Defrag a DVR???

[genealle 0]

Just wondering if you ever need to defrag the hard drive in a DVR?

 

My PC clogs up after a while and I'm curious about the condidtion of a video HD. That constant writing and re-writing surely must make a mess?

[Thomas 0]

File fragmentation is a factor of the file system.

 

FAT16= Defrag often

FAT32= Defrag somewhat often

NTFS= Defrag not very often

EXT2= Never

EXT3= Never

Riesier = Never

[qman 0]

Just a thought, I know that with a PC based DVR we need to conserve as much space as posible for video backup. Wondering if Diskeeper would do any good on the dvr to defragment.

[Thomas 0]

You won't get much, less then a file worth of space. Fragmentation is more a speed issue then space in modern file systems. It was a bigger problem when there were alot of bottlenecks in I/O speed, and when file systems were less effecent in how they used sectors on a drive. With FAT16 you needed to keep a tight eye on the file system. FAT32 is better, and less loss of space when it is fragmented.

[Sentry360 0]

I wouldn't worry about lack of space on DVRs from fragmentation. Unless you record in very small portions... Witch is highly unusual. Fragmentation will be a problem if you have a ton of small files, so unless it is jpeg we talk about, you would have to record for a looong time to even notice it.

[Ez-Toyz.com 0]

genealle Defrag a DVR???

 

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Just wondering if you ever need to defrag the hard drive in a DVR?

 

My PC clogs up after a while and I'm curious about the condidtion of a video HD. That constant writing and re-writing surely must make a mess?

 

That Depends on the DVR and how it records files. Systems like SkyView, ProVideo Security Eyes...it is quite possible to need a defragment from time to time, as each motion event is recorded into a seperate file on the hard drive.

 

However with our Alnet Systems DVRs, on initial installation the software creates recording files on the hard drive, in the size and number needed. Upon recording, Alnet now directly writes bit by bit over top of the same file that was created and formatted. Therefore the files do not get any more or less fragmented than when the file was created. Also lays the groundwork for very efficient and convenient reviewing of pre-recorded video too.