Windows 7 forum: Today's new PCs, to defrag the hard drive or not?

Hello Jackson,
Here is the thing, Windows Vista and Windows 7 have what is know as Pre-Fetch. This is basically a list of all the applications you use more often. Windows creates and updates this list often, depending on what you do with your computer. You can find the folder under Windows/Prefetch.
Because of this, it sets your most used applications to be access faster. It's true that both have a built in Defragmenter, and it's set to run at 1 am. The reason why it was mentioned that if you used a third party, you will still see fragmented files, its because of the way Windows positions the applications on the Prefetch to be access faster, Hence other defragmenters see this as fragmented files.
I would not tell you not to use the built in once in a while or a third party, but i can tell you from experience that when you run them, you are un-doing the possition of applications based on the Prefetch.
There are also other files that no matter what Windows locks, and therefore even third party applications would see and tell you that these files are un-movable.
The only way to move this lock files is if, third party defrags finished by doing a re-boot and defraging the final files at that point - when they are not locked.
Then after 3 days or so, Windows will relocate the Prefetch applications again.
So here is my advice to you - If you install or un-install a lot of applications / or if you install and play heavy duty games - yes you should run a defrag - either the built in or a third party.
If you use your computer for emails, internet, creating documents - or you are not a heavy gamer - i would suggest you set the built in to run only once a month at a time where you know you won't use the computer for about 1/2 an hour to give the defrag utility time to finished.
Remember, the built in defrag utility in Vista or 7 will stopped if the computer / Laptop notices useage during the time the defrag is running.
I install and un-install applications for testing on another Laptop, that one yes i run the built in once a week, but my main and Personal Laptop, i only run it once a month.
You will noticed a slight slow down, with the build in or third party for about 3 day - until Windows re-builds the Prefetch and repositions the applications more often used
Hope that helps and take care.
Geo

I decided to check on my tasl schedular and discoverved that it was off and could not get it turned back on.When I tried to go straight to defrarg I got an error message.I tried using task manager/services and every time I tried to start task schedular I got an erroe code I belive it was #1680 or 1860,I have no idea what it means.Any ideas?My computer is not quite a year old can I expect support from micro soft?

How do I know if a start up program is slowing me down.I have done searches for incompatible programs,(those that stop other apps.)but how do I know if something is slowing down my computer?Also how do I know what not to shut off?I already know if you turn off the wrong thing your lucky if it the computer will re-boot.I use home windows 7 on an ASUS CG1330 with an AMD T1045.I use this for video editing and do not play games.

If you have an hard drive, you need to regularly defragment it to maintain it's performance. Even if you use a file system designed to reduce fragmentation, you'll always end up with fragmented files after some time.
With any hard drive, fragmentation means longer, and more frequent, seek delays.
That said, Windows' defragmenter is not effecient. You are much beter using some third party defragmenters, several of whitch are free, like the very good Defraggler from Pyriform. Most third party defragmenters can work with drives having much less than the 15% free space minimum needed by the default Microsift speed disk.
You should defragment at least once a month (for a drive olding large, mostly unchanging, files like videos and music), and once a week is not excessive (drive olding the temp and "Temporary Internet Files" folders).

If you have an SSD drive, there are NO moving parts. This means that there is never any seek time. In this case, you must NOT defragment! Also, defragmenting an SSD will adversly affect it's life span.
NEVER EVER defragment an SSD (Solid State Drive), ever!

Now, a few advices on performance and fragmentation reduction:

Have more than one hard drive. Relocate the page file on a, or some, drive(s) that DON'T hold the operating system. To be done preferably before you put any thing else on the drive. If you have more than one extra drive, spread it across all of your hard drives. Give it a large initial size (about your amount of RAM x2.5 to x3 or x4) and use the same value as maximum size: Make it fixed size.
(even with 1 Tb, or more, drives, it's relatively normal to have at least 2 hard drives these days...)

Relocate My Documents, My Images, My Music and My videos to another drive.
Relocate Temporary internet files to another drive.
Those will place your user files away from Windows and, if you have an SSD used for the operating system and applications, limit the write operations to that drive. (SSDs don't like frequent writing and files updating...)
Added bonus: If you ever need to reinstall Windows, all your files are safe on another drive.

