Long overdue — move files to BEGINNING of the drive

[Hmm]

Norton had this back in the early 2000s. This is really handy to move your frequently used files to the beginning of the drive. It's not logical (to me) to have the ability to move files to the end of the drive, but not to the beginning. Also, many other third party defragment tools including Windows actually "consolidate" files versus just fragment

[Andavari]

Back in the day that was useful to have in a defrag tool when wanting to partition/split a single HDD drive into multiple HDD drives.

[xpacetrue]

+1 for the suggestion.

I do find the option to move files to the end of the drive, particularly large files and particularly since we can configure the minimum file size to move to the end. It is also handy that we can click on an individual sector and move individual files or chunks to the end. But it would be even handier if we had another option to move files to the beginning of the drive or to the free space closest to the beginning.

 

[Hmm]

I think since defraggler doesn't "consolidate" files, only defrag them, moving frequently used files to the beginning of the drive is extremely important now more than ever. However, since SSD manufacturers don't recommend defragmenting their hard drives, I can see why the feature isn't available now.  But, I believe it should've been made available long ago. 

[nukecad]

10 hours ago, Hmm said:

I think since defraggler doesn't "consolidate" files, only defrag them,

Defraggler does a mixture of both consolidate and defrag by default.

But you can use it to do either one or the other, see this:
https://community.ccleaner.com/topic/58715-deffragler-dosnt-complite-the-defragmatation/?tab=comments#comment-321773

[Hmm]

On 02/01/2021 at 01:40, nukecad said:

Defraggler does a mixture of both consolidate and defrag by default.

But you can use it to do either one or the other, see this:
https://community.ccleaner.com/topic/58715-deffragler-dosnt-complite-the-defragmatation/?tab=comments#comment-321773

Oh! So using Defrag Free Space' (Advanced) is the same as consolidating your hard drive like the native Windows defrag? 

On my version Free Space Advanced states "allow fragmentation". 

[nukecad]

It should give you two options:

Defrag Freespace will consolidate the files into the lowest number of clusters it can without fragmenting them.
Defrag Freespace (allow fragmentation) will consolidate the files even tighter, if it can, by allowing some files to be split (fragmented) over clusters.

Think of your drive clusters like a row of buckets, any random 4 of which are 3/4 full of different colored sands (4 different, unfragmented, files).
You tip that sand into 4 buckets next to each other. That's four files which are now consolidated and not fragmented.
You then take the 4th bucket and spread it's sand on top of each of the first 3 buckets.
You now have an extra empty bucket (free cluster), because you have split up (fragmented) the 4th bucket of sand (the file) into the first 3 buckets (clusters) to fill them up.

PS. None of that necessarily means the files will be at the begining or end of the drive, just that they are packed in (consolidated) to give the free space available showing as a 'block'.
None of this is magically creating any extra free space on the drive, it's just moving things about so that you see them differently.
The only way to free up extra space on a disc is to delete the files that are taking that space up.

TBH it doesn't really matter where on the disc your files are, as long as they are not too fragmented their actual physical position on a HDD will only make a difference of nano-seconds in the computer reading them.
It's just 'nice' to see them all together, and 'nicer' if they are at one end or the other. It's a human perception, the computer isn't bothered by it at all.

[starseed83]

I agree . The Computer is not bothered by it .

[philjans]

really needed!
I am trying to shink my hdd and I need those files at the begining not the end of the drive!

[nukecad]

I can see that if you are trying to resize partitions.

Maybe try a full disc defrag/degrag freespace without the 'move large files to end' option?

Partition resizing tools/apps should be able to handle it as well.

[Andavari]

5 hours ago, philjans said:

really needed!
I am trying to shink my hdd and I need those files at the begining not the end of the drive!

Look for the now discontinued freeware defrag tool called JkDefrag (for a known safe source you could use the files included with JkDefrag Portable from PortableApps.com but not the GUI itself since it won't do what is needed), should still work with Win10 systems. JkDefrag has a commandline option that will force all files together at the beginning of the drive so that you can shrink or partition the drive. Note that doing so will fragment the drive, and also note not all files can necessarily be moved - so make sure you have a disk image backup before messing around with the drive.

[His_Cifnes]

Hmm.. for jkDefrag there is a GUI now. : ) - [Link]

To move everything to the beginning or to the end of a partition, I can recommend using [MyDefrag]. This thing also has a GUI, and you simply click on what you'd like to do. - Like for our use case "Move files to the beginning of disk".

I have to add, that I recommend using this tool ONLY for this purpose. For the usual defragging I recommend using Defraggler [in file defragging mode].

 

[Andavari]

I know about MyDefrag replacing JkDefrag, and being the replacement as a GUI, etc. Although JkDefrag is easy enough to use with a very simple command.