Diskeeper said my MFT usage is high,

[Rip The Jacker]

Can someone please explain what this means to me? In noobs terms.

Apparently my MFT usage is high, and that can cause my HDD to become really fragmented. This is also apparently degrading the health of my C: drive. :(

What's the MFT really? (Google wasn't much help) And should I really worry? I guess I could open the Frag Sheild and configure my MFT to a larger size, but I read somewhere that the MFT size can never go down (without reformatting) so I should be careful.

Crap I don't know what to do... should I just ignore it? Or panic. :unsure:

(Also, sorry if this is the wrong section.)

[iller]

Diskeeper itself does have enough information about this. You just need to press the little help button and search for MFT to get this:

The Master File Table (MFT) is, in a sense, a file containing records about each file on an NTFS volume. In general terms, one file record exists in the MFT for each file on the volume. (There are exceptions to this. For example, a highly-fragmented file can require multiple file records in the MFT to store the information about the many fragments that make up the file.) When an NTFS volume is first created, Windows reserves a portion of the volume for the MFT. As files are added to the volume, the MFT grows as additional file records are added to it. As the disk fills, it is possible for the MFT to outgrow the space originally reserved for it. When this happens, additional new space is reserved for the MFT, but this new space is usually not adjacent to the original MFT zone. This is the cause of MFT fragmentation.

Also, when free space becomes too low, files get written into the space reserved for the MFT, thus causing the MFT to eventually expand around these files in a fragmented manner. This is another common cause of MFT fragmentation.

The MFT configuration tool helps pre-extend the MFT in a contiguous manner, so future growth of the MFT will not result in fragmented extensions of the file. Approximately one spare file record is needed for each file that will occupy the volume in the future. The number of file records to add is determined in one of two ways:

Frag Shield recommends the size increase based on the estimated number of files that could occupy the volume. This estimate is based on the current average file size and amount of available free space.

You can enter in how many files you estimate will potentially occupy the volume.

[Rip The Jacker]

Um... damn... a lot of this is confusing for someone new to all this.

So... should I use the Frag Sheild to increase the size? Will I be able to gain that space back? =/

[*Neo*]

you have nothing to worry about , you can ingnore it totally but your drive will running slow

you just need to do defragment ,try to do boot time defragment

and do pagefile and MFT and folders

1. put all folder together

2. defrag the paging file

3. defragment Master file table

this will improve the acess time and reduce it

and remmember to do defragment again in windows

after all of this this should end the problem and your drive will running fast again

[Max Veteran]

Run the frag shield, set it to its recommended size, let it work its magic and hey presto!

[Rip The Jacker]

Well, everything is fine I think. It "padded" (it was taking a while, I was starting to worry) my MFT and it went from 125 to 163MB in size. Now Diskeeper reports that my C: drive is very healthy.

Yay! :p

Thanks you guys.

[ghayes]

The $MFT is designed to grow as needed. NTFS takes care of this for you automatically and effeciently. You don't need to artifically pad the size (artifically make larger).

- Greg/Raxco Software

Microsoft MVP - Windows File Systems

Disclaimer: I work for Raxco Software, the maker of PerfectDisk - a commercial defrag utility, as a systems engineer in the support department.