CompuServe Messages

Paul, De-fragmenting the disk does indeed make access faster. Mostly in reading long files, but also in scanning directories. As I understand it, a program like BAD will put the #?.info files at the beginnings of their various directories, thus making the icons show up right away. I believe they rearrange the directory structures, too, so that the disk doesn't have to seek very much to read them. (The directories, that is.) You definately want the files sequential, but I think that the biggest speedup is supposed to come from the directory restructure. (I'm by no means an expert on this subject, so take this for what it's probably worth…) I don't have any quantitative measurements for you, I'm afraid. My hard drives are perceptably faster, especially the Rodime. However, since the Rodime is where all my downloads go, and where T: is, it gets pretty well fragged right away. BADs most obvious speedup is on floppies. I would guess a factor of three faster. Again, this is purely subjective. The only way to measure it would be to make a well-fragged disk, measure the time for various directory and file reads, then BAD the disk, and repeat the exact same measurements. (Though I speak of BAD here, I imagine that any of the commercial optimizers work in much the same way. BAD is the only one I have any experience with, however, so it's the one I talk about.) Methinks I'm starting to babble here. Time for bed… –dds (dales@teksce.SCE.TEK.COM) Whappeta-whappeta-Whap!