23 replies to this topic

[MedEvil]

I know this is a bit of topic, but does anyone know of a program that can perform, just a free space consolidation on a HDD?
Futher plus points would be, if it would run without installation and be freeware.

[TheHive]

just a free space consolidation on a HDD

Whats this.

[MedEvil]

It's sort of a defrag program, that only defrags free space but not files.
It would be very fast and all one needs for resizing of parttions. It would also come very handy, when one works with big files like virtual harddisks.

[Oleg_II]

dirms.exe (free, command-line, 172KB)?

[TheHive]

It's sort of a defrag program, that only defrags free space but not files.
It would be very fast and all one needs for resizing of parttions. It would also come very handy, when one works with big files like virtual harddisks.

Haven heard of doing such a thing. Only mainly defragging folders and stuff.


Found the dirms website that Oleg_II mentioned.
http://www.dirms.com/

I think this one if suppose to be free Buzzsaw-S v2.1.1
http://www.dirms.com...saw_service.asp
The Command line one is suppose to be free but I cant find it. The one above has a gui and require regitration.

[MedEvil]

Tryed out DirMS-CL.
Theoretical it could do what i want, unfortunately it does not seem to be free anymore, as i get a message about some features being disabled.

But nice find!

[Oleg_II]

Mine is v1.2.2.0, command-line with no GUI
As far as I remember it was free a couple of years ago when I downloaded this utility from the Web...
I also remember a member of MSFN.ORG made a gui for it too a year ago.

And there are two more usefull utilities of this kind I have in my box: contig.exe and pagedfrg.exe (the first is a command-line utility too but I saw a separate GUI for it and the last one has a GUI interface). Both utilities were free also, but I heard Mark Russinovich sold his SysInternals (www.sysinternals.com) to Microsoft?

[MedEvil]

Mine is v1.2.2.0, command-line with no GUI
As far as I remember it was free a couple of years ago when I downloaded this utility from the Web...
I also remember a member of MSFN.ORG made a gui for it too a year ago.

And there are two more usefull utilities of this kind I have in my box: contig.exe and pagedfrg.exe (the first is a command-line utility too but I saw a separate GUI for it and the last one has a GUI interface). Both utilities were free also, but I heard Mark Russinovich sold his SysInternals (www.sysinternals.com) to Microsoft?

Pagedefrag defrags, as far as i know, only the pagefile, nothing more.
Contig is still available, but lacks the feature i'm looking for.

But i found jkDefrag which can do, what i was looking for.

For everyone who might be interested, this is a commandline tool too!

[was_jaclaz]

I know this is a bit of topic, but does anyone know of a program that can perform, just a free space consolidation on a HDD?

It would be very fast and all one needs for resizing of parttions.

I don't get it.

On a non-defragged volume, free space is scattered around in bits and pieces, between occupied clusters.

To resize partitions it is useful that free space is at the end of partition.

This is normally done by defragging utilities by moving non-free clusters to the beginning of partition, leaving no free space between the various files, i.e. with a full defrag, which, in the meantime, tries to make clusters relative to single files contiguous.

What you are asking for is an utility that moves non-free clusters to beginning of partition WITHOUT making file fragments continuous?

Jkdefrag appears t be a "normal" defragger, what's the difference?


However, please find here some more tools:
http://www.msfn.org/...o...85812&st=22

jaclaz

[MedEvil]

I don't get it.

A fragmented drive means not, that the fre space is cluttered around, but that the files on it are non continous.
A lot of defrag programs don't even try to 'defrag' free space.

But the biggest difference is: Have you ever seen a 60GB drive defraged in 5 minutes?
That's how long it took to consolidate the free sapce!



PS: Run jkDefrag with '-a 5' as parameter.

[pscEx]

A fragmented drive means not, that the fre space is cluttered around, but that the files on it are non continous.
A lot of defrag programs don't even try to 'defrag' free space.

But the biggest difference is: Have you ever seen a 60GB drive defraged in 5 minutes?
That's how long it took to consolidate the free sapce!



PS: Run jkDefrag with '-a 5' as parameter.

I tried JkDefrag.
My result:
Technically it seems to be excellent: Fast and best results.
For the user point of view it is rather poor:
In my case with about 300 Gs of HDD, partitioned into 4 logical disks, the program processed all 4 partitions w/o any possibility of me to have a choice.
The choice can be done by cmd line arguments when starting the (Windows!) GUI.

My suggestion: Write a small (autoit) GUI to supply the arguments, and JkDefrag can become a great WB tool.

Peter

[MedEvil]

I tried JkDefrag.
My result:
Technically it seems to be excellent: Fast and best results.
For the user point of view it is rather poor:
In my case with about 300 Gs of HDD, partitioned into 4 logical disks, the program processed all 4 partitions w/o any possibility of me to have a choice.
The choice can be done by cmd line arguments when starting the (Windows!) GUI.

My suggestion: Write a small (autoit) GUI to supply the arguments, and JkDefrag can become a great WB tool.

Peter

The parameters work on the cmd version and on the GUI version. While GUI is really a harsch word, for a window showing you only the status of the defragmentation.
If cmd is not your case and you like somthing Guish, look here.
Take this file.
I didn't mention it ealier because it's only in german.

[was_jaclaz]

OK, sorry to be a nuisance, but I still fail to see what consolidating free space means.

