Where Does File Fragmentation Happen?

[pbmc59]

Hello,
Does file fragmentation happen on the drive where the program resides ( Windows Movie Maker, TMPGenc ), or on the drive that is the destination of the output or resulting file?
In short, where does all the file activity take place?
I'm trying to decide if it makes a difference if they are on different drives from one another, as far as performance/defragging is concerned.
Thank you for your time,
Pat

ps. sorry, wasn't sure where to post this....

[WeedVender]

go to www.howstuffworks.com and then read their article on how hard drives work.

[pbmc59]

Thanks for the pointer WeedVendor.
Since I had too much weed in the 70's, I'm still having trouble understanding where the fragmented files are produced.
I understand how the hard drive works, and how files are allocated on the disk.
If my TMPGenc is on one hard drive, and I have the output file end up on another drive, where exactly are the fragged files ending up?
If they end up on the drive where TMPGenc resides, then I should install it on a separate drive, from my system drive? Then I would have to defrag the TMPGenc drive every so often...
Please bare with me...
Thanks again for your time.

[Yorel]

When a file is written (large file) there are gaps throughout the file. The next file may fill in some of those gaps, thereby being fragmented. Defragging will not only defrag your files, it will close up the files, so that there are no gaps. The next file written will produce the gaps again, in the new file, then the next will write to some of the new gaps, etc, etc, etc. I use a dedicated drive for my captures, and don't worry about defragging. I will sometimes write 5 or 6 caps to my drive, then author and burn. Then I delete everything, and start over. So far no problems.

[sterno]

I'm still having trouble understanding where the fragmented files are produced.
I understand how the hard drive works, and how files are allocated on the disk.
If my TMPGenc is on one hard drive, and I have the output file end up on another drive, where exactly are the fragged files ending up?

You'll get fragmentation on the drive where files are being created and deleted a lot, so your data drive is more likely to get fragmented than your application drive. However, tmpgenc creates temp files for some types of encoding and I think the default is on your C: drive, so you may also want to set the temp directory (in the environmental settings) to a folder on your data drive.