How Virtualization Exacerbates Fragmentation

“As to why virtualization is such a boon to heavy fragmentation,
let’s start with a basic explanation of fragmentation itself: When
Windows writes a file, it generally splits it into multiple pieces
spread around the disk. Any time you access that file, each piece
must be located, gathered up and then fed to the user. This
consumes time and system resources, and frays tempers as you wait
for the machine to boot up, the application to load or the file to
appear. Over time it gets worse. Things slow down even more and can
sometimes be reduced to a crawl.

“Now factor in today’s much larger files and massive disk sizes.
You’d think that with loads of disk space still available,
fragmentation wouldn’t occur. Not so. Windows seems bound and
determined to not let tiny pieces of free space remain unused,
while at the same time leaving vast tracks of disk unused. Thus, it
fragments just about anything it touches.”

This might help admins who need to explain to their bosses
why using Windows as the host OS may not be the best choice–
ed.

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