Defraged my 910

[wilboy1]

I am able to defrag my 910 when its hooked up with the computer. I've done this after the different updates. I don't really notice any improvements. Has anyone done this also?

 

[Pedro2NR]

Haven't tried this. How much space do you have used in your HD?

 

[wilboy1]

I only use 7 gigs without pics.

 

[Interstink]

Doesn't Tomtom use a Linux backend? If so there should be need to defrag drive. I guess it cant hurt if you do, but I would lay off.

 

[fanchee]

This is an ongoing debate. Mac OS X claims that defragging isn't necessary, but some users do it anyway. My personal opinion is that it's not necessary and won't speed things up in any way that's important. YMMV.

 

[Interstink]

Defrag is necessary in Windows OS - Big difference in performance, but thats windowz... ZZZzzZZzzz

I Wouldn't bother defraging the tomtom, you risk much more when doing a defrag then any performance gains.

 

[Shrike]

Doesn't Tomtom use a Linux backend? . . .

The Operating System is Linux, but the file system on the SD card is Fat 32. I think I'll experiment with a couple speed tests (start up, calculate long route, etc) and get back to the board.

 

[Internetpilot]

My GO700 has a 2.5GB hard drive in it, and my auto defrag software reported it as very fragmented a while back when I left it connected to my computer for a while during a longer tweak session. I don't know how much it benefitted from the defrag, but it did claim it needed it and I did perform the defrag on it. I'd imagine the the 20GB drive in the GO910 would benefit from it more than the measley 2.5GB in the GO700.

 

[Pedro2NR]

I'll give mine a try.

 

[ChrisW]

Defrag is a waste of time

On a hard disk, a badly fragmented disk can hurt performance, but there's no point in defragging a solid state memory device. It won't help your performance a bit.

On a clean disk, a given file will be written on contiguous chunks of the disk surface (generally speaking). However, once the disk fills, the system has to go back and use up the space that has been freed by deleted files. Since these holes don't necessarily match the size of the file to be written, it's likely that a file will need to be broken up -- fragmented -- into multiple pieces to fit in the available holes.

Now, a hard disk is a spinning plate of concentric circles (called tracks) with a head that moves back and forth to read from each track. In the "clean disk scenario", where the file is in contiguous storage chunks (called sectors), the data for a given file will be localized to a minimal number of tracks, probably just one. So the disk head only needs to move once to the track containing the file, and let all the sectors spin by underneath. Nice and fast.

But when the file is fragmented, each of the little holes that the file's pieces went into is likely to be on a different track. So not only does the disk head need to move to the beginning of the file, but it needs to keep moving around to find the correct track for each subsequent fragment as well. This is where the performance hit comes from.

The thing is, in a flash memory card, there is no disk head movement to wait for. The solid state device is perfectly random access. Asking for data from any address on the card takes (essentially) the same time, even if you ask for things at opposite ends of its space.

Since you don't have to wait for a disk head to move, there's no performance penalty associated with the fragmentation.

The performance hits due to fragmentation are not the result of any particular file system, whether FAT or NTFS, linux or Mac. It's a result of the physical structure of the hard drive. Some approaches may become fragmented more quickly due to other performance tradeoffs, but on a sufficiently full device that has data changing on it, you will get fragments sooner or later.

 

[Sextant]

On a hard disk, a badly fragmented disk can hurt performance, but there's no point in defragging a solid state memory device. It won't help your performance a bit.

On a clean disk, a given file will be written on contiguous chunks of the disk surface (generally speaking). However, once the disk fills, the system has to go back and use up the space that has been freed by deleted files. Since these holes don't necessarily match the size of the file to be written, it's likely that a file will need to be broken up -- fragmented -- into multiple pieces to fit in the available holes.

Now, a hard disk is a spinning plate of concentric circles (called tracks) with a head that moves back and forth to read from each track. In the "clean disk scenario", where the file is in contiguous storage chunks (called sectors), the data for a given file will be localized to a minimal number of tracks, probably just one. So the disk head only needs to move once to the track containing the file, and let all the sectors spin by underneath. Nice and fast.

But when the file is fragmented, each of the little holes that the file's pieces went into is likely to be on a different track. So not only does the disk head need to move to the beginning of the file, but it needs to keep moving around to find the correct track for each subsequent fragment as well. This is where the performance hit comes from.

The thing is, in a flash memory card, there is no disk head movement to wait for. The solid state device is perfectly random access. Asking for data from any address on the card takes (essentially) the same time, even if you ask for things at opposite ends of its space.

Since you don't have to wait for a disk head to move, there's no performance penalty associated with the fragmentation.

The performance hits due to fragmentation are not the result of any particular file system, whether FAT or NTFS, linux or Mac. It's a result of the physical structure of the hard drive. Some approaches may become fragmented more quickly due to other performance tradeoffs, but on a sufficiently full device that has data changing on it, you will get fragments sooner or later.

I thought the 910 actually had a hard drive in it?

 

[ChrisW]

I thought the 910 actually had a hard drive in it?

Sure, but ONEs don't. I guess it all depends.

Speaking of it depending, I wonder how much fragmentation you get on a HD-based device anyway? I mean, most of the data is never changed. I'd guess there are files for your own POIs, itineraries, etc., but the data itself just sits there, so it can't get fragmented. Next time I get a chance, I'll see if I can get a report on how fragmented my ONE is (even though I won't bother to defrag).