Question about timeshift buffer and partition (1 Viewer)

[spiderwheels]

After my data partition got ridiculously fragmented (63%) after just a few months while being only 25% full I thought I might move the timeshift buffer to a partition on its own.

But before I do, how does timeshifting utilise files?

1 - If it simply allocates new files as it records more information and deletes old files when they go out of date then this would get fragmented and a separate partition might be a good idea.

2 - However, if the timeshift buffer reuses files it has already allocated then, apart from the initial allocation of those files, it will not be subject to fragmentation and a separate partition won't be needed.

Is it 1 or 2?

Thanks

 

[spiderwheels]

To answer my own question the timeshift buffer files are continuously allocated and deleted.

I full defragged the drive yesterday and last night I recorded a 45 minute program while timeshifting another channel. I checked the fragmentation of the drive and that 1 new recording is spread over the disk in over 60 fragments! It must have been interleaving with the timeshift buffer. I think I will create a dedicated partition for the TS buffer.

What do you lot think of an option to preallocate and reuse files the timeshift buffer files? It could be set to create say 16GB of files and simply loop through them - resulting in zero fragmentation an no need to create a Timeshift partition.

 

[Emetic_4ever]

AW: Question about timeshift buffer and partition

I'm using a TS-partition for one reason: if you record a lot of tv and put too much media content onto the system (videos, music etc.), your life TV crashes because the disk is full. In this way this never can happen.