FileActions - SortByLastAccess
Place the selected items and sort by their LastAccess time from oldest to newest
("ascending") or from newest to oldest ("descending").
- Sorting by LastAccess date/time may seem like a good idea at first, but is far
from perfect. The theory is that the LastAccess times will be the same on all the
files that are used by an application, so sorting by LastAccess will put all the files
of the application together on disk. But the LastAccess time is also updated in many
other cases, not only when you run an application.
In my view sorting by LastAccess can be useful in certain situations, but is
essentially random and should not be used for the bulk of the data on regular disks.
- Sorting in "Ascending" order will put the oldest (never accessed) files at the
beginning of the zone. So, the files that you use the most are placed at the
end of the zone, which is a slower part of the harddisk and (usually) further
away from the MFT and the directories.
- Sorting in "Descending" order will put the last accessed files at the
beginning of the zone. So, the files that are accessed first when you start
a program are placed behind files that are accessed later. Your harddisk will be
working backwards.
- Vista by default does not update the LastAccess time.
For more information see
What is "NtfsDisableLastAccessUpdate"?
- On FAT volumes the resolution of the LastAccess time is 1 day.
NTFS delays updates to the LastAccess time by up to one hour.
- Some improperly programmed utilities cause a change in the LastAccess time of
all items on the disk when they scan the disk. Examples are virus scanners,
backup programs, text indexers.
- This action will also defragment. It is therefore not necessary to combine it
with the Defragment action.
- This action will create "wrap around" fragments. For more information see the
IgnoreWrapAroundFragmentation setting.
Syntax
SortByLastAccess(OPTIONS) |
| The OPTIONS are a space-separated list of these keywords: |
Example
FileSelect
....
FileActions
# Sort the items by LastAccess time, most recently accesses items first.
SortByLastAccess(Descending)
FileEnd |
See also:
FileSelect FileBoolean FileActions