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I don't think this is quite right. The reads were not sequential - the whole point was that the tool was coalescing and reordering files for optimal layout and access times. Plus, you usually had some gaps in the drive layout - a mix of used and empty sectors / blocks.

There are some YouTube videos showing the real thing.

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Indeed. This 3-hour long "ASMR" version including hard drive sounds is one of the better ones [1]. It seems oddly satisfying to watch a couple of single sectors getting written into the holes and reshuffled, after which an enormous block of sectors gets dark blue at once. All while listening to the hard drive sounds that are in symphony with the graphics.

When defragging my own computer in the past, I could look at this for an embarrassingly long time, but I've also just watched this YouTube video up to timestamp 00:08:50.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFbkujZ0OuI

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