ITPEC FE Subject A October 2024 Question 10

To access disk files faster — defragmentation gathers the scattered pieces of each file into contiguous blocks so the disk head moves less.

After many writes and deletions, a file ends up stored in fragments spread across the disk, and reading it needs many seeks and rotational waits. Defragmentation moves each file's blocks next to each other and usually consolidates the free space, so reads become sequential and faster. It deletes nothing and adds no capacity.

Answer (a)

Why not others:

• •(b) — removing temporary and junk files is disk cleanup; defragmentation only moves data
• •(c) — interblock gaps are part of the recording format between physical blocks (typical of magnetic tape); rearranging files does not remove them or add capacity
• •(d) — protection against physical failure comes from RAID, backups and health monitoring; moving data around does not prevent drive failure

Key rule: Fragmentation costs speed, not space; defragmentation restores contiguous storage to cut seek time, which matters for hard disks but not for SSDs, which have no head to move.

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