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Move ALL Files to End of HDD?


MWisBest

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I have a 500GB external HDD formatted as FAT32 (yeah I know, "4GB file-size limit u should use NTFS or exFAT!", however I need something that works on many different devices and OSes, be it Blu-Ray players, Windows and Linux, game consoles, etc., and FAT32 is the only such thing really. Blame Macro$oft), which I mostly use for backups. I want to slightly repurpose it, and need to squeeze every last bit of performance out of it and can't have any file fragmentation whatsoever for it. Currently the drive is mostly backups (usually 7z archives split at 4000MB (no, that's not 4GB, that'd be 4096MB, and yes I'm aware of the MiB/GiB etc. prefix but only HDD manufacturers care to use that and even Defraggler doesn't use GiB/MiB/etc. even though that's what it's technically measuring in) but also has a few movies on there as well. My plan was to use Defraggler and just move everything on the disk to the very end to put the speed-needed stuff at the front of the HDD, however even after setting the minimum file size as 0MB and not filtering any file types from it, not everything was moved to the end, not even half of it, and there's even still a few fragments on there.

 

Is there something I'm missing, or is there something else I'll have to use for this?

 

Thanks.

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Hello MWisBest and welcome to the forum. Is there any way you can post a screenshot of the current partition table on the 500GB drive, the amount of archived data you have, and some idea of how much space you need for your archives and at the front of the disk as well? I'm going to suggest repartitioning and copying the archived data to a new FAT32 partition at the end of the drive, doing so would result in zero fragmentation when finished. It would then leave you with a new NTFS partition at the front of the drive for your applications that demand performance, and probably take little or no more time than defragmenting the entire disk and not getting the results you require.   

Start every day with a smile and get it over with. - W.C. Fields

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Hello MWisBest and welcome to the forum. Is there any way you can post a screenshot of the current partition table on the 500GB drive, the amount of archived data you have, and some idea of how much space you need for your archives and at the front of the disk as well? I'm going to suggest repartitioning and copying the archived data to a new FAT32 partition at the end of the drive, doing so would result in zero fragmentation when finished. It would then leave you with a new NTFS partition at the front of the drive for your applications that demand performance, and probably take little or no more time than defragmenting the entire disk and not getting the results you require.   

Unfortunately, I can't do any partitioning. The movies are usually played via Blu-Ray players or TVs that have USB input, and one of the Blu-Ray players in my house does not support multiple partitions (despite it claiming otherwise) and also only supports FAT32, and the performance-intensive stuff has those same restrictions as well.

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Hello MWisBest - Thank you for explaining the situation, now I understand the constraints you are forced to deal with. This solution applies only if you have enough room on your internal drive to temporarily store the data that is currently on the 500GB external drive. If you cannot then stop reading here.

 

Start by setting up several folders on the internal drive to store your data by category, movies, archives, and so on. Copy your data to the new folders on the internal drive, double check and be sure all of it is accounted for. Then delete the current partition on the external drive. Now figure out how much space you need for your archived data, and create a new FAT32 partition, located at the end of the drive, and just large enough to hold the archives. Copy the archives from the internal drive to the new partition on the external drive. When this is done, and you have accounted for all the files, expand the FAT32 partition to the full size of the drive, and then copy your movies, which will be copied starting from the beginning of the drive onward, and will be free of fragmentation. When you are done, and everything is accounted for, you can delete the folders from your internal drive. I know it sounds like a lot of work, but to get the results you are calling for, namely 0% fragmentation, this is the only way I can think of. Finally, set up Defraggler to keep all your archives' filetypes (*.zip,*.cab and so on) at the end of the drive, and be absolutely sure none of the movies' filetypes (*.avi,*.mpg,*.mpeg) are checked.

Start every day with a smile and get it over with. - W.C. Fields

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