Patent ID: 8825980

Claim:
A method for defragmenting files on a hard disk drive, the method comprising the steps of: a computer system identifying a plurality of movable blocks on a hard disk drive, wherein a movable block is a block of storage space on the hard disk drive that is allocated for a file and that can be relocated to a different location on the hard disk drive; the computer system maintaining a write count for each movable block, wherein a write count is a cumulative number of write operations performed on a movable block; the computer system categorizing each of the movable blocks into one of a plurality of categories based on the write count of each movable block, wherein the movable blocks categorized into a first category of the plurality of categories have higher write counts than the movable blocks categorized into a second category of the plurality of categories; and the computer system relocating the movable blocks of the first category to a first group of one or more adjacent tracks of the hard disk drive such that at least one of the movable blocks of the first category which is allocated for a first file is contiguous on the hard disk drive with another movable block of the first category which is also allocated for the first file; and the computer system relocating the movable blocks of the second category to a second group of one or more adjacent tracks of the hard disk drive such that at least one of the movable blocks of the second category which is allocated for a second file is contiguous on the hard disk drive with another movable block of the second category which is also allocated for the second file, wherein the first group of one or more adjacent tracks and the second group of one or more adjacent tracks share, at most, one common track.