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Is it possible to defragment SD card? Is it necessary?

Many thanks.
 
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>> Is it possible to defragment SD card? Is it necessary?<<

yes it's possible, no, it's not necessary... hard drives have to
physically move heads to get to different parts of a fragmented file
which takes time, but there is no physical movement within flash memory
so there is no disadvantage from fragmented files.

Beverly Howard [MS MVP-Mobile Devices]
 

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On Sun, 27 Mar 2005 18:12:41 -0800, Kent Shih wrote:

>Is it possible to defragment SD card? Is it necessary?
>
>Many thanks.
>
It is not necessary. Defragmenting hard drives is meant to reduce
travel time of the physical read/write heads. There are no such moving
parts in an SD card.

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Reply to message from "Kent Shih" <kentshih@yahoo.com> (Sun, 27 Mar 2005
21:12:41) about ""defragment?"":

> Is it possible to defragment SD card? Is it necessary?

> Many thanks.

While it is possible, it is not recommended. SD cards are used for storage,
not dynamic swapping, etc. which really reduces the effectiveness of
defragging. Second, the manipulation required to complete the defrag will
only take away from the total write reserve of said card. Only slightly,
certainly , but habitual defragging writes will accumulate. Third, the card
itself is pretty smart, and any fragmentation will be minimal by nature.


In a word (or 3), not an issue. :)
 

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My understanding from the engineers is defragging is not necessary.

Every time you write to the SD card the data on the card is written
is re-written completely. So in essence your SD is defragged every
time you write to it.

I would point out the SD card has a limit of like 1 million writes to
the card, i've never heard of anyone having a card wear out in this
manner.
Your device will die first.
 
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"Bruno" <spamthis@server.com> wrote in message
news:c8se41532r4mt4v5tk0kjq6u673qq29see@4ax.com...
| On Sun, 27 Mar 2005 18:12:41 -0800, Kent Shih wrote:
|
| >Is it possible to defragment SD card? Is it necessary?
| >
| >Many thanks.
| >
| It is not necessary. Defragmenting hard drives is meant to reduce
| travel time of the physical read/write heads. There are no such
moving
| parts in an SD card.
|
| --


Yes you can do it.

Why do you want to?

There are no moving physical parts so the time to reach any segment of
data is essentially the same as the time to reach any other so you
won't gain speed. However, it *will* put your files and directories in
a nice and neat order if that is important to you, and order space
contiguously.

One thing that is worth doing is checking the disk integrity- scandisk
in Windows, Norton's disk doctor etc. This will check things like the
partition table, boot record, FAT's, lost clusters.

You can do this by putting the card into a card reader where it will
show up as another drive and you can run the utility to check the
drive. After you have ran scandisk/disk doctor etc. you can run your
defragmentation utility, expect the files to be neater but not much
else in the way of advantage- it shouldn't do any harm though.
 

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On Mon, 28 Mar 2005 10:52:16 +0100, alan smith wrote:

>However, it *will* put your files and directories in
>a nice and neat order if that is important to you, and order space
>contiguously.

And that, my friends, is a completely useless exercise.

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On 28 Mar 2005 07:46:26 -0800, DW wrote:

>Every time you write to the SD card the data on the card is written
>is re-written completely. So in essence your SD is defragged every
>time you write to it.

No.


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"Bruno" <spamthis@server.com> wrote in message
news:s01g41903rcqi66dn14c86d7tp99bdlocp@4ax.com...
| On Mon, 28 Mar 2005 10:52:16 +0100, alan smith wrote:
|
| >However, it *will* put your files and directories in
| >a nice and neat order if that is important to you, and order space
| >contiguously.
|
| my completely useless exercise.
|
| --

Cut the bits you don't like? I cut some from your statement to lose the
sense of what you said as you carefully cut mine losing the sense of
what I said.

It's called choice. People have it, some people like to use it. It may
be useless to you but you can't take it from others. Luckily.
 

