07.005 How can I defragment a diskette and what is the speed gain?
Description
This article is from the Apple II Csa2 FAQ, by Jeff Hurlburt with numerous contributions by others.
07.005 How can I defragment a diskette and what is the speed gain?
You can defragment a diskette by doing a File Copy of all files to a blank
formatted* diskette or RAM disk which is the same size as the original. The
Files on the copy diskette or RAM disk will be almost completely unfragmented.
*Note: If the diskette is supposed to be bootable, the target disk should be
INITialized for the DOS (e.g. DOS 3.3 or ProDOS) used on the original before
doing the copying. For DOS 3.3, you INIT a disk. For ProDOS, you can do an
"Initialize" from the IIgs Finder or a "FORMAT" using Apple's ProDOS FILER
utility or a ProDOS version of Copy II+.
A whole-disk copy back to the original completes the process. Tests show
that this method produces much speedier diskettes than using a utility intended
for optimizing hard disks.
For a nearly full 'workhorse' diskette which has seen may deletions and
additions, you can expect the File Copy defragmentation method to yield a 30%
to 40% improvement in access speed.
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