defragmenting

[far]

I have an external hard disk. Actually it is just a normal hard disk (40 Gb's) that was installed in an external box and is connected to my laptop via USB (it is the normal USB, not the new 2.0). Anyways, my hard disk was about 75% full and was very defragmented and I defragmented it the other day. I used the defragment utility that comes with windows XP. However it took about 12 hours to defragment!!!! Is that normal? Also, my question is: Does this affect the hard disk in any way? I mean, is it bad for the hard disk to work non-stop for that many hours? (the whole time, the little light was blinking indicating that the hard disk was writing/reading...)
If this is bad for the hard disk.... then what can I do to defragment it in the future?
I would appreciate any info.
Thanks!!!!

 

[Crashman]

wow, USB is 12 megabit. That's 1.5MB/s. If it's pulling the info to RAM and putting it back to the drive, that's a write and a read, taking twice as long. 30MB should move at best in 20 seconds, so 30GB would take 1024x as long, around 333 minutes. That's around 5.5 hours. To take the data off. Now to put it back in place will take another 5.5 hours. 11 hours total, assuming your USB controller is operating at peek efficiency, all your files have to be moved, hard drive response time is negligable, etc.

Of course you can't know exactly how much data was being moved, your hard drive response time does matter, etc. But you can see where 11 hours wouldn't be unreasonable for 30GB of files to be reorganized over a standard USB connection.

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[far]

Well, my other question was: Does anything get hurt by leaving the hard disk to defragment for that long... Does it harm it hard disk, or the read/write head?

 

[sjonnie]

No, I have disks that have been uploading / downloading data 24/7 for the last 3 years and they're still doing fine.

<A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/myanandtech.html?member=114979" target="_new">My PCs</A>

 

[silverpig]

Nope. The hardest thing to do to a drive is starting and stopping it really. Most HD companies now give the life of their hard drive in start/stop cycles.

Some day I'll be rich and famous for inventing a device that allows you to stab people in the face over the internet.