» Sat May 26, 2012 7:13 pm
Defragmenting 6 files to the front of your HD is not that important. (The 6 large game files.)
The important thing is to ensure that those 6 files are solid. (As opposed to being fragmented into 300 smaller files, which windows has to SEEK to each fragment, to read the whole file.)
The game does not open the whole file, it reads only portions of the file at a time. If it is split into 300 pieces, loading a portion of the file may only see 3 fragment-splits, which is like 0.0030ms delay.
As long as your defragment program actually defragments "large files", then you are OK. Most defragment programs skip large files, because they are difficult to find free space, or make free space, to make them whole.
The more important thing is defragmenting and moving the thousands and thousands of system-files to the front, and moving the thousands and thousands of temp-files to the back. (Browser files to the back.)
I use "Auslogic Defrag", which give you the option to move system files to the front, and also moves "recently used" files to the front, if you select "Defrag and Optimize". (Set your temp-net files on a separate drive, or partition.)
Unmovable files are... (SWAP FILE, RESTORE FOLDERS, RECYCLE FOLDER, and HIBERNATION FILES)
To remove RESTORE FOLDERS, you first have to set your restore size to ZERO and click OK, then tell windows to "DO NOT STORE RESTORE POINTS", or just reduce the file size. (Turning it off will NOT reduce the locked-file-size, which will remain locked and consume space, even if you delete the restore points.
Same with the RECYCLE BIN. You first have to set each drive to ZERO and click OK, then tell windows to disable the RECYCLE BIN on ALL DRIVES. Same issue as above.
The HIBERNATION file will delete, if you select to "DO NOT ALLOW HIBERNATION", in the power-options.
The SWAP-FILE, you do not want to turn-off... However, to move it to the rear of your important data... You do have to set it to ZERO, then defragment, then set it back to the recommended settings. (The recommended settings are based on how windows has been using the memory. I do not suggest disabling it, as that only causes issues. Having more, simply forces windows to use it more often... If it exists, windows will try to fill it, unless it is set to auto-adjust.)
Once defragmented... with all those locked-files out of the way... You can then turn them back on, if you wish, and they will now be near the end of the drive. (As opposed to where windows placed them when they were first turned-on at install-time.)