"The Science of Defragging"
Complete Transcript of
Marcus Galindo – Diskeeper Interview
on Let’s Talk Computers
Host Alan Ashendorf
October 20 2007
Alan: After going out and buying a brand-new computer and getting a new CPU and the fastest hard drive, you’re still going to eventually experience what we call “computer slow-downs”. How can we prevent this? Our guest today is Marcus Galindo, Spokesperson from Diskeeper Corporation. Welcome to Let’s Talk Computers, Marcus.
Marcus: Thank you for having me as your guest, Alan
Alan: Any time you want to prevent a problem, you really need to understand what is actually causing this problem in the first place. First of all, we have to acknowledge that it is not anything that we are doing anything wrong; it’s just the normal way that the operating system works with the hard drive. So, let’s take a look at the hard drive. How does a hard drive work with the operating system?
Marcus: The hard drive is made up of several different disks and those disks are read by a “head”, which has to travel back and forth across the disk in order to read the data that’s on it and that includes your files, your folders – any information that’s stored.
Alan: To get a visual idea of how a head reads information off a hard drive, we can either use a set of books like an encyclopedia or nowadays, we can use a TV series, which is stored on DVD’s. We want to watch each episode, one after the other and in a perfect world; all episodes would be stored in the same shelf, one after the other.
But in the real world, they are probably scattered all over the living room and when we want to watch or favorite TV series, we have to find them and they could be anywhere. A hard drive is the say way. Files can anywhere.
Marcus: The disk has to spin and the head has to rotate around in order to access files in different ways. But even in this case, it may even be in a sequence like that – you may be traveling back and forth.
Alan: People have a misconception. They look at their Windows Explorer and they see all the files in the same folder. They think that the files are being stored right next to each other. That may not be true at all because these files can be stored anywhere on the computer system and we really don’t have any control as to where we put them, do we?
Marcus: You’re very correct in the sense that because the Windows interface shows files that are stored together, does not necessarily that physically on the disk they are on the same place. In terms of controlling that, the separation of these files is what is called "fragmentation".
Alan: Again, in a perfect world, we would have each file stored completely in just one location and then the next file, stored right after that, and then the next and then the next. But in reality, every time that we install a new program or any time that we add any new records to a new database, we end up adding and deleting a lot of temporary files; therefore, we have spaces that are left on the hard drive that the operating system is just going to start filling in, automatically. And that’s where the problem is.
Marcus: Most temporary files that you’re talking about, take up a certain amount of space on the disk, but then are deleted. Now, those open, small pieces of space may not necessarily be utilized by the next file that is larger or may not fit properly. So, in that case those blank pieces of space are empty and then the new file that you saved may be fragmented into several of those spaces.
Alan: And whether you’re working with a database and adding new records, or you are working with a word processor document and you are adding to it, the operating system is just going to store this information to the next available "free space". And when it needs to "read back" multiple records or this complete document, the heads may have to travel multiple places on the hard drive to find all this information to bring it back, because the information is stored everywhere, now.
Marcus: The computer, itself does know where these files are stored, due to what are called “metadata files”. And that just gives the computer information on where it is stored on the disk. However, because you are talking about storing in multiple different places on these drives, the time to access these files increases, as the fragmentation continues and it increases along with the size of the hard drive.
Alan: Once we understand what the problem is, what we really need to do is to reorganize our hard drive to make sure that the files that we are going to be using all the time are sitting right next to each other, so that when it gets read, you read multiple things at one time and you don’t have to go out to the hard drive and read it again.
Marcus: Exactly. What we provide at Diskeeper is defragmentation software that takes those files that are physically on the disk and aligns them in such a way that they are no longer fragmented – so that the head of the hard drive can read directly contiguously through one piece of data.
Alan: When we organize our hard drive - is it better to have the files that we’re going to be using all the time – let’s say our "boot up sequence" – it’s going to be the same every time that we turn the computer on – to be all in one location?
Marcus: There is technology in the newest version of Diskeeper that allows the most recently accessed files to be stored in places and not be fragmented and stored in places that are easily accessible by the "read heads".
Alan: When you’re talking about a read head you need to picture the way a hard drive is looking at a platter that is spinning at tremendous speed and you’ve got this little head that is basically scanning back and forth, doing what they call “seeking” and it has to position itself to certain places on the hard drive; it has to be told where to go and then told where to go next. The more that this hard drives seeks – I know that it’s getting its exercise – but isn’t that kind of detrimental to the hard drive? Isn’t it true that the fewer seeks you do with a hard drive, the longer the hard drive is going to last?
Marcus: One of the problems today that we’re seeing, is that with these faster-speed hard drives, and with larger hard drives that are being required to make more jumps and more spaces because of fragmentation – you’re seeing hard drives that can actually wear out faster, depending on the user. Part of the solutions is to defragment and keep these data files in sequence, so that they can be accessed easily, without having to do multiple reads and passes.
Alan: When you are talking about defragmenting, it’s like a term that says, "Okay, I’m going to the doctor and the doctor is going to fix me". Defragging is actually a science of putting things back together again. It’s like taking a puzzle and putting the pieces where they actually belong.
