File system fragmentation

File system fragmentation, sometimes called file system aging, is a characteristic of a file system that stores files in non-contiguous blocks. It is a special case of data fragmentation. File system fragmentation negatively impacts seek time for disk storage (spinning storage medium), which lowers throughput. Fragmentation can be eliminated by re-organizing files as contiguous areas, a process called defragmentation.

A solid-state drive (SSD) does not mechanically seek, so non-sequential access is orders of magnitude faster than disk drives, making fragmentation significantly less of an issue. In fact, best practice is to not defragment an SSD, because doing so can prematurely wear drives via unnecessary write and erase operations.

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