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On Mon, 28 Mar 2005 14:57:06 +0100, alan smith wrote:

>
>"Bruno" <spamthis@server.com> wrote in message
>news:s01g41903rcqi66dn14c86d7tp99bdlocp@4ax.com...
>| On Mon, 28 Mar 2005 10:52:16 +0100, alan smith wrote:
>|
>| >However, it *will* put your files and directories in
>| >a nice and neat order if that is important to you, and order space
>| >contiguously.
>|
>| my completely useless exercise.
>|
>| --
>
>Cut the bits you don't like? I cut some from your statement to lose the
>sense of what you said as you carefully cut mine losing the sense of
>what I said.
>
>It's called choice. People have it, some people like to use it. It may
>be useless to you but you can't take it from others. Luckily.

I stand by my statement. Defraging an SD card is a totally useless
exercise. Of course, it is your choice if you want to do it anyway.

And why so touchy, there, alan?

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"alan smith" <alan@REMOVEmral.fsnet.co.uk> wrote in news:d28le0$67l$4
@newsg2.svr.pol.co.uk:

> Yes you can do it.
>
> Why do you want to?
>
> There are no moving physical parts so the time to reach any segment of
> data is essentially the same as the time to reach any other so you
> won't gain speed. However, it *will* put your files and directories in
> a nice and neat order if that is important to you, and order space
> contiguously.

Would it make file recovery tools easier to use when the format gets
screwed up?

Of course, anything important should be backed up so you don't have to rely
on such extreme measures.

Scott
 

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Nikki Casali wrote:
> Your explanation makes it sound like the whole SD card is completely
> rewritten, 1GB in total for example, even for a byte change.
My understanding is, according to what the engineers tell me is
the entire data on the device is re-written every time there is a save.

So you get a defragmented saving every time it is written to the
device, be it internal ROM, CF, and SD. It's the way the device saves
the files in electronic memory.

The engineers explain that cards like SD are not like the hard drive on
your computer which need defragmenting.

The source for this some enginers I know who worked companies like HP.
 
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DW wrote:

> My understanding from the engineers is defragging is not necessary.
>
> Every time you write to the SD card the data on the card is written
> is re-written completely. So in essence your SD is defragged every
> time you write to it.

Your explanation makes it sound like the whole SD card is completely
rewritten, 1GB in total for example, even for a byte change. Which
obviously can't be as we know how long it takes just to write 1MB of
data to the card.

What do you actually mean?

Nikki
 

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Kent Shih wrote:
> Is it possible to defragment SD card? Is it necessary?

It may be pointless to defrag one memory card, but if you have a CF card
and a SD card it would be good to be able to defrag them as one drive,
so files were moved to different disks to maximize storage potional.



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On Mon, 28 Mar 2005 17:28:59 +0100, Marc wrote:

>Kent Shih wrote:
>> Is it possible to defragment SD card? Is it necessary?
>
>It may be pointless to defrag one memory card, but if you have a CF card
>and a SD card it would be good to be able to defrag them as one drive,
>so files were moved to different disks to maximize storage potional.

I give up. Next topic please.

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Kent Shih wrote:

> Is it possible to defragment SD card? Is it necessary?

Yes, it's easy. Using a card reader, copy the data on the card to a
folder on your desktop. Now delete everything on the card. Copy the data
on your desktop back. Easy :p


Marc


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On Mon, 28 Mar 2005 17:41:19 +0100, Marc wrote:

>Kent Shih wrote:
>
>> Is it possible to defragment SD card? Is it necessary?
>
>Yes, it's easy. Using a card reader, copy the data on the card to a
>folder on your desktop. Now delete everything on the card. Copy the data
>on your desktop back. Easy :p
>
>
>Marc

You can also defrag your RAM with a proper dump utility.

