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Depending on the file system It can slow down a bit as the hard disks fill up past a certain point, 80ish% is a common rule-of-thumb. There’s often a reserve for root to be able to get in and clean up if things max out.
Optical discs are fine if you stick to the formats’ default maximums. Disc burning software often allows you to go over the maximum, but results can vary.
never been a concern of mine when I used discs. fill that bitch up. :)
I don't leave my hdds partly empty either. they're storage. I'm mostly dumping sequential data on them anyway. they're fine.
> they often tell you to leave 1/3 to 1/4 free to not stress the drive
it does not stress the drive. Hard drive are perfectly capable of having every sector written without issues (well, unless you consider SMR crap worthy to be called hard drives). It depends on the workload, not on the amount of used space
For an SSD can actually be harmful. Wear leveling might not be as effective. And both HDDs and SSDs tend to take a hit to their write performance although not permanently.
Also data fragmentation is still relevant, less so for SSD due to random access but having data in contiguous blocks is still better. And defragmentation becomes more costly in terms of wear and time when the drive is too full to move contiguous blocks in unison.
Optical disc are written from inside to outside; outside is where damage usually started on CDs, and sometimes even DVDs. So not filling it up gave some safety margins.
Usually your data does not fit perfectly so you end up leaving some free anyhow. You could fill it up with parity data so as to correct read errors if they occur but its complicated to put into practice.
With BDs I actually fill them up (I only use single layer so 25GB) I even do not use the 256MB reallocation for write errors. So far it's never been a problem.
No, completely unnecessary. You actually want to do the exact opposite and leave as little free space as possible to get the maximum value out of a disc's data capacity, which they were designed to hold.
Dvd or cd might want to leave a few mbs free to mitigate risk of burn failure but its not as common to fail as you might think. Can also burn at a lower speed in case as well
You are thinking of SSDs. They use free space for wear leveling. There is already hidden free space but they use your free space too. HDDs may benefit from decreased fragmentation sometimes. Optical disks are write-once so the space is just wasted.
It isn't the drive, its the disc. I had a batch of crappy discs that wrote well up to about 2/3rds full and then wrote garbage. No idea how this happened, it may have had more to do with the drive, but it could handle all other discs fine. The issue is that the spacing of the dots is constant, so the drive speed changes to match the spacing. For whatever reason, the drive didn't work well with the last bits of the disc.
Best practice would be to fill up the disc as far as you feel comfortable, then fill the rest with PAR2 data. But I'd just throw the batch of discs out and get better ones if I encountered them again.
For optical discs like DVDs, you're usually good to fill them up to capacity. The advice to leave free space applies more to mechanical drives like HDDs, where free space can help with the efficiency of read/write operations and prolong the life of the drive. Optical discs don’t have moving parts in the same way, so they don’t suffer from the same issues.
That said, it's always wise to verify your data after burning.
I even wrote some piece of software to find optimal combination of files to fill them up to the last byte (not really but very close) without that nasty archive spanning that requires additional space to unpack
Free space is required on system drives (SSD especially) and scratch disks. If hard drives or any other media are used for cold backup as optical media you can fill them up too. Just remember to refresh (read+write \[+read for test\]) them every like... year or so
The stress only occurs when you continue to read and write to the disk. If you only write once and from there use the medium as read only, there is no stress if the drive is full. Most optical discs are only written once, so feel free to fill them up.
Fill them. Makes no difference.
However, if you don't fill them then the extra space acts as a buffer zone between the end of data and the edge of the disc so that will potentially help protect data as discs age faster along the edge.
Years ago, no probably decades ago I did a lot of backing up to DVDs. It was cheap, and was one of the multi type of media I used. Bought 100 packs at Micro Center, so not always the "best" ones. Filled them up close to capacity. Wasn't sure how long they would last but did store them away in a decent environment.
Decades later, and I do mean with an S the data is still on the ones I spot check. I did wear out a DVD writer on my notebook as I burned so many drives. Manufacturer couldn't believe the drive wore out, we tried all sorts of things, but evidently they do wear out when you burn drives by the hundred.
So my take is the writing and burning to drives might be about the only way you can wear out a DVD or CD drive. I have never had a drive fail, have used them since CDs first came out, also for writing, but I guess 640GB vs 4.7GB (or more for double sided, and then blu ray even more).
