Defragment

UniqueEarthling

crox wrote:

I find that my pc's are always more responsive and reliable after a boot time defrag, but that requires something more than the bog standard windows affair.

Further to UniqueEarthling you might actually get something like

xxxyyxxzzzzzxxy

where x y and z are seperrate programmes but because of the way file systems work (even ntfs) files get crammed in to gaps.

I was trying to keep it simple lol

Lemmy_Caution

Thanks for your replies. It really is most odd to find that all of a sudden you have 91% free space. I haven't done anything I can think of that could have lead to this situation.

onejontwo

UniqueEarthling wrote:

Prior to defragmenting, you can imagine the contents on your disk to look like this.

XX0XXX0000X00X00X00X00X00X00X00X
X00X00X0XX0X0X0X0XX0XXXX0XX0X0X
X00X00X0XX0X0X0X0XX0XXXX0XX0X0X
XX0XXX0000X00X00X00X00X00X00X00X
XX0XXX0000X00X00X00X00X00X00X00X
X00X00X0XX0X0X0X0XX0XXXX0XX0X0X
XX0XXX0000X00X00X00X00X00X00X00X
XX0XXX000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000

where the X is data and the 0 is a gap. Although there are gaps between data, they often go unused because the space is not large enough to fit the new stuff in one lump.

After defragmenting, the data is moved into adjoining spaces like this

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXX0000000000000000000
0000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000
0000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000

and you gain more 'useable' space.

This could account for some of your extra space but the gain you speak of is a lot more than I would normally expect Maybe someone else can suggest another possibility.

I bet you are brilliant at noughts and crosses!!:rotfl: