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Backgroud Defragmentation


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#1 Seelenlos

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Posted 12 May 2022 - 01:55 PM

For the sake of faster starts, could you please write a script for the background defrag for the game or in the tools, for ppl to defrag the MWO files?

That does not cost anything as the Client is writen so secure (lol) that it need Admin-rights anywas ...

Starting a BG-Defrag is realy no concern for MWO files...

Regards

#2 Valdarion Silarius

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Posted 12 May 2022 - 02:02 PM

Why not just run a full system defrag? I don't understand how it is PGI's problem, since a full system defrag on whatever drive MW:O is installed on your computer would automatically be defragged if ran on your computer. The other alternative is install MW:O on a SSD drive.

#3 ScrapIron Prime

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Posted 12 May 2022 - 02:05 PM

I think he's talking about optimizing the contents of the MWO cache on Steam. Never actually had to do that, wasn't aware it was a thing people need to do for this game. Just run the repair tool if things get wonky.

#4 Meep Meep

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Posted 12 May 2022 - 02:37 PM

I installed mwo on an nvme drive with 3,500 MB/s reads so it doesn't matter how fragmented the files are they load supah fast. Even if you don't have an nvme port on your mobo you can buy a cheap pcie 3.0 x4 riser card and stick it in a spare x4/16 slot for full speed access. I did that for my secondary nvme drive since using the second nvme mobo port disables two sata ports and I need all of them for the six disk nas array.

#5 LordNothing

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Posted 12 May 2022 - 09:36 PM

defrag, what is this the '00s?

#6 caravann

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Posted 13 May 2022 - 01:00 AM

There's a way to make the application run faster, don't shut it down after playing. Put it in the taskbar until you play the game.

#7 Der Geisterbaer

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Posted 13 May 2022 - 01:37 AM

For the love of god: Do not "defragment" solid state disks. You're doing more harm than good with zero performance increase.
As for defragmenting the MWO caches on a HDD? Do you really want PGI to code such a tool instead of defragmenting with one of the already availible defragmentation tools that were programmed for that exact purpose and will be able to defrag the entire HDD if it's really fragmented that badly that your MWO cache also suffers?

#8 w0qj

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Posted 13 May 2022 - 04:41 AM

Sounds like OP's hard drive is quite full.

1. Try to delete unwanted Steam games installed but no longer playing:

Start the Steam program, and in the menu:
[Steam]>>[Settings]>>[Downloads]>>[Steam_Library_Folder]

Browse to see which games can be deleted.
FYI, MWO occupies 22+ GB of space!

2. There are many Windows utilities out there that claim to search for & suggest things you can safely delete to save HDD space!

3. Move your music/movie/video files to an external USB thumbstick like below, to save HDD space:
(remember to do data backup!)
www.lexar.com/en/product/lexar-jumpdrive-s47-usb-3-1-flash-drive

- - - - - - - - - - - -
Like others have said, seriously consider to switch to SSD (solid state drive) instead of HDD hard drive.
Much faster performance, and you never have to worry about defrag anymore (in fact, never defrag your SSD!).

As long as you have enough RAM (I define this as 32 GB RAM nowadays) to prevent use of paging/swap files,
and your SSD has ample space (I define this as 50% full and maximum 80% full), your system would fly playing any game, and not just MWO!

Edited by w0qj, 13 May 2022 - 05:24 AM.


#9 Meep Meep

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Posted 13 May 2022 - 01:32 PM

View PostLordNothing, on 12 May 2022 - 09:36 PM, said:

defrag, what is this the '00s?


I'm using six seagate 2tb nas hdd with four of them in raid 0 and two as single mass storage drives so I typically run a defrag overnight after a lot of stuff has been installed or copied over. I have many many many movies and other large file size items that would be very cost inefficient to store on ssd or nvme. If you don't need supah fast access or transfer times then quality hdd are sill the king of mass storage. Plus the raid 0 array is still as fast as a typical ssd on sequential reads so the bulk of my games go on that with only the most needy going to the nvme like open world games which stream content as you play.

#10 LordNothing

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Posted 13 May 2022 - 03:42 PM

View PostMeep Meep, on 13 May 2022 - 01:32 PM, said:


I'm using six seagate 2tb nas hdd with four of them in raid 0 and two as single mass storage drives so I typically run a defrag overnight after a lot of stuff has been installed or copied over. I have many many many movies and other large file size items that would be very cost inefficient to store on ssd or nvme. If you don't need supah fast access or transfer times then quality hdd are sill the king of mass storage. Plus the raid 0 array is still as fast as a typical ssd on sequential reads so the bulk of my games go on that with only the most needy going to the nvme like open world games which stream content as you play.


i don't see me running anything but nvme drives on my daily driver. i got 4tb across 2 drives. i just moved up from 1.5tb so i have a lot of headroom now. been using ssds so long i havent had to defrag a computer in over a decade. i do have a hard drive plugged into my router as a poor man's nas. it mostly serves as media storage and backup. i plan on eventually having a nas proper in raid1 at some point.

i always wondered about how big datacenters manage their defrag operations when they have literally hundreds of high capacity drives in high redundancy servers (multiple drive failures required for data loss). i figure at scale you would just pull the drive, pit in a clean drive, and let the array repopulate a new drive. secure erase the fragmented drive and put it back into rotation. these aren't exactly the kind of systems you want to take offline for maintenance and i cant imagine background defrag operations being good for performance.

#11 Meep Meep

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Posted 13 May 2022 - 07:31 PM

I have a bit over four terabytes of movies alone and over ten thousand mp3 I've collected along with thousands of old game iso and roms. Plus bluray rips take up a ton of space. To be honest that 12tb of nas storage is almost not enough.. Posted Image

View PostLordNothing, on 13 May 2022 - 03:42 PM, said:

i always wondered about how big datacenters manage their defrag operations when they have literally hundreds of high capacity drives in high redundancy servers (multiple drive failures required for data loss).


Data centers don't use normal hdd they use specialized nas drives that have extra functions like on the fly defragmentation on idle cycles which greatly reduces the need for a complete defrag. Also data centers that rely on hhd typically are storing static files that never change so once they are compacted you don't need to touch them again. The downtimes you see are typically for the storage that has dynamic data and you basically have to defrag them all at once. But more and more centers are switching to ssd and nvme for their dynamic data storage since its far better suited to the constant reads and writes and how the flash memory has greatly increased in write cycles.

#12 Seelenlos

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Posted 15 May 2022 - 05:26 PM

Thx for the tips, but i don't tell it for me, only for those with Harddisks and after MWO updates.

The client must run in admin mode any ways, so PGI could also use the internal windows library to make a defrag of the fragmented files of the MWO-Dire.

Dont be afraid, they can also ask the libraray if it is HD or SSD.

AND even DEFRAG on SSD is not that dangerous as written, I have researched that, and there is also an MS paper some where about that, and they do that anyways (every time MS makes an update, they defrag the core files even on SSD)

The win to defrag SSD come only for the (some) games up to 3 Seconds, but convert that for the HD and you see why PGI should implement that defrag after update for the HD players.

Regards.

Edited by Seelenlos, 15 May 2022 - 05:33 PM.


#13 Meep Meep

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Posted 15 May 2022 - 10:17 PM

I'd have to see some official MS documentation about defragging ssd or nvme because it will screw up the wear leveling the controller sets up which maximizes memory cell lifetime. Static files which never or rarely change are moved to the cells with the most wear and fresher cells are used for dynamic files. Also access times for any particular cell are the same across the entire memory chip unlike on a mechanical drive where the read and write heads have to physically move to the file location. This is why you defrag hdd because it compacts the files into contiguous blocks which minimize head travel and greatly decrease access times and more importantly increases sequential read speeds.

Edited by Meep Meep, 15 May 2022 - 10:18 PM.


#14 LordNothing

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Posted 15 May 2022 - 11:33 PM

ive always just assumed that the os can detect ssds and disable defrag on them. but honeslty ive never checked it out. i always end up running out of storage and upgrading, or a new faster version comes out (such as nvme, gen4) and upgrade for the throughput, before flash actually starts to degrade and die. of all the ssd drives ive ever bought (barring crappy sd cards and pen drives), are still fully functional. im honestly thinking about striping the older drives for my future nas upgrade.

Edited by LordNothing, 15 May 2022 - 11:34 PM.


#15 Seelenlos

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Posted 16 May 2022 - 08:05 AM

View PostMeep Meep, on 15 May 2022 - 10:17 PM, said:

I'd have to see some official MS documentation about defragging ssd or nvme because it will screw up the wear leveling the controller sets up which maximizes memory cell lifetime. Static files which never or rarely change are moved to the cells with the most wear and fresher cells are used for dynamic files. Also access times for any particular cell are the same across the entire memory chip unlike on a mechanical drive where the read and write heads have to physically move to the file location. This is why you defrag hdd because it compacts the files into contiguous blocks which minimize head travel and greatly decrease access times and more importantly increases sequential read speeds.

Hi Meep Meep,

google like: defrag comparision ssd i/o access time or something.
There should be a paper on that with different defraggers etc.

There you see also that the SSD defrag is not that deadly as written.

I am now using Primocache (the nearest thing like good old smartdrive) and auslogic 8. portable to defrag ALL my disks.

It has something to do with the cell call algorythm or something... too technical-electical Posted Image

Regards Posted Image


here this was the frst:
https://helpdeskgeek...-defrag-an-ssd/
That being said, the Windows 10 defragmentation tool knows the difference between solid state drives and mechanical drives. Instead of automatically defragmenting an SSD, it instead uses the “TRIM” command, which is a specialized SSD optimization command,

AND don't forget even the trim-command is not necessary, as long as no data is to be written!
So trimming is also "wear" on drive is not necessary and only done automaticaly.

https://condusiv.com...drives-or-ssds/

Edited by Seelenlos, 16 May 2022 - 08:15 AM.


#16 TheCaptainJZ

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Posted 16 May 2022 - 08:43 AM

View PostLordNothing, on 15 May 2022 - 11:33 PM, said:

ive always just assumed that the os can detect ssds and disable defrag on them.

Windows does just that. I assume all other OS's do too.

#17 Nightbird

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Posted 16 May 2022 - 08:46 AM

Don't defrag SSDs... it slows down read speeds when all the data is on one chip whereas a fragmented file can be read in parallel from multiple chips. It also lowers the life of the SSD by doing unnecessary writes.

#18 Knownswift

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Posted 16 May 2022 - 09:00 AM

You shouldn't defrag a mechanical drive every time a game runs either.

Frequently accessed files are cached in your ram, you can play around with that for some tiny gains.

If I were OP I'd wait for a sale and get an inexpensive SATA ssd just for games.

#19 Der Geisterbaer

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Posted 16 May 2022 - 10:06 AM

View PostLordNothing, on 15 May 2022 - 11:33 PM, said:

ive always just assumed that the os can detect ssds and disable defrag on them.


Newer versions of OSes can and - to a certain extend - do. Particularly the Windows OS familiy ever since Windows 8 defaults to "storage optimization" via TRIM whenever they detect an SSD that supports that particular command. However, even current Windows 10 and 11 installations will - by default - truly "defragment" SSDs on a monthly basis in the background by design and it's not entirely a bad design or rather a response to the limitation of current Windows default file system NTFS which can only take a certain amount of fragmentation without performance impacts. This certainly does impact the wear leveling of the device in question in the long run but is most of the time better than the alternative.

The general advice however remains: Do not (manually) defragment SSDs - particularly on Windows based systems - because you're unlikely to see any performance increases and you're just adding to the wear of the device because your OS has likely already done what is needed as part of a background job on a monthly basis.

View PostTheCaptainJZ, on 16 May 2022 - 08:43 AM, said:

Windows does just that.


As stated above: No Windows doesn't truly do that.

View PostTheCaptainJZ, on 16 May 2022 - 08:43 AM, said:

I assume all other OS's do too.


Most other OSes tend to use file systems that are less prone to fragmentation in the first place and - provided that we're not talking first gen SSDs and / or rather "old" OS versions - they'll indeed not defragment but instead optimize via "TRIM" and let the SSDs controller do their job ... which brings me back to my earlier comment:

Why would anyone want PGI - as a game development company that is specialized in higher level programming of gaming software (of often heavily critiqued quality) - to program a low level hardware tool like a defragmentation program?! Having to grant administrator priviledges to the MWO update routine (a.k.a. "update bot") is certainly not a good reason or excuse for something like that.

#20 Meep Meep

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Posted 16 May 2022 - 10:30 AM

View PostSeelenlos, on 16 May 2022 - 08:05 AM, said:

Hi Meep Meep,


I am aware of the testing that shows defragging an ssd might give an incremental boost to i/o but those are very niche cases and not really applicable for consumer use. Those links you provided also only tell about the differences between hdd and ssd and clearly state that defragging is counter productive on ssd. What the trim command does is reset memory blocks marked for deletion so that if they are written over there is no performance loss. It doesn't hurt the cell in any way or cause extra wear and is a crucial step in the ssd garbage collection routine.





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