Do You Defrag?

I hardly ever worry about defragging either my computer or my clients’ computers with no adverse effects. If things are really fragmented and the drive is almost out of space it could help, but usually it’s not really worth the effort.

Hi Tim,

You can probably guess where we stand on this issue

A defragmented disk will perform better than a fragmented disk. This is clearly evident in the case of frequently accessed and badly fragmented files, disks that see heavy file I/O activity, and disks with multiple active users. Such scenarios are common in the enterprise segment, and defragmentation is an effective and economical solution for extracting optimum performance from the disk storage subsystem. For e.g., defragmentation with directory consolidation speeds up anti-virus scans, file transfers, backups etc. Microsoft itself, recommends regular defragmentation as one of the steps to ensure optimum performance from Windows.

To clear up potential misconceptions: defrag is not a magic bullet for all Windows woes- it cannot disinfect compromised systems, it cannot fix bad drivers and it cannot neutralize badly written, resource unfriendly programs. However, when it comes to disk performance, defragmentation definitely matters.

Best regards
————————————
Representative
Diskeeper Corporation
————————————–

I agree with Bill.
In my experience it’s not worth the hassle. Usually clearing the temporary files and tuning up the registry provide better results in less time.
I only do a defrag on drives that are nearly full and where the user does a lot of reading and writing to it.

I tried Diskeeper and noticed an improvement in my computer. My computer is getting on the old side (2 years) and was the bottom of the line for Lenovo when I bought it. Perhaps some of the newer ones with better processors and more memory don’t show the effects of not defragmenting.

I regularly defrag my drives when analysing shows it to be necessary using XP’s built in defrag utility, I notice an improvement, perhaps because I often move data between drives and install and uninstall programs. I’ve never trusted 3rd party defrag programs which have lots of pretty graphics. I will usually do a spyware scan and use Ccleaner before defragging too.

I do defrag – not too regularly though – only when/if I have done a massive clean up, deleted lots of files etc… I find it does help with performance and use the defrag that comes with my PC -

I try to defrag all my drives (3 systems & 2 laptops) twice a month. I’ve been doing this for over 15 years, and have never suffered a disk failure. I’ve always used 3rd party defraggers, as I find the Windows defrag next to useless (takes way too long & multiple passes). Years ago my preferred defragger was Norton Utilities “Speedisk.” I switched a few years ago to JkDefrag and really like it, except it can’t touch the Meta files (i.e. MFT), system page file or hibernation file. Except for Norton’s Speedisk years ago, I don’t believe in paying for a defragger, until recently. I just tried Vopt last month and really like this defragger (& will probably purchase it). It’s not only fast, but takes care of the Meta files, page file, etc., and offers several other features. A couple other free defraggers I’ve tried include Auslogics & Iobit’s ‘Smart Defrag.’ They’re both fairly fast, but in my opinion they do a very incomplete job of defragging the drives.

Good day,

This is the first with computer About. With regards of all wait the last day of the month and do it. It is not difficult and If nothing is helping anywhere always has an answer. But do not do it every 2 seconds. Some one per month good.

I firmly believe in defragging. In my experience the smoother a hard drive runs the better, and making it run smoother makes it last much longer. If you don’t need to defrag, you either don’t do much with your system but read emails, or you just don’t realize that you should…

The XP defrag really isn’t worth mentioning. Most commercial products, especially those touting fast defragging speeds, don’t really do the job all that much better, but they sure sound good. Wasted money.

I found JKDefrag a few months ago – freeware – and this program really does it right. I used XP’s Task Schedular to have it run early each morning, and since I’ve started using it regularly I could swear I’d unknowingly purchased a drive with a higher rpm.

My Seagate drive system includes two USB 500G drives, and the box has a 400G drive partitioned into C:\ at 50G and P:\ at 350G. (Yeah, I know it’s actually less)

This program defrags anything it can defrag. After the first major defrag I did, it now takes hardly any time at all to defrag this 1.4T of drives I run. You can find it at kessels.com/Jkdefrag/

I also backup EVERYTHING redundantly with Partition Manager 9.

With today’s massive and inexpensive drives there’s no need to fill them up , which is the only time I would defrag a drive. Haven’t defragged a mac in over 5 years.

O&O 11 prof

constantly automatig defragm.

I defrag once a month using Raxco PerfectDisk. It will handle the parts of the drive partition that XP’s resident program won’t touch. I’ve experienced good results, as Raxco claims, “Everything Faster”. That’s another humorous thought…remember when you thought a 386 at 33Mhz and 64MB RAM was blazing speed!…and a 200MB HDD was huge?

Actually, everyone is right.

It really just depends on your usage of your PC.

If you do not perform a bunch of saving and deleting of files (use mostly for browsing and email) you probably will not need to defrag your hard drive.

However, if you are doing a bunch of I/O that consists of both large and small file sizes, you will want to defrag your hard drive, or buy more of them.

Part of the issue is that not only do the larger files get fragmented therefore taking longer to read and write to the disk, it may also start affecting your virtual memory or paging space. This is important because it is used for temporary system level operations that need to be fast but not enough to need physical memory.

Quick mall analogy (sorry) – Parking lot at the mall. Lots of parking spaces when the mall is not busy means that you can find a parking spot up front quickly and can get in and out faster. As the lot fill sup, not only does it take longer and longer to find a spot, chances are the open spots will be farther from the door. If you have a little car, you can probably whip in to a cramped spot, but if you have a large vehicle, it may take even longer to find a spot suitable for your needs. However, if the mall never gets very busy, there will always be plenty of spots available.

A Macintosh is not noticeable because it is much more efficient with system resources and disk usage from the start and ongoing.

Like John (#12) I use Raxco’s Perfectdisk regularly. Anyone who doesn’t is an idiot!

Excellent analogy Brett!

As the defrag utility has been included with microsoft products for some time, why not use it? Start it, go mow the lawn or something, no need to watch it run. Sometimes it seems to help, other times nothing is noticeable

I defrag regularly, it helps to keep 2.5TB of drives in my photoediting tower running nicely. I use Diskeeper’s 2008 ProPremier edition, and all I did was install it after which it has been doing it’s thing in the background without bothering me…so very easy to use. Now folders with hundreds/thousands of RAW image files open up super quickly. Highly recommended!

This is more of a quetion than a comment.
Question: When defragging do you defrag
both (C)drive and (D) or only (C)?
The reason I ask is cause when I bought my
HP Windows XP puter back in 2002 I didnt know
anything at all about puters and there was one thing that my neice told me that has alwsys stuck in my head, she told me to never, ever defrag the (D)drive only to do the (C)drive because defragging the D drive will mess up the computer very badly.

Is this true??
Please get back to me as soon as possible
thanks very much.

Hi, Denise ! Saw your query and would like to share my experience. My PC is running on Windows Vista Home Premium. Since June 2007, I have been defragging both my C & D drives with Iobit’s Smart Defrag without problems. Hope this info helps.