Can you defrag an encrypted file system

Question

I just encrypted my entire hard drive with truecrypt and was wondering can I still defrag it?

Or will that not work anymore or break something.

Answer 1

Usually, yes you can since the encrypting file system is presenting itself as a traditional file system to Windows and unaware applications.

The larger question is what do you plan to gain with defragmentation since it was conceived when systems were older and slower and fragmented volumes could impact systems performance.

If you're striving to max out your systems performance, defragmentation is the bottom of the list as far as return of investment.

Answer 2

Any system using a traditional hard drive needs defragging occasionally. No so with SSD. Rotational delay and mechanical arm movement are minimized when files are more contiguous, resulting in faster seek times and overall performance. Steveo (35 years in IT)

Answer 3

My understanding of a memory chip is that the 1st random access takes more time. The access of the subsequent bytes takes less time. From this perspective, if data are fragmented across the SSD, then yes, it takes more time than if all bytes are contiguous because each byte would be a "random" access. Though SSD doesn't have moving parts like an HDD, avoiding random access still saves time.

However, unlike volatile memory (DRAM, SRAM, etc) that can be read/written unlimited times, non-volatile memory has LIMITED write cycles! Thus, if you are trying to defrag an SSD, keep this attribute in mind. You ARE wearing it out! After all, it's almost futile. All SSD controllers implement a technology called "wear balancing", ie. you want to spread out writing to a cell as evenly across the SSD as possible so that you are not killing certain sectors. This spreading out process in itself leads to fragmentation.