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1. Re: Win 7, PP CS6, 2 drive raid0,,,do i defrag the raid??
Steven L. Gotz Aug 19, 2012 6:58 AM (in response to Steve from NY)Ask your PC.
If you start a defrag, the software should analyze the drive and give you a percentage of fragmentation. I would probably tell you not to bother at less than 5% or maybe even 10% because if you don't do a lot of deleting and adding and deleting and adding of small media files, the files are probably mostly sitting neatly in one piece on the disks.
If you find that the drive is badly fragmented, I would recommed backing up the large files to an external drive, delete them from the RAID0, defrag, and then put them back. That does two things. It backs up the media, and makes the defrag safer and faster.
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2. Re: Win 7, PP CS6, 2 drive raid0,,,do i defrag the raid??
Steve from NY Aug 19, 2012 7:36 AM (in response to Steven L. Gotz)That all makes sense however, its way too much trouble to back up the large files before defragging.
Under this condition do you still recommend to defrag the 2 drive raid0?
Is there a possibilty of any files becomming corrupt as a result of defragging large 75 gig video files.
FYI: WINDOWS SAYS my software raid0 is 65% DEFRAGMENTED AT 93% FULL
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3. Re: Win 7, PP CS6, 2 drive raid0,,,do i defrag the raid??
Steven L. Gotz Aug 19, 2012 7:42 AM (in response to Steve from NY)OK. Hmmm. I guess I am just used to backing things up. I always have. Too lazy to recapture tape based media, and too afraid to lose anything from disk based media.
If your drives are that badly fragmented, then they need help. Now. And they need to be cleaned off of anything you are not using. Seriously. 93% full??? You may not have enough room on the drive to actually defragment a large file.
So, having said that. It is unlikely that a file will become corrupt. But it is not guaranteed. There is always a chance, however slim. So you have to decide if you can replace it if it gets corrupt. If not, and you don't like to back up, then don't defrag.
But really, I have to ask. Seriously. I don't mean to be insulting in any way. Truly. If you actually already have backups, stop reading this post now.
How in the world can you use a RAID0 without a backup? You are TWICE as likely to lose your data as you would be with two single drives. If you lose one, the data is gone. The other becomes useless since it has half of the data. Not a usable half. Just half of the ones and zeros.
I lost a RAID0 once. What a pain. But I had everything backed up.
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4. Re: Win 7, PP CS6, 2 drive raid0,,,do i defrag the raid??
Steve from NY Aug 19, 2012 8:13 AM (in response to Steven L. Gotz)I do weddings & Mitzvahs
I keep the original video files that are brought to me on sd cards indefinitely
I keep a bluray or dvd master of the completed project
The entire project stays on my Raid for 6 months then gets deleted
I also have a disc utility that is suppose to let me know the current state of my HD's if they start getting bad.
I have 3 systems all with raid 0 all running 6 days a week. Never had a drive go down.
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5. Re: Win 7, PP CS6, 2 drive raid0,,,do i defrag the raid??
Steven L. Gotz Aug 19, 2012 8:46 AM (in response to Steve from NY)OK, then the only real questions are:
1. Do you have enough space left on the drive to actually defrag?
2. Are your projects slowing down because the media is taking too long to get off of the drive?
Although those questions should probably be in the reverse order.
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6. Re: Win 7, PP CS6, 2 drive raid0,,,do i defrag the raid??
Steve from NY Aug 19, 2012 8:52 AM (in response to Steven L. Gotz)I deleted some old files in order to make 20% of the HD free. I just started a defrag. I hope no corruption takes place but i'm pretty well backed up if it does. Projects dont seem to be slowing down however I have noticed some jerkiness & slowing down in some areas. I will test the system after the defrag is complete which is gonna take many many hours as I have 5TB to defrag.
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7. Re: Win 7, PP CS6, 2 drive raid0,,,do i defrag the raid??
Steven L. Gotz Aug 19, 2012 8:54 AM (in response to Steve from NY)It might have been interesting if you had run the PPBM5.com test before and after.
Maybe next time.
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8. Re: Win 7, PP CS6, 2 drive raid0,,,do i defrag the raid??
Jacout13 Aug 22, 2012 1:18 AM (in response to Steve from NY)The RAID 0 volume is made of two HD, but the OS sees only one HD. All your files stored in the RAID 0 volume are distributed within the two physical HD to obtain better I/O rate. Due to this distribution between two HD, the defragmentation with a RAID 0 volume is impossible (best theoritical minimum fragmentation 50%).
The best in your case might be :
- back up your vidéo and audio files on an external HDD or a NAS,
- continue to work with your actual RAID 0 volume,
- verify if your video and audio files are corrupted or not,
- if not don't change anything and don't try defragmentation.
I hope this will be helpful for you.
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9. Re: Win 7, PP CS6, 2 drive raid0,,,do i defrag the raid??
Jeff Bellune Aug 22, 2012 4:55 AM (in response to Jacout13)[Moved to Hardware Forum]
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10. Re: Win 7, PP CS6, 2 drive raid0,,,do i defrag the raid??
Steven L. Gotz Aug 22, 2012 5:57 AM (in response to Jacout13)Jacout13,
Your post really made me think. I had to check that out for myself.
Fortunately, I have more than one RAID0. I have one for media and one for cache and renders. So I checked the fragmentation of the one I use for cache. Normally, after I get done with a major project, I would just delete all of the files on the drive and start my next project with a clean drive. However, just for the sake of this conversation I checked it's fragmentation using the simple built in Windows 7 Defragmenter.
To be honest, I didn't expect it to be fragmented at all. It is pretty much brand new. But after giving it some thought I realized that Adobe and other programs keep adding information to existing files, which causes fragmentation. It isn't that when writing a new file it places portions of the file wherever it can find room. There is lots of room.
In any case, the software indicated that the drive was 4% fragmented. Not in excess of 50%. And when I defragmented the drive, the result was 0% as expected. In other words, the software understands the RAID0 and does what you want it to do. Apparently, rearranging the ones and zeros on both drives to accomplish the stated goal. Microsoft gets it right some of the time. Right?
So, I stick with what I consider to be the relevant question in any defragmenting conversation.:
Are your projects slowing down because the media is taking too long to get off of the drive?
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11. Re: Win 7, PP CS6, 2 drive raid0,,,do i defrag the raid??
Jacout13 Aug 22, 2012 6:45 AM (in response to Steven L. Gotz)Hello Steven,
My own HDD is a RAID 10 volume (0+1) and I never defragmented it. I did
not observe any slowing down since the last system rebuilt (three months
ago) and some files video files are very heavy (up to 25 Go with blu-ray
encoding).
For more informations :
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID_%28informatique%29 and :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID
As you know, the RAID 0 is built to improve the data rate. To obtain
this improvment of data rate the files are switched between the two HD
of the RAID 0 volume.
If you did not observe drastic slowing down : don't worry of
fragmentation. Another solution is to use HD with high data rate (SATA 3
for exemple - up to 6 Gb/s).
I hope this will be helpful for you and will answer to your needs.
Sincerely
Le 22/08/2012 14:57, Steven L. Gotz a écrit :
>
Re: Win 7, PP CS6, 2 drive raid0,,,do i defrag the raid??
created by Steven L. Gotz
<http://forums.adobe.com/people/StevenL.Gotz> in /Hardware Forum/ -
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