No, this isn't a computer-threatening issue. It's just something I'm curious about.
Anyway...I bet all of you (the computer-savvy ones, anyway) know about disk defragmentation. For those of you who don't know, here's how it works: As computers save files to a volume (like the hard disk, or an external drive), they have a tendency to split them into pieces in the file systems, so as to completely fill specific groups of clusters. This is called fragmentation. It doesn't damage the files, but the more fragmentation there is, the less efficient the computer tends to be at retrieving files from that volume, which means that everything is a bit slower. However, there is a system maintenance process called defragmentation, which moves fragmented files around and puts them back together, to help restore a little sanity and make your computer run better.
Which brings me to my question.
The Disk Defragmenter tool that comes with Windows XP (which is what I'm using) shows your disk usage in vertical bars of four different colors. White stripes represent free space, blue stripes represent unfragmented files, red stripes represent fragmented files. And then there are green stripes, which signify "unmovable" files. It is these green stripes that lie at the heart of my question.
On my old computer, when I ran the Disk Defragmenter, the green stripes would never move around during the process (which is quite understandable). They were all grouped together in a solid green band, and stayed in one place. But on the computer I currently use, not only are the green stripes spread out all over the place, but they move, despite the fact that the files they represent are supposed to be "unmovable".
Why might this happen?
Anyway...I bet all of you (the computer-savvy ones, anyway) know about disk defragmentation. For those of you who don't know, here's how it works: As computers save files to a volume (like the hard disk, or an external drive), they have a tendency to split them into pieces in the file systems, so as to completely fill specific groups of clusters. This is called fragmentation. It doesn't damage the files, but the more fragmentation there is, the less efficient the computer tends to be at retrieving files from that volume, which means that everything is a bit slower. However, there is a system maintenance process called defragmentation, which moves fragmented files around and puts them back together, to help restore a little sanity and make your computer run better.
Which brings me to my question.
The Disk Defragmenter tool that comes with Windows XP (which is what I'm using) shows your disk usage in vertical bars of four different colors. White stripes represent free space, blue stripes represent unfragmented files, red stripes represent fragmented files. And then there are green stripes, which signify "unmovable" files. It is these green stripes that lie at the heart of my question.
On my old computer, when I ran the Disk Defragmenter, the green stripes would never move around during the process (which is quite understandable). They were all grouped together in a solid green band, and stayed in one place. But on the computer I currently use, not only are the green stripes spread out all over the place, but they move, despite the fact that the files they represent are supposed to be "unmovable".
Why might this happen?