Windows, as well as most other defragmenting applications, have the ability to "analyze" and report whether there is any need to defragment the harddrive(s). Personally, I have NEVER seen a recommendation by Windows 7 to defragment any drive on any of 4 Windows 7 computers. Perhaps once a year - or even only after two years - Windows XP on 3 other machines will become fragmented enough that Windows deems it productive to defragment.

Don't ask in an online forum whether you should defragment your harddrive(s). You will only become more confused than before you asked the question. Open your favorite defrag application and run "analyze". If it says "defragmenting is unnecessary", then it would not be productive to waste time defragmenting. This is a yes or no, black and white answer and is not confusing.

That's my story and I'm stickin' to it!

I was surprised to see that hard disk defragmentation is scheduled weekly by default on Windows 7. And if you get an SSD, it will not be offered for defragmentation when you ask to defragment your disks manually.

You can reassure yourself to make sure that this is really scheduled in the defragmenter (under "Accessories" -> "System Tools"), but it comes that way by default, so it won't have changed unless you changed it. You may want to change the time and/or day that defragmentation takes place, and that's where to do it.

So yes, hard disks on Windows 7 still need to be defragmented, but you don't need to think about it. Except for SSD's, I'm not sure if you could force Windows 7 to defragment an SSD, but you shouldn't do that anyways, so don't *smile*.

Now, on OLD computers (and I'm talking the ones mainly before Windows 98) the hard drives got fragmented SUPER easily, which could crash your computer. Now, don't bother defragmenting. Windows 7 automatically does it, so you don't have to.
Long story short:
Windows does it automatically - there's no need to manually do it.

I have been running Windows 7 since about mid March with no problems, and indeed when I had an opportunity to ask one of those programs that will speed up your computer about defragging, it said that Windows 7 does it automatically. I don't remember the specifics, just that I couldn't find the defrag controls on my desktop Acer.

The main difference between these two OS's is that win 7 has the intelligence to identify both SSD type hard drives (those which are solid state) and normal HDD (spinning platters). The major difference is the SSD type does not need to be de-fragged, this is due to the fact that these solid state drives can access the data very quickly and there is nothing the gain in having the data close together (which is all defragging really is). In fact with SSD type hard drives de-fragging wears out the drive faster as the data is copied into new locations and these drives have a fixed life expediency based on the number of times a cell is written to.

With normal HDD (the cheaper platter type) win 7 will automatically de-frag on the run so to speak, so this part of housekeeping is not required with win 7 as it is done by the OS when you won't notice it.

The operating system has nothing to do with it. Every drive that writes and rewrites sequentially on a spinning platter will accumulate fragmentation that it's nice to clean up every once in a while.

Regular spinning hard drives occasionally require defragmentation and, if the data on the drive is highly fragmented, defragmentation can result in a noticeable performance improvement.

Unnecessarily frequent defragmenting a drive merely accelerates the date on which the drive will fail, because it does a LOT of reading and writing. It really isn't something that needs to be done very often -- maybe once monthly at the most, and that often only on drives that write and rewrite a lot of data. A drive has to be pretty heavily fragmented for defragmentation to help in a way you'll feel.

The defragmentation utility supplied with Windows is rather primitive. I use Raxco's PerfectDisk.

Solid state drives never, ever require defragmentation. Defragmenting them can actually damage them. Never defragment an SSD.

Yes, degragmentation is an essential utility recommended and applicable for all Windows operating systems hard drives including SSD, IDE, SATA, SCSI, just newly installed with OS and programs or well used. If you decide that your computer performance is important, try to purchase the best your money can buy. The Windows 7 degrag is not primitive, but it is basic in functionality and other specialied developers such as Diskeeper Corporation have been in this specific type of service for many years and have more to offer.

Hyperfast SSD defragmentation is available and has been developed to dramatically extend the life of the disk as well as enhance performance by providing state-of-the-technolgy access time improvement. I expect more companies will offer like optimization in the near future.

Defragmentation is not a single-purpose system utility because not only are there multiple processes and options that are part of the defrag process, defragmentation is also part of system performance optimization. What you need may depend on how you use your computers and how you organize your file system. Each type of use from multimedia, DAW, vector graphics, design engineer or database administrator have different requirements, but all need top performance.

Boot-time defragmentation, Master File Table and Page File adjustment, File relocation, redundant/duplicate file deletion, registry optimization, application boost and many more seperate features all are part of the defragmentation process, normally used by more experienced users.

As well, network systems optimization, server, confriguration and even game defragmentation software are all specialized and highly useful which means not all defragmentation processes are equal, much less the same.