Marcus: It’s kind of like your hard drive’s own "personal assistant". The way that I always think about it is if you have a file cabinet that’s filled with files that are not in order, defragmentation takes that and it puts them all in order, so that they can be easily accessed in sequence and with ease.
Alan: When you’re defragging something you really can’t do any anything in the background. You can’t really do surfing on the Internet; you can’t really do anything that is disk intensive. Say that I’m working with a database or I have my Cad/Cam program, I can’t really do anything, because the disk defragger owns the computer system. You don’t do it that way. You actually watch what’s going on with us, and only grab it when it’s idle?
Marcus: Nowadays, with what we call, "InvisiTasking", it’s technology that we use in order to have defragmentation running on your computer only during idle "system-resource time". So, if your computer is not doing anything or if it’s doing very little – maybe you’ve stepped away for a cup of coffee for a minute, it’s going to be defragging for you, in the background. It’s really made "scheduled defragmentation" a thing of the past.
So, now you no longer have to either enter a manual defragmentation or set a specific time in which to defragment. Diskeeper monitors your computer’s "idle resources" and when there’s apt idle resources, Diskeeper will work on the fly in order to keep a system as defragmented as possible.
Alan: Can we actually decide what goes where? Windows has its own set of drivers that it needs to function and the faster that Windows can load those drivers, the faster the appearance of being able to use our computer is, isn’t it?
Marcus: Of course; and you know one of the things, is that Diskeeper Defragmentation actually does, it that there is a lot of that organization for you. But, for the Power Users out there, who want to set certain file requirements and specifics, that’s available, too.
Alan: Every Home User has all these MP3 files. They have their video collection; they have all these large files that are sitting on their hard drive and it would be nice to put them in such a place that we never have to think about moving them again, because they just need to sit there and be quiet.
Marcus: We do have technology that works within Diskeeper and within InvisiTasking, in order to determine the “most-accessed” files and those most-accessed files are kept in certain areas in order not to be fragmented.
Alan: When we go onto the Internet, people don’t realize that as we browse, there are tons of files that get stored on our hard drive. When we go to a web page, it’s not a web page, it’s a whole bunch of little files that make up this web page and they actually reside on our hard drive – the little bitmaps, the little gifs, the HTML files – all of these have to be stored in our temporary Internet files and when we start storing those, right off the bat, we start fragmenting our system, just by going out to a web site.
It would be nice that automatically, you did something about it, instead of our having to wait till later, to do it.
Marcus: So, with regards to temporary Internet files, there are two main issues – the first being, that the storage of these files goes into slots that are not necessarily made for them, so you end up with fragmented files, right from the beginning.
Defragmentation with InvisiTasking, allows for an instantaneous clean up of that. Putting those file directly into orders so that they can be accessed easily and quickly while you are browsing the Internet.
Alan: Everybody has a clothes drier in their house and if they don’t constantly empty the lint filter on the drier, the drier just takes longer and longer to dry and in some cases, it just doesn’t dry at all, because we’ve got it so clogged up. Is that the way our hard drive eventually gets?
Marcus: It is. It is something that’s hard to notice because it does happen on a gradual basis. So, somebody may not notice that their favorite program or Internet Explorer or something else that they are doing is taking maybe a second longer to load. Then, maybe a week later, it’s 2 seconds longer to load. And now all of a sudden, you’re waiting 30-40 seconds for your favorite program to open.
Defragmentation on any system has to be done ad this is a utility that allows you to set it and forget it and not have to worry about defragging or even scheduled defrags, where you’re not going to be able to use your computer.
Alan: When I bought my computer, it already had a defragger built into the operating system. Why should I go out and buy your defragger?
Marcus: The biggest differentiator for us really is the InvisiTasking, which allows defragmentation to happen on the fly, using only idle system resources. And that’s because you no longer have to bother scheduling defragmentation; you have full use of your computer at all times. Overall, it’s just a much easier and better process.
Alan: Well, what are we looking at as far as the price of, "piece of mind"? I call it that, because I don’t want to have to worry about what my system is doing in the background. I want someone else to actually take care of my system and make sure it’s running at its peak performance? What are we looking as far as getting this peace of mind?
Marcus: Well, for your peace of mind, you can go to our Website, which is http://www.diskeeper.com and you can purchase a full Home Edition for only $29.95.
Alan: And you also have a Trial Version that we can download from your Website. Is this fully function and for how long?
Marcus: On our website, we have a fully functional Trial Version that can last for 30 days and that will allow anybody to start InvisiTasking the automatic defragmentation and really see the benefits.
Alan: And I know that you have a lot of White Papers up on your Website, displaying with pictures, what defragging is all about and you can actually see it.
Marcus: I encourage anybody who’s interested in the idea of defragmentation and getting their computer to move faster and having some piece of mind, to visit the Website and look at the White Papers and really get a visual aid of what is happening to their computers.
Alan: Marcus, it’s been our pleasure to have you here as our guest on Let’s Talk Computers and we hope to have you back on the air again, real soon.
Marcus: Thank you so much for having me.