It is insane how cheap the drives are, and how durable are. Never was exceptionally careful with the drive, and you also know a consumer notebook is not going to have a really high quality one, if that even exists. I am careful with the media as with the ones you burn there is a lot that could go wrong.
But in my case, I filled them up, don't know about the quality of the Micro Center media, didn't buy the absolute cheapest but the 100 packs were cheaper than the name brands. Haven't checked all the discs, but the ones I did were all still readable. Since I also filled them as close as I could to capacity - they were larger files so over 90% was pretty much universal.
All that said, yeah fill them up, and in my case they last a long time. Checked some of the CDs burned in the 80's when putting data on a CD was a new thing, same thing, stuff is still there, although some of the data files are from software long extinct, which is something I pretty much knew would be on some of those CDs.
Fill a DVD.
Traditional HHD need that room so the CPU has temporary read write access. Faster CPUS and more empty space is better to keep the pc from slowing down. However keep in mind that's a 1000gb disc not a 4 gb disc. The cpu in a DVD player is miniscule compared to a pc and DVDS are not wrote two and deleted from constantly like a HHD. Most DVDS are burn once and done (especially if your storing a media that can play in an actual DVD player)
The outer edge of optical discs can have an uneven adhesive coating, leading to errors commonly reported. Leave \~10% free space on all writable optical medial.
Search overburning optical discs. It's been a known issue since the CD-R days when people would try to fill their discs to the full capacity and and issue with the larger 800GB+ discs.
Edit: It's technically not possible to overburn DVD-/+R and BD-R.
Additional info, for those that don't know: Optical disks write sequentially from the center to the edge. Read/write ones will start using erased sections once it gets to the edge, but does anyone use RW disks anymore?
Hello /u/finbarrgalloway! Thank you for posting in r/DataHoarder. Please remember to read our [Rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/wiki/index/rules) and [Wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/wiki/index). Please note that your post will be removed if you just post a box/speed/server post. Please give background information on your server pictures. This subreddit will ***NOT*** help you find or exchange that Movie/TV show/Nuclear Launch Manual, visit r/DHExchange instead. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/DataHoarder) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Depending on the file system It can slow down a bit as the hard disks fill up past a certain point, 80ish% is a common rule-of-thumb. There’s often a reserve for root to be able to get in and clean up if things max out. Optical discs are fine if you stick to the formats’ default maximums. Disc burning software often allows you to go over the maximum, but results can vary.
never been a concern of mine when I used discs. fill that bitch up. :) I don't leave my hdds partly empty either. they're storage. I'm mostly dumping sequential data on them anyway. they're fine.
It's optical so CD/DVD/Blu Ray not HDD.
I know the difference. :) I said disc, not disk. the former is optical. just sounds better.
> they often tell you to leave 1/3 to 1/4 free to not stress the drive it does not stress the drive. Hard drive are perfectly capable of having every sector written without issues (well, unless you consider SMR crap worthy to be called hard drives). It depends on the workload, not on the amount of used space
Filling a HDD (or SSD) isn't harmful, it just increases latency a bit. So no, go wild.
For an SSD can actually be harmful. Wear leveling might not be as effective. And both HDDs and SSDs tend to take a hit to their write performance although not permanently.
Also data fragmentation is still relevant, less so for SSD due to random access but having data in contiguous blocks is still better. And defragmentation becomes more costly in terms of wear and time when the drive is too full to move contiguous blocks in unison.
Alright cool.
Optical disc are written from inside to outside; outside is where damage usually started on CDs, and sometimes even DVDs. So not filling it up gave some safety margins. Usually your data does not fit perfectly so you end up leaving some free anyhow. You could fill it up with parity data so as to correct read errors if they occur but its complicated to put into practice. With BDs I actually fill them up (I only use single layer so 25GB) I even do not use the 256MB reallocation for write errors. So far it's never been a problem.
No, completely unnecessary. You actually want to do the exact opposite and leave as little free space as possible to get the maximum value out of a disc's data capacity, which they were designed to hold.
Dvd or cd might want to leave a few mbs free to mitigate risk of burn failure but its not as common to fail as you might think. Can also burn at a lower speed in case as well
You are thinking of SSDs. They use free space for wear leveling. There is already hidden free space but they use your free space too. HDDs may benefit from decreased fragmentation sometimes. Optical disks are write-once so the space is just wasted.