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"Bruno" <spamthis@server.com> wrote in message
news:tt7g41905l45u33ti7igpq7b5cqe683mid@4ax.com...
| On Mon, 28 Mar 2005 14:57:06 +0100, alan smith wrote:
|
| >
| >"Bruno" <spamthis@server.com> wrote in message
| >news:s01g41903rcqi66dn14c86d7tp99bdlocp@4ax.com...
| >| On Mon, 28 Mar 2005 10:52:16 +0100, alan smith wrote:
| >|
| >| >However, it *will* put your files and directories in
| >| >a nice and neat order if that is important to you, and order
space
| >| >contiguously.
| >|
| >| my completely useless exercise.
| >|
| >| --
| >
| >Cut the bits you don't like? I cut some from your statement to lose
the
| >sense of what you said as you carefully cut mine losing the sense of
| >what I said.
| >
| >It's called choice. People have it, some people like to use it. It
may
| >be useless to you but you can't take it from others. Luckily.
|
| I stand by my statement. Defraging an SD card is a totally useless
| exercise. Of course, it is your choice if you want to do it anyway.
|
| And why so touchy, there, alan?
|
| --
|



I'm not touchy but you carefully cut the relevant part to suit your
purposes, there is nothing to stop anyone defragmenting a memory card.
I have not advocated doing it, just said that you can:

There are no moving physical parts so the time to reach any segment of
data is essentially the same as the time to reach any other so you
won't gain speed. However, it *will* put your files and directories in
a nice and neat order if that is important to you, and order space
contiguously.

One advantage of defragmenting is the file integrity check it does
first, although I did say to run that separately and first. You don't
say anything about that.

Why so snippy?
 
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"Scott Seidman" <namdiesttocs@mindspring.com> wrote in message
news:Xns96276617F99C2scottseidmanmindspri@130.133.1.4...
| "alan smith" <alan@REMOVEmral.fsnet.co.uk> wrote in news:d28le0$67l$4
| @newsg2.svr.pol.co.uk:
|
| > Yes you can do it.
| >
| > Why do you want to?
| >
| > There are no moving physical parts so the time to reach any segment
of
| > data is essentially the same as the time to reach any other so you
| > won't gain speed. However, it *will* put your files and directories
in
| > a nice and neat order if that is important to you, and order space
| > contiguously.
|
| Would it make file recovery tools easier to use when the format gets
| screwed up?
|
| Of course, anything important should be backed up so you don't have
to rely
| on such extreme measures.
|
| Scott

There may be times an application needs contiguous space to operate
efficiently. Other than this there is little advantage in defragmenting
a memory card, but some people like to do it. One advantage of doing it
is that the file/structure checks are ran at the start of the process
so at least they get done- many people dont think of running them
otherwise.
 
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"alan smith" <alan@REMOVEmral.fsnet.co.uk> wrote in message
news:d29i35$rq8$3@newsg2.svr.pol.co.uk...
>
> | Scott
>
> There may be times an application needs contiguous space to operate
> efficiently. Other than this there is little advantage in defragmenting
> a memory card, but some people like to do it. One advantage of doing it
> is that the file/structure checks are ran at the start of the process
> so at least they get done- many people dont think of running them
> otherwise.
>



The disadvantages far outweight the advantages IMHO. A typical NAND gate in
a flash memory arrangement has only about 10,000 write operations (100,000
for SLCFlash). The card is smart, though, and uses wear-leveling
algorithims to spread these operations out over the breadth of the card to
increase the virtual write cycle to a couple million or so. When you start
shifting things around on the card with a defrag utility you will burn up a
lot of these carefully orchestrated storage movements, greatly decreasing
the practical lifetime of the card. A few times, no big deal, but ongoing
defrag processes will accumulate in this hit count.

Besides, thank to this wear-leveling technology that gets employed out of
neccesity the card will likely never be organized on an allocation basis the
same way twice. What is being reported as defragged will be only an
approximation, not consecutive clusters of data. Even if it does look
nice in the file listing. :)

More info on the topic if anyone out there is interested :

http://www.kingston.com/products/DMTechGuide.pdf , Page 4 of the PDF.