Diskeeper on Raid 5 set

[Scuzzbopper]

Lately I've been having a problem with defragmenting an NT Server partition with Diskeeper 5 that's part of a 200GB Raid 5 set. There is no network activity when diskeeper runs, and yet fragmentation continues to be an issue. Any thoughts?

[scada]

Just what happens when you run diskkeeper?
Also are you using hardware RAID or (gasp!!) software RAID?

[Scuzzbopper]

Hardware of course(Software?? YIKES!!). It runs overnight continuously for four hours with no noticeable decrease in fragmentation. There is plenty of unused space, little or no network activity; though it is by far the most accessed and written to partition on this server.

[scada]

I had the same problem with a user's laptop. He would run Diskkeeper and afterwards would notice no decrease in fragmentation. Here's a link to an article I found on Execsoft's web site.
http://www.execsoft.com/tech-support/NT-articles/article.asp?F=1999101806.htm

I belive ( in my case) the MFT file has become badly fragmented. So we tried running the defrag process in boot mode like the article outlined.

Nada, the fragmentation was the same. Since it was only one user and performance wasn't an issue. We decided to just upgrade his laptop to 2000 in Jan. and use the built in "diskkeeper" program.

Maybe you'll have better luck.

Oh and on a side note we have SP6a installed on all our NT boxes. Could be a service pack problem??? The User also had compression "turned on" for that partition. If I'm reading the documents correctly. Compression causes the MFT to increase in size and become almost impossible to defragment???

Here's a link that talks about compression and the MTF.
http://www.execsoft.com/tech-support/NT-articles/article.asp?F=1999020911.htm

[This message has been edited by scada (edited 11-15-2000).]