Defrag (heavy) external hard drive or re-format


  1. Andyonline
    Posts : 85
    MS Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit SP1
       New #1

    Defrag (heavy) external hard drive or re-format


    Hi, I carry out a regular defrag of my C drive and external hard drive regularly about once a month. The C drive is only ever around 5% fragmented but the EHD is around 30% each time.
    Would I be better to delete the back-ups I have, re-format the EHD and then start with new back-ups again ?

    Presumably transferring the data across to my C drive before re-formatting the EHD may help to ensure no data loss but would defeat the object, leaving fragmented files to copy back again after re-formatting?

    Any help would be appreciated.

    Thanks

    Andy
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  3. edwar
    Posts : 983
    7 x64
       New #2

    In my experience any type of Backup, made with any Backup Program, tend to be fragmented. Not sure why. I don't ever Defrag the drive I use for my backup images. Even though I use that external for other file backups. Why bother. It's not like you are accessing that drive over and over like an Internal drive that you have files used everyday.
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  4. Layback Bear
    Posts : 25,847
    Windows 10 Pro. 64/ version 1709 Windows 7 Pro/64
       New #3

    The purpose of a defrag is to put thing in the proper place for speed of access on a hard drive. The fact that you don't access the backup that often, hopefully. Their is no reason to defrag a backup. If you ever have to use the backup and do. After everything works as it should then do the defrag.
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