Source: {"pile_set_name": "USPTO Backgrounds"}

1. Field
Example embodiments of inventive concepts described herein relate to user devices supporting defragmentation and/or zone-based defragmentation methods thereof.
2. Description of Conventional Art
Unlike a hard disk, a flash memory may not support an overwrite operation. For this reason, an erase operation may be performed before a write operation. The flash memory may perform an erase operation by a block unit, and a time taken to perform the erase operation may be long. The flash memory characteristics may make it difficult to apply a file system for hard disk to the flash memory without modification. To solve such problems, a flash translation layer FTL may be used as middleware between the file system for hard disk and the flash memory. The FTL may enable the flash memory to be freely read and written like a conventional hard disk.
Defragmentation or defrag may mean a work of reducing the amount of fragmented files of a file system on a hard disk. The defragmentation may be made to speed up by reorganizing, concatenating and/or compacting fragmented files within a hard disk physically. Periodic defragmentation may help maintain the optimal performance of memory systems and constituent data media by reducing the file system overhead and data search time caused by excessive fragmentation.