BURBANK, CA -- (Marketwire) -- 07/06/09 -- That's a bit of a joke, really; was there ever a time when response time didn't matter? Back in the old days, roomfulls of secretaries and file clerks were kept running to make sure executives were provided with data from files in a timely manner. The whole idea of computerizing data was to cut response time even more by removing the human lag factor from the response equation; at the mere press of a button, the data would be instantaneously available. No more screaming across rooms or down halls if documents weren't procured quickly enough, and no more employee reprimands or, at worst, pink slips issued for multiple infractions.

But like an ironic twist out of a science fiction story, the computer era brought its own form of non-response. Imagine the look of surprise on that old-school executive's face when he finally got to press that proverbial button -- and nothing happened? It is certain that even more screaming ensued. Unfortunately, it's continued to occur frequently since then.

The culprit is file fragmentation. For applications or even the operating system the story is the same: when files are fragmented, response time is greatly slowed down. When fragmentation gets seriously bad, it goes from slow response time to no response time. It's as bad as yelling down to a file clerk that has fallen asleep or taken an unscheduled vacation.

Early on, system administrators did get wise to fragmentation and solutions were evolved for it. First they were all manual, then they could be scheduled. For many years, scheduled defragmentation did the job and everyone seemed happy.

But now a new era has dawned, the era of the World Wide Web and global business. The maintenance time windows that were previously available for scheduling or manually running defrag have all but disappeared, while systems remain up and running 24X7. In between the few defrag runs that can be scheduled, fragmentation continues to build and cripple response time.

Today's executives don't remember back to the days of human file clerks, but they certainly know that computer response time should be as close to instant as possible. Right they are, and some sites are experiencing fragmentation's effects simply because of choosing an outdated defrag technology.

The only way to adequately deal with today's fragmentation issues is with a fully automatic defrag solution, one that operates invisibly, in the background. Fragmentation is always addressed and is never a problem. Only otherwise-idle resources are used, so there is never a negative performance effect on users, and best of all scheduling is never required.

Yes, response time still matters and always will. Make sure to choose a defrag technology that will keep it maximized.