I have a third of my hard drive empty contiguous space, but Windows 7 insists on fragmenting new large files into hundreds or thousands of pieces.
Does anyone know why? Does anyone know how to get Windows 7 to stop doing this?
Does anyone know how to get Windows 7 to stop doing this?
have you tried disabling the Windows Defragmenter service?
I use Piriform's Defraggler as my default defragmentation software. Why would stopping the Windows Defragmenter service prevent Windows from fragmenting files unnecessarily? Is that what you're suggesting?
Does anyone know why?
It's Windows so who really knows as it does some illogical things. Although I've seen fragmentation happen on my system when Windows tries to place a large file around or away from the MFT reserved zone.
See here:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa365230(v=vs.85).aspx
I use Piriform's Defraggler as my default defragmentation software. Why would stopping the Windows Defragmenter service prevent Windows from fragmenting files unnecessarily? Is that what you're suggesting?
My mistake.
Having re-read your post I have wrongly assumed you were asking why Windows 7 fragments your files into hundreds of piece because I thought you were running the Windows defragger program.
But you were just asking in general terms.
- When one has moved large files to the end of the drive then Windows sometimes needs to access those files every once and a while. In my experience Windows itself doesn't bother too much where it places (the) new files. It simply puts those files at a place where the disk head is on any given moment. I call it the "Quick & Dirty" method. (But that's what we all want: a fast system, right ?)
- When one has files moved to the end of the drive then Windows will still regularly read the directory files and then it can decide to place those news files (partially) at the end of the drive as well.