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For years computing demands have been pushing along Moore's Law. That ?law? is directly related to CPU computing power and states that the number of transistors per CPU doubles over certain time intervals (12, 18, or 24 months - depending on when or where you heard it). However, in the new millennium the growth of data storage has been so rapid it is even exceeding the industry standard growth index laid forth by Moore's Law (any way you define it).
The exponential growth of storage requirements is driven by the Information Age, the public's unquenchable thirst for information and the increased complexity and size of applications, operating systems and data.
Additionally another huge influence on the IT world has been government regulations such as Sarbanes-Oxley, the Patriot Act, Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA) as well as the Gramm-Leach-Bliley act. These regulations often govern documenting certain business transactions and the retention and security of all relevant data. Many in the industry are required to store everything for periods as long as 7 years to maintain regulatory compliance. Deleting files has become taboo.
A booming storage industry has grown in response to this new age. Hard drive manufacturers increase storage capacities at rate that often keeps pace with transistor count increases. Advanced storage technologies such as Storage Area Networks (SAN), Network Attached Storage (NAS), Storage Management software and E-mail Archiving solutions continue to fill the headlines.
Windows Disk Fragmentation More Relevant Than Ever
Today the number of files stored on volumes is much greater than times past. This increased number of files not only necessitates larger storage capabilities but due to inherent fragmentation problems, puts a burden on file systems to keep files stored contiguously.
File systems need to be able to place files such that they have space to grow in a contiguous fashion. When files are created and deleted, unused space gets fragmented and pieces of free space are spread through the disk. These fragmented unused spaces encourage new
files to be created in places where they can't grow contiguously. It also encourages the file system to put fragments of larger files in these small free space gaps.
As a general rule more files equal more fragmentation problems.
Another fragmentation issue is the increasing size of files. The typical Word or PowerPoint document is bigger than ever. Additionally the use of video and graphic files have become commonplace and these files have grown to massive proportions. Bigger files have an obvious connection to increased file fragmentation.
Another general rule: bigger files equal more fragmentation problems.
With the exponential growth of storage, managing one's backup window becomes a major challenge when designing storage architectures and setting backup practices. Handling disk fragmentation is vital to managing backup windows when file level backups are performed. Many system administrators are battling the ever-expanding backup window. In fact, it is not uncommon for file-based backup times to exceed 24 hours, driving Storage Managers to seek out continuous data protection, data segregation, expensive hardware, and other strategies, lest they risk data loss. Recent studies have shown that defragmenting before backups are performed can decrease backup times by up to 69%, often making a spiraling issue, more manageable. At the very least, it provides breathing room en route to permanent solutions.
Not Just a Server Issue
One might mistakenly consider that since user files and data are stored on servers in the typical enterprise client-server environment, disk fragmentation doesn't occur fast enough to warrant frequent defragmentation jobs on desktops. Nothing could be further from the truth.
When managing storage devices in a client-server environment it's important to consider the files that are temporarily created on users' local hard disks, and files that are backed up locally by commonly-used applications. Applications such as Microsoft Outlook, web browsers and many others create and use files in the background. These background files are very often heavily fragmented and since the user is running applications that have to operate with fragmented files, the user is really feeling the performance degradation.
The proliferation of high speed networks (Gigabit Ethernet) and wireless technology has fueled a new mobile workforce. Corporate culture readily accepts work-from-home employees. Laptop sales now commonly outpace that of the desktop counterparts.
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