Defragmenting Single Files

There are numerous Windows disk defraggers out there, including the built in disk defragmenter. Everyone knows what they do and how they work, but one thing they can not do is defragment a single file, making it contiguous on disk. From time to time a user may need to ensure this consistency, usually for the sake of performance. This is exactly what Contig was created for.

Using Contig:

To make an existing file contiguous use Contig as follows:

Usage: contig [-v] [-a] [-q] [-s] [filename]

-v
Use the -v switch to have Contig print out information about the file defrag operations that are performed.

-a
If you want to simply see how fragmented a file or files have become, use the -a switch to have Contig analyze fragmentation.

-q
The -q switch, which over-rides the -v switch, makes Contig run in "quiet" mode, where the only thing it prints during a defrag run is summary information.

-s
Use the -s switch to perform a recursive processing of subdirectories when you specify a filename with wildcards.

For instance, to defragment all DLLs under c:\winnt you could enter "contig -s c:\winnt\*.dll".

To make a new file that is defragmented upon creation, use Contig like this:

Usage: contig [-v] [-n filename length]

From personal experience, a great application for Contig is defragmenting the cover art database on an iPod. This will increase performance dramatically. As always you can go to the Contig homepage, or download it straight from WLT.

Download:

Contig v1.55