andsome Posted February 15, 2008 Report Share Posted February 15, 2008 Having just done a back up of my C drive in Acronis, I decided to defrag my external hard drive, upon which I had just done the backup. I have done this on the odd occasion, and wonder why it always takes far longer than defragging the C drive itself. I appreciate that I have accumulative backups on the external drive, but the extra time was totally disproportionate. It took well over 1.5 hours using Diskeeper 10, whereas defragging the C drive is done in less that ten minutes. :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catgate Posted February 15, 2008 Report Share Posted February 15, 2008 What size are the discs?What else is running in the background? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andsome Posted February 15, 2008 Author Report Share Posted February 15, 2008 The C drive and the plug in drive are both 80GB. The point is that as I say, the C drive defrags in a matter of minutes, while the plug in drive takes about 1.5 hours plus. The D drive is also 80GB, and has far more on it than either of the other two, but defrags in about 15 minutes. So why does a plug in drive take a lot longer to defrag than an internal one? Obviously it is completely unimportant, but I just don't like NOT knowing. :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanHo Posted February 15, 2008 Report Share Posted February 15, 2008 I assume your external drive is USB.My guess is that a USB drive will take much longer than an internal one because of the significant difference in connection speed - especially if you have SATA drives in the computer.I presume you are using a USB2 connection - USB1 would take an eternity. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andsome Posted February 15, 2008 Author Report Share Posted February 15, 2008 Right first time, USB2. Your explanation could be the answer. I don't in all honesty know the difference between a Sata drive and any other. If it's any help, the computer is just over 5 years old. :D The hard drives are one off, HDS728080PLAT20, and one off Maxtor 6E040L0. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanHo Posted February 15, 2008 Report Share Posted February 15, 2008 I would think that your internal drives are ATA not SATA - but your external drive times do seem excessive.I recently did a test of my computer by copying files to each drive and timing them - the external USB drives were about 70% as fast as the internal SATA ones.Are you sure your drive is USB2 and your USB ports are operating at the correct speed? Don't ask me how you check though - other than to do some file transfer tests and time them.Possibly time for a new computer with Vista eh................... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-pops- Posted February 15, 2008 Report Share Posted February 15, 2008 Be very careful defragging Acronis backups, andsome - especially if they're in Acronis Secure Zone.My son told me of Acronis failing to re-install after it was defragged and also of the defrag program not recognising Secure Zone correctly and throwing a wobbly resulting in a continuous cycle of reaching a certain point then starting again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanHo Posted February 15, 2008 Report Share Posted February 15, 2008 Be very careful defragging Acronis backups, andsome - especially if they're in Acronis Secure Zone.My son told me of Acronis failing to re-install after it was defragged and also of the defrag program not recognising Secure Zone correctly and throwing a wobbly resulting in a continuous cycle of reaching a certain point then starting again.That's interesting pops.I have Diskeeper set to defrag automatically in the background my 3 internal hard disks - one of which is dedicated to Acronis back-ups. I have not yet had a problem restoring from these files, but you've caused me to put my thinking cap on.I duplicate Acronis back-ups onto an external drive which is never defragged though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rong Posted February 15, 2008 Report Share Posted February 15, 2008 Why would you need to defrag a backup drive Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andsome Posted February 15, 2008 Author Report Share Posted February 15, 2008 Be very careful defragging Acronis backups, andsome - especially if they're in Acronis Secure Zone.My son told me of Acronis failing to re-install after it was defragged and also of the defrag program not recognising Secure Zone correctly and throwing a wobbly resulting in a continuous cycle of reaching a certain point then starting again.I always defrag it. I don't use secure zone. I have never had any bother installing my back up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andsome Posted February 15, 2008 Author Report Share Posted February 15, 2008 Why would you need to defrag a backup driveBecause it was fragmented. :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Irene Posted February 15, 2008 Report Share Posted February 15, 2008 Why would you need to defrag a backup driveMine is not dedicated to 'backup'. I store photo & video files there.You might ask, "how do you back them up?", and I may well be asking myself the same question. :lol: I think that the answer would be, that I work from my C & D drives, where the basic information is stored, so I have never lost the core of my info. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andsome Posted February 15, 2008 Author Report Share Posted February 15, 2008 I would think that your internal drives are ATA not SATA - but your external drive times do seem excessive.I recently did a test of my computer by copying files to each drive and timing them - the external USB drives were about 70% as fast as the internal SATA ones.Are you sure your drive is USB2 and your USB ports are operating at the correct speed? Don't ask me how you check though - other than to do some file transfer tests and time them.Possibly time for a new computer with Vista eh................... I am more than happy with my present computer. I could not justify spending on a new one, this does everything that I need it to do. At present I don't fancy Vista. Would Office 2000 run on it? :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CurlyWhirly Posted February 15, 2008 Report Share Posted February 15, 2008 Why would you need to defrag a backup driveI use Drive Image 7 (I know it's old but it still works) and I've tried defragging the backup 'image' and when I do so it fails to work properly so I never defrag it now.I get round the defrag problem by defragging my hard drive before backing it up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ɹəuəllıʍ ʇɐb Posted February 16, 2008 Report Share Posted February 16, 2008 Regarding the original defrag question.What is the defrag method you are using: Max, or Quick?Using Max, it would have to move practically everything on your backup drive; this would take a very long time.Quick would still have to move all backup files since your last defrag; they are huge, and it will still take a long time.I occasionally defrag my backup drive (Quick), and it always takes a very long time. Each backup file is very large (dozens, or hundreds of MB), so it does not surprise me how long it takes. (My backup drive is a large partition of a secondary internal HD.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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