Windows XP forum: Defrag

i just used windows xp defrag. took 19 minutes to
defrag 40 gig.

I use the XPpro built-in defrag and I perform this task when it tells me to. Piece of cake

Both Microsoft's and Diskeeper for XP are, in my opinion, lousy. Why?

1. They don't defrag free space (Exec Soft says this doesn't matter much; oh, really? It CAUSES file fragmentation!)
2. They run slow as molasses, and don't defrag the swapfile. I always used to use a permanent swapfile under 98 and ME, because it just plain ran faster - no need to track the fragments or endure allocation overhead.
3. So did Windows 98's defrag (run slow). But ME's defrag was rewritten, and whoppingly faster. Try it - you can download it from Microsoft. It works fine with all 98's and with all 95's, including C.
4. I've never had a fresh XP configuration with FAT32 that I wanted to check the ME defragger on, but I suspect it would give a "wrong operating system version" error message or some such; but it sure would be faster than that Diskeeper clone pig.

NTFS may have some value, but if its small clusters are the reason for the slow defrag, it's not worth it. I have XP running both FAT32 and NTFS and they both run fine, but FAT32 defrags faster. The downside of FAT32 is greater overhang and wasted space because cluster size is greater.

It seems to me that they could do a LOT better with buffer management, process halting, etc. to speed this maintenance. I just ran defrag at the command line on my 160 GB C: and it took about 5 minutes. This machine has about 247,000 files on it and 59 GB used, with 73 MB of index space, so command line is faster for sure, but I defrag regularly, and doing so keeps the wall time way down.

As a living (still breathing) bad example, exercise more common sense than I have and do not do this at home or worse at work.

With the advent of XP, I abandoned Norton's Speed Disk it no longer does a better job (even by its own analysis.) My system is configured for my purposes which involve a lot of testing and some disk intensive graphic work. The OS resides on C: with a pagefile on a separate FAT partition (both on the physical internal hard disk.) Everything else is on 2 external hard drives a 60GB for most personal data and website files, and a 250GB for most other programs, testing and space to render graphics with a partition reserved for backup image files prior to burning them to DVD.

Each external drive is partitioned into 4 logical partitions. So to do the math, that is 10 partitions with loads of room to spare. But with my insane usage, a few of these partitions get a lot of shuffling with installing and uninstalling programs and generating thousands of files - most temporary that eventually find their way into the trash leaving scattered chunks. Generally, one, if not more, drives needs defragging nearly every day. It works for me to let the big guy defrag as I'm reading email and posting (like now.) The backup image files being 650MBs never fully defrag; but the stray dozen or so fragmented files don't seem to affect burning. None of my activities is writing there and it doesn't slow the process noticeably. Tomorrow, C: gets a weekly defrag at 1AM so its weekly backup image is neat and tidy. The little guy can go a month between defrags and 2 of its 4 partitons never need it, but I let it groom them anyway -- in case, I forgot and parked something there during the month.

Remember do not do this! Unless your as weird as me ... in which case you have my deepest sympathy.

To all those out there who think defragging a disk is a waste of time you are fooling your self. There are more reasons to support the task of defragging a disk like increased speed (marginal maybe on some disks ) but what about reducing wear and tear on disk read/write heads , reducing the amount of heat in a hard disk produced by over working the disk because its ripping back and forth over the disk surface trying to find data spread all over the surface. Like good records management it makes more sense to me to have some order on the disk. Disks without degragging software are just dumb storage devices. I especially like to use either Vopt from Golden Bow or Executive Software Diskeeper. Yes it takes a while to do a disk the first time but usually involves only once a week thereafter for 10 minutes or so. I have more than anecdotal evidence that disks where defragging has been done regularly last up to 10 times longer than those that do not. I had this argument a few years back with a engineer educated CEO. As the IT Manager I insisted on drives being degragged. He refused to do his laptop till it dies one month after the 12 month warranty and his hip pocket got hurt. Now he is a devotee .. strange how attitudes can shift quickly when money is involved !!

First, I did not read anywhere on rammet's post that the heads actually touch the disks. I agree that this would be considered a bad thing. I think the point is, the armature works harder by moving back and forth to collect data that is fragmented as opposed to a continuous read. There is no such thing as a continuous read. There are many factors to this. Most of the time, the typical user would not see any performance difference either way. You will see a difference when you start reaching the performance capacity of your system and the disk(s) are heavily fragmented. i.e. video editing or high end, data heavy gaming.

Normal email and word processing, you will never know the difference. Preventative maintenance is key here. Less work, less movement, less problems.

And secondly, why would you leave your hard drive spin continuously when the computer is left idle? Again, parts wear out. If you turn on your computer, use it, and and turn it off, there is no need to adjust the power settings. Some users leave the box on for days, weeks, or months at a time. These users should look at the hard drive on time while at idle. There is no reason to let a disk spin for days at a time when the computer is not working.

Hey jakharve, if you know so much about the topic, why did you let your hard drive get ''nearly fill'' with spyware? Just a thought.

jakharve says : Here we have the real reason why people defrag disks. Neatness. Human minds are boggled by the idea of a file scattered about the surface. But a computer could care less.

Ya right, I oiled my bike chain a couple times a year ( my bike could careless if I did that or not ) ....but it sure ran a good deal smoother.
I put ck the air in my tires on the vehicle now and then too, (car could care less if I did or not) ...but when you get right down to it, it sure does help things run just a little bit smoother in the end.

thats ''my two cents'' ...oh ya, ....right back at ya

One instance doesn't prove anything. I used to defrag all the time but now I rarely do. Both my hard drive failures occured back when I defragged all the time. Defragging may actually shorten Hard drive life. The hard drive does a tremendous amount of work while defragging.

Use O&O defrag

I'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.

Great software, but I just don't like to defrag with the system up and running. I use Disk Perfect, and let it defrag on boot, and there are good reasons for it. But I can see you point also.

Galt

Most 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

Since 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

Thanks 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.)