As a former network manager and CIO I introduced the optimization and defrag concept to my company many years ago and because it was not well-understood by non-technical administrators I ended up doing system configuration, full optimization, defrag and back-up on my own time because I hated to see things overwhelm the network for no reason other than refusing to be a bit proactive in caring for the operating environment and this saved network users frustration and time.

Hope this is helpful.

I'm no tech, but have worked with PCs since 1983. While Windows 7 is far better than earlier versions in many ways, the issue is that Windows is notorious for breaking up files on the hard disk still. Defrag is still needed periodically, though less often than prior to XP. I use Norton 360's version, and Symantec still makes a better version of many utilities than those in Windows. Perhaps twice a year I actually need defrag or "optimization" (similar, but not necessarily identical) because I don't download a lot of extra programs. I research each program carefully BEFORE download, along with as many competitors as I can. Windows 7 does a better job than previous versions in the download, and Symantec's Norton refines it, so disk fragmentation is much less than before. Defrag takes less time than it used to, but still on occasion can take around an hour or so, depending on the size of your drive(s) and what you have on it (them). And Norton 360 will automatically cue you to do it when needed. Other anti-malware or utility packages often have similar utilities: I just prefer Norton since they slimmed down its program, reduced its resource hunger significantly, and regained their spot at the top of the antivirus/utility lists. No, I don't have any commercial or social connection to them. A number of folks (some old like me, some young) rely on me to be the "test dummy" for various programs, and though 360 costs about $80/yr., they find it easy to use, "read" and understand (in the commonly used apps), and very effective. So, yes, defrag is still useful, if needed less often than it used to be. Dell 435mt, i7-920, 12 Gb 1333 RAM, 500 Gb internal w/2 Tb external hard drive, Win7 Ultimate, Office H&SB 2010, Adobe CS5, Quicken 2010, etc.; networked with a Toshiba A665, i7-740, 8 Gb 1333 RAM, 500 Gb internal w/500 Gb external, same software. Norton 360 on both.

Tangential to your specific question, but the subject of SSDs has come up several times.

The physics of how SSDs work put a limit on how many times a given spot within the drive can be written. The generally-accepted number is around 100,000 writes. Write at that spot too many times and it'll fail. But, that turns out to not be a big issue, for two reasons.

First, the drives have routines built into them that spread out the writes to physically different locations. So, even if the OS tells it to write the same spot over and over, the disk invisibly maps that write somewhere else. That means that SSDs *cannot be* "defragmented". (This same mechanism can also deal with some failed sectors, by never mapping to them again.)

Second, SSDs have gotten so large that it is nearly impossible to write data to them fast enough to wear out any given spot within the disk. There is simply not enough bandwidth between the disk controller and the disk to overwhelm the routines and get one spot written to enough times. With the automatic remapping, even if you wrote a program to write to the disk at full speed 24 hours a day it would take years before any given location within the drive had received enough writes to fail. Albeit, as the disk fills, this becomes more of an issue.

That's not saying that they cannot fail. Like all electronics, it is possible for parts to fail for other reasons.

The take-away on all this is:

- SSDs do not need to be defragmented. The very nature of how they operate means that defragmenting is not only unnecessary, but actually impossible for the OS to achieve.

- Even though it is unlikely to happen, it is not wise to run a defrag program on them and risk wearing out a particular location.

(Based on an article at Dan's Data)

As for your original question. For the average user, defragging rarely produces a noticeable gain in performance. It is only in pathological cases, usually when the drive is nearly (90+%) full where that will show up. For most people, defragging every month or two is probably a reasonable tradeoff in the extra work the drive will do during the actual defragging vs the extra work it will do while dealing with fragmented files.

Drake Christensen

Brief, to the point, no frills (aka bloat). Good job. One addition: You can adjust the schedule to suit your habits or do it manually.

An operating system's File System determines whether or not files become fragmented. Microsoft's NT(New Technology) File System changed from version 3.0 in Windows 2000 to 3.1 in XP/Vista/7. (Though you'll see it referred to as NTFS 5.1 or 6.1.) So Windows NTFS has remained the same. The fragmentation that occurs with NTFS appears to be something Microsoft can't change.
Windows users shouldn't feel that bad though, because files in a Mac OS can become fragmented as well.
If you want an Operating System which has a File System that does not have fragmentation, try Linux using the ext2 file system.