Let's see if I get right how fragmentation is generated, (I am assuming that space occupied by filesystem structures is not counted ffor the sake of simplicity):
1) You copy to a disk three files, first one takes 5 clusters, second one takes 50 clusters, third one takes 4 clusters, whole disk size is 100 clusters
2) Disk is occupied as follows:
Clusters 1÷5 First file
Clusters 6÷55 Second file
Clusters 56÷59 Third file
Clusters 60÷100 Free space
(no fragmentation of any kind)
3) Now you copy a fourth file, say 10 clusters long, that goes on clusters 60÷69, (still there is no fragmentation)
4) Now you delete third file and copy to it a fifth file, 12 clusters long
5) Now you delete second file what you get is
Clusters 1÷5 First file
Clusters 6÷55 Free space
Clusters 56÷59 first 10 clusters of fifth file
Clusters 60÷69 fourth file
Clusters 70÷71 end 2 clusters of fifth file
Clusters 72÷100 Free space

Now if you use a "normal" defragging utility, result should be:
Clusters 1÷5 First file
Clusters 6÷17 fifth file
Clusters 18÷27 fourth file
Clusters 28÷100 Free space

What would be the result of just "consolidating free space"?

jaclaz

[pscEx]

The parameters work on the cmd version and on the GUI version. While GUI is really a harsch word, for a window showing you only the status of the defragmentation.
If cmd is not your case and you like somthing Guish, look here.
Take this file.
I didn't mention it ealier because it's only in german.

I think you misunderstood me.

In my opinion JkDefrag is a powerful tool.
But currently it cannot be accepted by most WinBuilder clients, because there is no GUI with user options to start it.

If somebody wants to use it in the current delivery state, he has to define *.lnk or *.cmd files starting JkDefrag with his wanted options (e.g. -a 5)

This should be done by something inside his PE, maybe an autoit prog- where a GUI builds the arguments and then calls JkDefrag.

Peter

[Oleg_II]

If I'm not mistaken there is a GUI and even for PE enviroment: JKDefrag Gui version 0.3 for BartPE/XPE Multilangual
Have a look at a nice interface on the first page - every option you can think of is here
But this GUI is nearly 5 times bigger then the program

[MedEvil]

What would be the result of just "consolidating free space"?

That depends on the option you did set.
Eighter the clusters from files are moved into the empy places, without to further defragmentation, so no 'chain' is ripped apart. This may not defrag free space completely.
Or clusters of files are moved beginning from the end of the partition into the empty spaces, without regard for defragmentation. The result can be files that are more fragmented than before, but all the free space is moved to the end in the fastest possible way!

Speed! That's what it is all about!
Or do you like to wait a couple of hours, just to resize a partition? I hate it!

[MedEvil]

If I'm not mistaken there is a GUI and even for PE enviroment: JKDefrag Gui version 0.3 for BartPE/XPE Multilangual
Have a look at a nice interface on the first page - every option you can think of is here
But this GUI is nearly 5 times bigger then the program

The GUI is an autoit thingy and not uptodate.
jkDefrag supports more options than the GUI.
Maybe version 04 will come out soon.

[MedEvil]

maybe an autoit prog- where a GUI builds the arguments and then calls JkDefrag.

That's exactly what the program, i posted a link to is, up to the tip of the i!

[was_jaclaz]

That depends on the option you did set.
Eighter the clusters from files are moved into the empy places, without to further defragmentation, so no 'chain' is ripped apart. This may not defrag free space completely.
Or clusters of files are moved beginning from the end of the partition into the empty spaces, without regard for defragmentation. The result can be files that are more fragmented than before, but all the free space is moved to the end in the fastest possible way!

You still did not answer my question, or may be I still fail to understand, what is supposed to be the output of the example partition with only "free space consolidated"?

jaclaz

[MedEvil]

Clusters 1÷5 First file
Clusters 6÷55 Free space
Clusters 56÷59 first 10 clusters of fifth file <--
Clusters 60÷69 fourth file
Clusters 70÷71 end 2 clusters of fifth file
Clusters 72÷100 Free space

Will turn into something like:

Clusters 1÷5 First file
Clusters 6÷7 end 2 clusters of fifth file
Clusters 8÷17 fourth file
Clusters 18÷27 first 10 clusters of fifth file
Clusters 28÷100 Free space

Hope this is clearer for you. I find it harder to understand than my other posts.

[was_jaclaz]

Yes, now I understand it, it works like a bubblesort but without the ordering, simply occupied space "floats" to the beginning of the drive filling any free space regardless of what file(s) it is relative too, and thus space near the end of the volume becomes free space.



jaclaz

[MedEvil]

Yes, now I understand it, it works like a bubblesort but without the ordering, simply occupied space "floats" to the beginning of the drive filling any free space regardless of what file(s) it is relative too, and thus space near the end of the volume becomes free space.



jaclaz

Isn't that what i said?

[was_jaclaz]

Isn't that what i said?

Yes, I was seeing it the wrong way, difference of terms, in my idea you are consolidating non-free space, with the result of having free space going to the end of the disk.



jaclaz

[MedEvil]

Yes, I was seeing it the wrong way, difference of terms, in my idea you are consolidating non-free space, with the result of having free space going to the end of the disk.



jaclaz

Ah, you can only see the glass half full, but never half empty!