Control fragmentation

Filesystem fragmentation is directly related to the amount of mixing and interleaving of blocks of data of different sizes, and is aggravated by multiple I/O clients concurrently writing data to the partition.

Although some standard filesystems (such as XFS) feature advanced space allocation techniques, which make them more resistant to fragmentation, this problem still occurs as the filesystem's free space decreases and frequent file deletion, creation, and resizing operations take place.

Here are some steps you can take to counter filesystem fragmentation:

• Avoid storing mixed resolution projects on a standard filesystem partition. Workflows where many different media formats are used simultaneously tend to become fragmented more rapidly than if a single resolution media format is used consistently.
• Separate your media and metadata partitions. The worst contributors to fragmentation on a media storage device are the files used to store metadata. These include clip libraries, setup files, and databases. It is recommended to keep all metadata on a separate partition.
  NoteYou may keep the audio data on the same partition as the frames. This has no significant impact on performance or filesystem fragmentation.
• Use the defragmentation tools provided by your filesystem vendor on a regular basis.
  NoteDefragmentation tools are often unable to realign files based on their locality of reference. Therefore, it is advisable to reinitialise your partition periodically, by archiving your projects, formatting the partition, and restoring the archives.