I died and have gone to heaven! WOW, WOW, and er..WOW!

[Guest Nick_N]

http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...id=437939&page=

[MSW 0]

Nick:I am in the process of following your list exactly (not on this computer)and have a question. The first run of O&O Defrag complete/name took 10 hours to complete. The second run of complete/name took 6 hours to complete. My system is XP Pro SP2, Core 2 Duo E6700 OCed to 3.0 ghz, 2 gb dual path RAM, 2 160gb SATA drives in RAID 0, and EVGA 8800 GTS 640 mb. Out of 306 gb of total available disk space there is 130 gb free space left in the RAID 0 configuration.Question: Is the long completion times for the complete/name defrag normal and if not what could be causing the long defrag time?Please help.Thanks!Mike

[Guest Nick_N]

That does sound like a very exaggerated amount of time to run through a 30 gig defrag.=====================================EDIT: I did not have my glasses on.. it would appear you have about 176GB of installed files.. In that I can see some time in running such a process, but 6 hours still seems excessive.. read below about RAID. Also, with that much data I would run at least 1 or 2 more passes and note the time it takes.. each one should be faster than the last.==============================The first space defrag passes.. I assume they were fairly quick in comparison?I have seen extended defrag times on systems where RAID0 was being applied and write cache was disabled. The RAID system may be affecting the defrag. I do advise not to use motherboard RAID0 with FSX. Use of RAID with the process and defrag I outlines is fine however I find the disk access on motherboard RAID is so excessive with FSX the CPU cycles it robs and the file access lag is not worth the RAID0 setup in loss to FSX for resources. The only RAID0 I recommend for FSX is that of a professional RAID card solution which has onboard DDR2 memory as a buffer and is accessed through either a PCIX port or preferably a PCIe 4X slot, minimum. At the same time the minimum STRIPE for the array setup should be no less than 256K. Less than that will place more access time on the file loads than its worth.I do not know why you may be seeing such long defrag times however i suspect it may be an I/O issue around the RAID drivers or setup. Perhaps you may want to check the device manager and see if there is any indication of a write cache setting that may need to be enabled. It is always best to confirm such settings are indeed safe to enable prior to making such a change and I can not confirm that from here. You will need to research that yourself. All systems are different and settings like that should be confirmed before applying.

[MSW 0]

Yes the Space defrags were much shorter in length. Is there a way to convert from RAID 0 to seperate drives without loosing all of my stuff with reformat?Mike

[Guest Nick_N]

Unfortunately, no at least not easy in your situation... The only way I could think of to do that would be to do a image backup using GHOST or other partition copy software but unfortunately the drives you have as 2 singles won

[brucek 38]

Hi Nick,"The only way I could think of to do that would be to do a image backup using GHOST or other partition copy software but unfortunately the drives you have as 2 singles won

[Guest Nick_N]

HmmmmmmWell, I think your suggestion would be much better than placing FSX on the array, that

[brucek 38]

Thanks (again), Nick.Bruce.

[Palebushman 0]

Hi Nick,In defense of my long and trusted PerfectDisk application, which I have recently upgraded to PerfectDisk 9, may I please provide you with the definitive information about PerfectDisk 9 that may have eluded you during the last year:-"PerfectDisk's Smart Placement Algorithm will fragment the entire drive and place files according to their usage patterns (sorted by modification date not last access date). Free space will be consolidated next to the most frequently changing files to allow room for growth and slow down the rate of re fragmentation. With access date, files change all of the time. So as soon as you open the file, even with read only, it changes the last access date and is then reshuffled on the drive. Whenever you do def rag, there is a lot more shuffling that the dragger is going to do to accommodate the last access date that is changing on a frequent basis. Modification date makes more sense because you

[Guest Nick_N]

If that

[Dougal 165]

>The primary conditions that indicates a safe environment for>use of the defrag is that WindowsXP was installed using either>a genuine WindowsXP SP2 disk or a slipstreamed WindowsXP SP2>disk that was created at least 6-9 months after SP2 was web>released. >>>Installing Xp from a SP1, SP1a and applying the SP2 patch it>is recommended the defrag not be used. Also, older SP2>slipstreamed disks may still present a problem if the disk was>produced right after SP2 was initially released.>>>Those are the only issues/conditions I am aware of. Dell>systems were more susceptible than any other however the issue>was not completely limited to Dell. >>Also, not everyone who used the web update Sp2 process will>have problems however it is best not to use the defrag>software if your system falls under that criteria.>>I can not promise anyone that they will not have any problems>at all. Out of the thousands that use and try that method>there are bound to be conditions whereby criteria is met for>incompatibilities or system components may fail. Tweaking and>performance tuning is never totally safe.>>>most however will not see anything but performance gains.>>>>Nick, sorry to be a pain. I just wan't to be sure i understand what you're saying... Is it just the offline defrage you refer to? Should i run the rest?

[MSW 0]

Nick:What I have is Acronis Version 10 for backup. What I do is periodically back up the entire computer to a 320 gb external hard drive so that if I ever have to wipe out the entire computer, I can get it back as it was prior to the problem arising such as a virus. Actually I have two 320 gb external hard drives. Questions: When I do a complete backup like that is the backup stored on the external hard drive in a RAID 0 configuration or stored just as the whole system on a large disk? How can I get from the external hard drive back to two separate 160 gb hard drives not in RAID 0 configuration? I know first I would have to reformat to two separate 160 gb disks to get it out of RAID 0 but how do I get it from the backed up files to the two separate disks? Or do I still have to install another 250 or 320 gb disk within the computer to put it all on.Also, if I am successful in having FSX on one disk and everything else on another, how do I deal with registry entries for addons for FSX?Mike

[Guest Nick_N]

That

[MSW 0]

Thanks for your help! I guess that I will stay where I am. FSX runs fairly smoothly for me anyway. At some point I will probably abandon FS9 which accounts for most of the disk space used. At that time I will reconfigure everything and do a complete reinstall of FSX with the few addons that I have for it.Thanks!Mike

[boris4356 4]

Hi Nick,I followed your settings to the letter for C drive, and did all the O&O defrag runs. I am a bit confused when it comes to doing my K drive where FSX resides. After doing the offline defrag in C, and rebooting, you say to go to C:WindowsPrefetch and delete files. Then place rundll32 advapi32,ProcessIdleTasks in the Run box. You also say to do this after the final defrag run.Do these steps need to be done again when defragging a drive other than C, or do you just need to do the SPACE, Error Checking, Offline, the NAME, and then a SPACE defrag run again?Thanks,Bill