smallest disc space by splitting some up. - You can't have both, and which you choose depends on what you want to do.
Defraggler does a combination of the two by default, but for more control you can specify which one you want instead.
In Defraggler:
'Defrag Drive' will do some of both, as it sees fit to get the best result.
'Defrag Files' will make the files contiguous (#1 above).
'Defrag Free Space' (Advanced) will consolidate the files to give the most free clusters. (#2 above).
PS. None of this will 'magically' make more space on your disc, it's all just moving files about.