Microsoft confirms mobile defrag may be needed
Measures will reduce defrag need
By Chris Mellor | Published: 09:00, 03 December 2005
Earlier we produced a piece about mobile phones needing hard drive-based storage system defragmentation. I've had this communication from a Microsoft representative:
"Microsoft ... doesn’t expect users of Windows Mobile-based Smartphones with hard drives to experience issues with device performance due to fragmentation.
"Most users will use these hard drives to store music; to enhance the user experience in this scenario Microsoft has done the following:
"1) Recommended that partners use fairly large clusters of around 64K
2) Ensured that most files are written sequentially by our sync manager – Activesync or Windows Media. These both reduce any kind of fragmentation."
These seem like good ideas but, in relation to the points in our previous article, Microsoft is confirming that fragmentation is a real issue. If most files are written sequentially what happens when earlier files are deleted and then a new files written? There will be 'holes' throughout the file system which new files will be spread across, thus fragmenting them.
Microsoft says its measures will 'reduce any kind of fragmentation.' It doesn't say it will get rid of it. So, over time, the file system in a mobile device's hard drive will become fragmented and, by extension, its performance in finding and assembling files from its storage system will deteriorate.
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