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Hard drive 90% rule?

Mav
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Hard drive 90% rule?

I seem to remember some years ago there was much talk that you should always have at least 10% free space to let a hard drive continue working at its optimum.
With drives now available at up to sizes of 4TB is that really necessary these days as it's a sizeable sum to leave unused?
I've actually only got one drive that pretty tight (9.4GB free from 298GB - about 3%) with My Computer displaying the size in red!

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dvorak
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Re: Hard drive 90% rule?

Quote from: Mav
With drives now available at up to sizes of 4GB is that really necessary these days as it's a sizeable sum to leave unused?

Do you mean 4TB?
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Mav
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Re: Hard drive 90% rule?

I think I do Embarrassed
OP edited!

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ejs
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Re: Hard drive 90% rule?

It's nothing to do with the hard disk hardware, it's more to do with the filesystem and what it's used for.
The operating system partition will need a reasonable amount of free space. 10% probably isn't really enough. Only 10% free space would lead to a lot of fragmentation if files change a lot, and would make it difficult to defragment.
A partition that just has media files copied onto it can be filled up as much as you like. If you only copy one thing onto it at a time, and the files don't change much, there's not much opportunity for fragmentation.
Mav
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Re: Hard drive 90% rule?

Thanks for that.
I did understand the need for enough space for defragmenting but the drive in question is media only and rarely has files deleted.
Eventually I will move them to a larger drive but I needn't worry about it failing purely because it's practically full Smiley
Edit: Just checked and it indicatres this drive is 1% fragmented.

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w23
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Re: Hard drive 90% rule?

There's no reason for a drive to 'fail' just because it's practically full, the only 'failure' should be if trying to write a file if there's insufficient space.
Drives containing regularly updated files of any sort do benefit from a reasonable amount of space.
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ReedRichards
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Re: Hard drive 90% rule?

The drive is shown in red because it is practically full.  Windows gives no visual indication for a hard drive that is failing.
HairyMcbiker
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Re: Hard drive 90% rule?

NB the fragmentation only occurs on FS's that are prone to it. Not saying which aren't as Strat will probably accuse me of M$ bashing.  Wink
Strat
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Re: Hard drive 90% rule?

If the cap fits....... Wink though you do seem to have a problem with the 'S' key on your keyboard.
Windows has made great improvements in managing disc fragmentation.
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Mav
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Re: Hard drive 90% rule?

Quote from: Strat
Windows has made great improvements in managing disc fragmentation.

I'd agree with that.
Since moving to W7 I have never had to defrag any of my drive.

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kmilburn
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Re: Hard drive 90% rule?

That'll be because Windows 7 has a default task scheduled to defrag the disks once a week.
Mav
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Re: Hard drive 90% rule?

Nope, that is turned off and has been since installing W7.
Of 12 drives currently connected 5 are showing as 0% fragmented, 3 as 1%, 2 as 2%, 1 as 3% and 1 as 8%. The one at 8% is where most software is installed as well as most temporary files. The SSD is the one at 3%.

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CX
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Re: Hard drive 90% rule?

Quote from: Hairy
NB the fragmentation only occurs on FS's that are prone to it. Not saying which aren't as Strat will probably accuse me of M$ bashing.  Wink

Is this quest for low fragmentation really worth the risks that ext4's delayed allocation brings? I've lost more data with ext4 following power loss, thanks to this feature.
I'll stick to Windows' automatic background silent defrag, or a SSD for system drives. It seems to do the job - most Windows 7 systems I've come across have fragmentation levels in the 1% region, even for system drives. Very similar to what you see on ext4 partitions.
VileReynard
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Re: Hard drive 90% rule?

Fragmentation is not necessarily a bad thing - it can be positively beneficial.

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7up
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Re: Hard drive 90% rule?

Quote from: Mav
I seem to remember some years ago there was much talk that you should always have at least 10% free space to let a hard drive continue working at its optimum.
With drives now available at up to sizes of 4TB is that really necessary these days as it's a sizeable sum to leave unused?

I wouldn't pay too much attention to really. I have a WinXP virtual machine on a very small 4GB virtual drive. On some days it has less than 100MB free space when it's doing stuff and on a good day it only has 700MB free.
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