advantages: harmless, repairable, gives people a good time, something fun to mention at dinner to other people who have microsoft office certifications.

also, fun to write. what's the best or fastest possible way to atomize all the files? one approach would be to first defrag the target to get a nice clean space. then take each file and "spray it" across the platters free space in a kb density equal to LengthOfFile/SurfaceAreaOfFreeSpace. if the drive was less than half full when you started, then when all the files were sprayed, there would be a clean spot near the axis where all the contiguous files had been. then what? well then, determine the biggest sprayed file and move every Nth byte to the free space until the end of the file. that's pretty fragged, but good enough?
-- gnormal, Feb 07 2001

You could write a JavaScript which either pops up or scrolls along bottom or top depending on configuration... "Your hard drive is now being defragmented courtesy of gnormal.com" though it isn't. Don't forget to include an annoying popup which says you were kidding.
-- thumbwax, Apr 04 2001


Defragmenters (at least, back when i used filesystems that needed defragmenting) would usually examine the disk, figure out the optimal layout for all files, and then compute the minimal number of sector-swaps or whatever needed to move everything to its optimal place.

The fragger could just compute a pessimal layout instead, and then continue as normal.
-- wiml, Apr 05 2001


I know that this is one of those fun topics, but isn't this really the opposite of what most people (and I mean me and the rest of the world of users and amateur superusers) get? Defragmenting... and only in the foreground. Why not create a utility that does what most people know would be useful and well-accepted, such as a background-process defragmenter? (And while you're at it, you could defragment background-processes)

It could carefully monitor file-handles to make sure it isn't altering files that are in use. Or, it could work on your computer after it's been inactive for a period. Without asking to get flamed, (or maybe blatantly asking to get flamed while claiming not to), I use a Windows computer. I know that Mr. Gates has not been able to do this yet. And I haven't seen it elsewhere.
-- pemrichm, Sep 23 2003



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