What is Fragmentation ?

Answer 1

~~~~~~~~~~~Fragmentation ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
• Fragmentation happens when memory spaces are used in such a way that there are small pieces of memory available left unused
• Fragmentation occurs naturally when you use a disk frequently, creating, deleting, and modifying files
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External Fragmentation
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• Too many small sized free space
• These small spaces can not be used for anything as they are not contiguous
• although enough total space exist but because they are not contiguous they cannot be allocated
• variable partitioning leads to external fragmentation
• to resolve external fragmentation a technique called compaction is used
• compaction shuffles all free memory spaces together to form a large block
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Internal Fragmentation
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• when extra spaces are allocated to a process, the difference
Between the two numbers results in internal fragmentation
• fixed partitioning leads to internal fragmentation as extra
Memory allocated to a program which is not used cannot Be used elsewhere
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you also can go to theses links and get more info
www.webopedia.com/TERM/f/fragmentation.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fragmentation

Answer 2

Are you talking about file fragmentation, or packet fragmentation? Since this is the Networking forum, I'm gonna assume you're asking about packet fragmentation.

All networks have a maximum size for packet transmission. For example, ethernet has a maximum transmission unit (MTU) size of 1500 bytes. If a packet that is greater than 1500 bytes needs to transit an ethernet network, then it must be "Fragmented" or broken into smaller packets. When this is done, the sending computer turns the Fragment Bit on in the packet header so that the receiving computer knows that when it receives the first packet that there's more to come. After the last piece is sent, the sender lowers the fragment bit and the receiver know its now got all the pieces of the original packet and it puts it all back together to its orignal size.

Answer 3

Yes, as you use your computer files do get spread out over your hard drive. And this doesn't have to do with how you have your files organized in folders, it has to do with where the data for each and every file is actually stored inside the hard drive itself.

Defragmenting sort of "squares the deck" (as in playing cards), if you will. For example, if you delete a file there will be a gap of empty space on your hard drive between the files stored on either side of the deleted file. Defragmenting pushes all the data back together, allowing your computer to spend less time searching for files when you open them.

Sometimes even a file, especially if it's huge, will get broken into "fragments". I mean, it will be stored in multiple parts, in multiple places inside the hard drive. Opening a file that is fragmented like this would be particularly slow, because the hard drive has to jump around to find each and every piece of the file.

Answer 4

Files are stored on your hard drive wherever they will fit. If there are small holes left by previously-deleted files, the hard drive will fill in those spaces with new files. If a given hole isn't big enough for a file, the file may be spread over multiple holes. So, if "-" is blank space, you end up with something like this for the sectors on your hard drive.

1111---2222222-----33333---
... and when you go to save file 4, you get something like this:
111144422222224444433333444

This makes it harder to read file 4 (although 1,2, and 3 are still fine), because mechanically, the hard drive has to do more work, skipping over the other files. This causes a major slowdown, so to fix this problem, there are programs that re-write your hard drive so it would be something like this (note that files have moved, but they are still the same size overall.)

111122222223333344444444444

Of course, a real hard drive has millions of sectors like this, so when it gets fragmented, this example can be a million times worse than what I said here.

Answer 5

Fragmentation is just was it says - it's your files, being in fragments all over your harddrive. When you save something - each bit of what you are saving goes to the next available slot of free space on your harddrive - therefore when you try and load whatever you saved, it'll be slower than usual to have it appear because your computer will have to search all the spaces on your computer to find every last piece that makes up the file you are trying to open. This makes it lag, in case you havn't noticed, so, in order to re-group the files, so that say...the picture you saved - its data is all in one place instead of all over the place - in its own little easy-to-find grouping, run your computers defragmentation program, and all your files will be grouped back together and re-sorted.

Answer 6

Fragmentation of your files means that all your files have been disarranged in a manner that causes your computer to have to search for a file because it is not in its normal configuration on the hard drive. To put these files back into the order in which they were first loaded on you must go to control panel click on performance and maintenance. Go down the category list and click on the performance and maintenance. Click on the task " Rearrange items on your hard disk to make your computer run faster" this will bring up
a scale, click on analyze then you will see a graph that will show you the space you have before fragmentation. next click on defragment hard drive this will start putting your files back in order in which they were last organized.

Answer 7

Example: One file on your hard drive scatter and save in different location.That is called Fragmentation.So if you load that file,performance is lower and can be fixed using Disk Defragment.

Answer 8

Files on your computer get spread out all over your hard drive making your computer slower. Run the defragmenter to reverse this effect.

Answer 9

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fragmentation_%28computer%29