Tips For Virtual Machines
With the increasing popularity of Virtual Machines comes an issue that many may not be aware of. This problem is an age-old issue that has affected systems from the very early days of storage. It can cause hard drive failure leading to expensive data loss scenarios necessitating data recovery professionals. This problem is, of course, fragmentation.
If you are fortunate enough to have very deep pockets then you may be using SSD’s or solid state drives. These still remain expensive and are out of the reach of most users who still have to rely (although getting much faster) on the slowest and some would say the most vulnerable technology in your computer- the hard drive. Hard drive fragmentation can cause problems with virtual machines and in some cases even data loss.
Hard disk fragmentation occurs when files are split in to multiple chunks as they are slotted into spare space on the hard drive. If you are running a solitary OS chances are you have already noticed considerable slow down in your system since purchase. Just imagine two or more OS’s running causing the same file fragmentation! Pretty soon your system could come to a grinding halt.
What is more, the premature wear that all of this fragmentation can cause to the hard disk storage can dramatically reduce the useable life of the storage below. Even complex, high performance, RAID arrays can be reduced to a snail like crawl due to high levels of fragmentation. If this problem starts to show itself on a number of the storage devices in any array you could be left with a situation where data recovery is your only option.
Operating systems handle fragmentation in different ways. Microsoft Windows, for example, pays little or no attention to the degree of fragmentation on a storage device, whereas Mac OS X goes some way to helping by automatically defragmenting files under 20 MB in size. Other Operating Systems handle file fragmentation in various ways, with varying levels of success.
Utilizing defragmentation tools can help to alleviate the problem but often the use of some of these tools is very invasive and will render your system virtually unusable while they are running so what other options do you have.
Fortunately we are not left to the operating systems alone as there are a number of third party defragmentation applications that are far superior to the inbuilt OS tools. These can be scheduled to run when system usage is very low for example whilst the system is idle or the screen saver is running. As you go defragmentation is my personal choice.
Invest in dedicated hardware. Not the cheapest solution but for business and power user home systems probably the most sensible route. Dedicated hardware could be an additional hard drive (internal or external) a dedicated raid array or even an SSD device. The actual solution will depend on how mission critical the application actually is.
Ensuring your systems are working in tip top condition is vital to maintaining a productive IT infrastructure. For more great computing tips visit the IT Support Manchester , or click here for hard drive repair information and raid data recovery advice.
