Is it safe to use on-line defrag whilst running database or server software?
On-line defragmentation is implemented by making new, defragmented copies of existing files. If you are running software with open files that may write to those files subsequent to defragmentation, any updates made to those files once they have been defragmented will be lost. Such software should normally be prevented from updating any files it may have open until it can be restarted. Normally, manufacturers of database or server software (which is most likely to be affected by this issue) will provide instructions for dealing with backups and restoring from backups. We recommend that you treat on-line defragmentation as a combination of a backup and a restore, and follow the appropriate instructions. For instance, it may be possible to tell database software to temporarily log updates to a separate disk or to a specific file (which could be marked such that iDefrag will not move it). Equally, you may wish to temporarily halt such services to perform on-line defragmentation. If you wou
