How does things become fragmented?

[duragezic]

Before I thought it was that if you did a lot of deleting/installing of files then it'd become fragmented more quickly. But then like if you uh download a big file like 200mb+ and run the analysis, that big file has a TON of fragments. And it was just downloaded. Explain please.

 

[NateSLC]

K, first, data is stored on the disk in clusters. Let's say you have 4k clusters on a drive. And you have a file that is 7K. It will take 2 clusters shown below as FF.

XXXXXXFFXXXXXX

If you delete this file you will get this: where _ is an empty cluster.

XXXXXX__XXXXXX

Now, you write a new file that is 15k

It will do something like this where N is the new file:

XXXXXXNNXXXXXNN

Therefore, the more non-contiguous empty clusters you have on your drive the more fragmented a new file (especially a big one) will be when written.

 

[coolred]

Nate is correct, and the way he explained it was quite interesting, and very intuitive.

But yes that is the reason your downloaded file was fragmented, because it saved itself to some of the clusters that were open becuase you delteted something from them before. Again just to make it clear. To use Nates thing here.

If this is what your hard drive looked like
Where X is some file, P is some pictures, M is and MP3 and V is a video.


XXXXXPPPXXXXXXMMMXXXPPXXXXXXXXXXXXVVVXX

Well then say you delete those pictures Mp3s and video. This is what the drive looks like then

XXXXX___XXXXXX___XXX__XXXXXXXXXXXX___XX


Then you download and save your new file represented by N, this is how it would save it

XXXXXNNNXXXXXXNNNXXXNNXXXXXXXXXXXXNNNXXNNNNNNNNNNN


Hope this helps

 

[duragezic]

Makes perfect sense. Thanks.