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Windows XP: Defrag
Defrag
by carlmarx - 5/28/05 8:03 AM In reply to: Defrag by Recycle_BinI use System Mechanic and I like too much. But the Winternals have a good product too.
carlmarx
Defrag
by Braindude - 5/28/05 6:55 PM In reply to: Defrag by Recycle_BinUse O&O defrag
O&O Defrag
by MUSTANGPC - 5/28/05 11:32 PM In reply to: Defrag by BraindudeYes, I have been using O&O Defrag for quite sometime now. O&O which has new version 8 is very efficient.
http://www.oo-software.com/en/products/oodefrag/pro.html
Why bother?
by colinrodman - 5/28/05 10:49 PM In reply to: Defrag by Recycle_BinI'm much too young to have ever worried about files needing to be contiguous. I cut my teeth on 3.1, if that give you any insight. To date, the only time I've every defragmenter is when someone asks me to do it on their machine or .
Depending on the machine, some of my computers rarely power down. My web surfer hardly ever powers down, given the number of people who use it and their "need" to leave a copy of every IM program running at all times. Sure, I've had speed compromised at times. When that happens, I shut it down for a bit, start it up and sweep for spyware and viruses. For three years now it's worked just fine.
Conversely, I've noticed a couple of friends who defragment their HD quite often suffer from OS degradation more frequently. We're not doing vastly different things with our computers, using the same software and installing/uninstalling at about the same rate. I've seen someone need to reinstall XP once every couple of months, with no one being able to figure out why. No matter what they try, it just seems to eat its own system files. While this is not scientific proof, it is a rather odd coincidence, so take from it what you will.
Before anyone else tries to rebut with it, I know I'm asking for trouble using MS products. I work on the stupid things all day, so why not just keep with what you know when using your own.
Defrag.
by meongroup - 5/29/05 1:31 PM In reply to: Defrag by Recycle_BinDoes anybody believe the Windows defrag is even usable?
Try a free download of Diskeeper from Executive Software. It runs in the background, and you can forget the entire subject once it is installed and running. Worth every bit of the full program cost, AND my local box supplier was less expensive than the download!
Defrag seems program dependent
by racintazz - 5/29/05 8:48 PM In reply to: Defrag by Recycle_BinI certainly DO defrag my computer, and I have seen real world results bordering on extreme. This seems mostly due to games being installed on the second half of my 250GB HD. I have played some newer games, like Medieval Total War, and watch the game run slower and slower. I check defrag level, and find it around 26%-30% because of the game !! I defrag, AND optomize using Norton system works pro 2004, and watch the game run great guns.
defrag may have little effect on MS programs, but, at least with numerous games i run, it has a definite positive and very necessary effect. i simply cant avoid the need to use it on avg once every 7-10 days.
Defrag and Gamers
by Galt - 5/30/05 12:15 AM In reply to: Defrag seems program dependent by racintazzMost assuredly, a different world, compared to the typical user, or otherwise. They probably know more about hardware, as much as they do the games, and realized what most have said here....defrag, based on you own requirements.
Galt
Articles
by Recycle_Bin - 5/29/05 9:32 PM In reply to: Defrag by Recycle_BinThanks for all the suggestions and comments.
Here are some articles I found that I thought might be of interest to you guys.
http://www.theeldergeek.com/defragmenting_a_page_file.htm
http://www.hookbuilt.com/zine/Articles/defrag.html
http://itresearch.forbes.com/detail/RES/1103631551_156.html
Well taken points.
by Galt - 5/30/05 12:28 AM In reply to: Articles by Recycle_BinSince I do a good many Network accounts, the last article you alluded to, got missed in the discussion, and for those involved in backing up their systems, or networks, de-fragmenting, and with the proper tools is more than psychosomatic, since backups are critical in those situations.
Galt
Defragging a page file - free program!!!!!!
by AussiePete - 5/30/05 1:13 AM In reply to: Articles by Recycle_BinPersonally I dont use it as I have another method of doing it - I have FAT32 and boot to another hard disk and use Norton speed disk to defrag and place the pagefile at the beginning of the disk (eat your hearts out NTFS defraggers!!!) - but for all you NTFS people here is a free program from sysinternals.com (have a look at their other programs they are good!)
http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/pagedefrag.shtml
Peter
Not many numbers
by jakharve - 5/30/05 2:20 AM In reply to: Articles by Recycle_BinThanks for the references. If I'm not mistaken, only the last one includes actual improvement claims, and the improvement is only for doing backups.
Backing up a file is a special case. You are reading the entire file from beginning to end in sequential mode. Few modern programs need to do that. Instead, they read only the part of the file that's of interest to the user. Also, backups are generally done when there is no other disk activity, so there can be a real benefit from reduced head motion. (Multi-tasking requires the head to move much even over a fully defragmented disk.)
The author of the white paper, Executive Software, of course has a strong interest in showing improved performance since they sell one of the leading products. The target device must be much faster than the device being backed up in order to get numbers like they show. ES used two high performance target devices on a remote node on a high speed (1 gigabit) network. The computer where the backup was running was essentially throwing the data out the back door. These tests are where the real improvement was found. When backing up to a tape drive on the local machine, defragmenting reduced backup time only 6.4% for one program but ES said that was probably ''an adverse driver interaction''.
Imagine backing up to another partition on the same drive, as many people do. (One head - two logical drives.) How do you think fragmentation would affect that? (Executive software didn't test that case.)
Don't bother ... unless ...
by GoodTimeCharlie - 6/1/05 12:12 PM In reply to: Defrag by Recycle_BinThere is not too much to be gained by defragging unless ...
a) You delete .tmp and other trash files
b) You delete cookies and other internet files (off line pages, history, etc)
c) You clean out mail stored on your local PCs hard drive
d) You clean out old music/video files you have burned to CDs or don't want any more
e) You clean out your windows-xp 'prefetch' directory
f) You clean out adware/spyware and other trash programs
g) You clean out anti-virus, firewall, install logs
h) etc ...
In other words unless you clean-up after yourself (and some of your tools) defragging does almost nothing.
Upon a good clean-up, defragging can ''squash'' the disk so to speak thus freeing up larger ''hunks'' for future use and also symplify the disk/directory structure, but even that is very dependent of your disk directory structure (ie: FAT32 -vs- NTFS, size of 'segments', etc) and the types of files you have (ie: little files like e-mails waste more space than big files like videos).
Fragmented files probably take more resources to store in that the disk directory must keep track of all the little pieces (ie: In the old mainframe world each peice of a file had appended to it the physical disk address and size of the next logical piece of the file). Assuming that PC disk file directories are not structured quite the same as mainframes were, fragmentation may not have the same impact but ...
Common sense still says keeping track of lot of little pieces (individual M & M's) is harder than keeping track of several big pieces (bags of M & M's).
I do basic system checks (adware, spyware, temp/work files, etc) daily or weekly with/without a defrag based upon how much I clean out. I also do a pretty complete overall system clean-up maybe monthly always followed by a defrag.
I also have my 'swap' file set to a fixed size and on its own partition.
Good luck,
Goodtime Charlie, VA
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