this post was submitted on 31 May 2026
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Do you know the implications for wear on the drive (related to TBW [total bytes written] and write amplification) on a CoW / highly fragmented drive? I figure if they are planning on writing once, then moving the whole file to an empty space, that means ~2x the writes.
I don't think it could possibly be measured because it's something like: (file size ÷ block size) * num_writes
So it entire depends on the types of files, how often you're utilizing writes to disk...etc. I just wouldn't worry about it. If you REALLY want to estimate the tax: use iostat to check the number of writes on the drive in the last 24 hours, THEN enable online defrag and check it again in 24 hours. See what the difference is.
It really doesn't matter for HDD though. Barely probably matters for SSD.