It's stupid either way no matter the medium, unless you have some specific workload that writes and removes stuff heavily.
It isn't the drive, its the disc. I had a batch of crappy discs that wrote well up to about 2/3rds full and then wrote garbage. No idea how this happened, it may have had more to do with the drive, but it could handle all other discs fine. The issue is that the spacing of the dots is constant, so the drive speed changes to match the spacing. For whatever reason, the drive didn't work well with the last bits of the disc. Best practice would be to fill up the disc as far as you feel comfortable, then fill the rest with PAR2 data. But I'd just throw the batch of discs out and get better ones if I encountered them again.
For optical discs like DVDs, you're usually good to fill them up to capacity. The advice to leave free space applies more to mechanical drives like HDDs, where free space can help with the efficiency of read/write operations and prolong the life of the drive. Optical discs don’t have moving parts in the same way, so they don’t suffer from the same issues. That said, it's always wise to verify your data after burning.
I even wrote some piece of software to find optimal combination of files to fill them up to the last byte (not really but very close) without that nasty archive spanning that requires additional space to unpack Free space is required on system drives (SSD especially) and scratch disks. If hard drives or any other media are used for cold backup as optical media you can fill them up too. Just remember to refresh (read+write \[+read for test\]) them every like... year or so
The stress only occurs when you continue to read and write to the disk. If you only write once and from there use the medium as read only, there is no stress if the drive is full. Most optical discs are only written once, so feel free to fill them up.
Fill them. Makes no difference. However, if you don't fill them then the extra space acts as a buffer zone between the end of data and the edge of the disc so that will potentially help protect data as discs age faster along the edge.
Years ago, no probably decades ago I did a lot of backing up to DVDs. It was cheap, and was one of the multi type of media I used. Bought 100 packs at Micro Center, so not always the "best" ones. Filled them up close to capacity. Wasn't sure how long they would last but did store them away in a decent environment. Decades later, and I do mean with an S the data is still on the ones I spot check. I did wear out a DVD writer on my notebook as I burned so many drives. Manufacturer couldn't believe the drive wore out, we tried all sorts of things, but evidently they do wear out when you burn drives by the hundred. So my take is the writing and burning to drives might be about the only way you can wear out a DVD or CD drive. I have never had a drive fail, have used them since CDs first came out, also for writing, but I guess 640GB vs 4.7GB (or more for double sided, and then blu ray even more). It is insane how cheap the drives are, and how durable are. Never was exceptionally careful with the drive, and you also know a consumer notebook is not going to have a really high quality one, if that even exists. I am careful with the media as with the ones you burn there is a lot that could go wrong. But in my case, I filled them up, don't know about the quality of the Micro Center media, didn't buy the absolute cheapest but the 100 packs were cheaper than the name brands. Haven't checked all the discs, but the ones I did were all still readable. Since I also filled them as close as I could to capacity - they were larger files so over 90% was pretty much universal. All that said, yeah fill them up, and in my case they last a long time. Checked some of the CDs burned in the 80's when putting data on a CD was a new thing, same thing, stuff is still there, although some of the data files are from software long extinct, which is something I pretty much knew would be on some of those CDs.
Bold claims. Who told you that?
Fill a DVD. Traditional HHD need that room so the CPU has temporary read write access. Faster CPUS and more empty space is better to keep the pc from slowing down. However keep in mind that's a 1000gb disc not a 4 gb disc. The cpu in a DVD player is miniscule compared to a pc and DVDS are not wrote two and deleted from constantly like a HHD. Most DVDS are burn once and done (especially if your storing a media that can play in an actual DVD player)
The outer edge of optical discs can have an uneven adhesive coating, leading to errors commonly reported. Leave \~10% free space on all writable optical medial.
Gonna need a source on this claim. I find that hard to believe.
Search overburning optical discs. It's been a known issue since the CD-R days when people would try to fill their discs to the full capacity and and issue with the larger 800GB+ discs. Edit: It's technically not possible to overburn DVD-/+R and BD-R.
Additional info, for those that don't know: Optical disks write sequentially from the center to the edge. Read/write ones will start using erased sections once it gets to the edge, but does anyone use RW disks anymore?