Is file-optimization and real-time scanning necessary in Windows 7?

Hi, I'm new the forums...

I've been doing a lot of research on this and I know this topic has been covered a million times, so please bear with me.

I'm specifically wondering about the "file-optimization" features in third party defraggers such as Diskeeper or Iobit Smart Defrag (which I use). I know that Microsoft has refined their own defragger, but it seems to me that it has no obvious file optimization and it of course does not have real-time defragging.

I've been using Iobit Smart Defrag for a long time and it seems to do a good job of keeping my computer in shape. But, if the Windows 7 defrag works good enough, I'd prefer to just use that and get rid of Smart Defrag to free up CPU and RAM. I'd obviously lose out on the real-time scanning, file optimization, and the boot time scan that Iobit just added to their latest release. But, are these features really necessary for fast, clean performance of Windows 7? Or are these just gimics from third party companies to get me to purchase their software?

Thanks in advance.

piratesmvp04 said:

... Or are these just gimics from third party companies to get me to purchase their software?...

more or less yes. :)

they may make a small bit of difference - but we're talking milliseconds here.

oh, and welcome to sevenforums, piratesmvp04!

severedsolo said:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Windows defrag in the background anyway? My PC is rarely on at the scheduled time (3am on a Wednesday if memory serves) and my drives are never seriously fragmented.

Yeah, Windows has auto defrag schedule in the background anyway and many users are not aware of this. You can set its time anyway but many if not most users are not aware of this running in the background. To me, its better if the user can choose which time he wants to defrag, I say AFTER doing a thorough cleanup on junk files with CCleaner is the best time to do a defrag because there would be less files to defrag at that point making it finish quicker.

Windows's own defragger is also rather slow. Its good if you use some free third party defraggers like Defraggler. I experienced no harm in doing this and third party defraggers allow you to choose when to defrag and they seem to finish quicker.

However, I read somewhere that you should NEVER defrag solid state drives (SSDs).

logicearth said:

You want realtime defragmentation? Do you also want to reduce the actual performance of your computer? Understand I/O is one of the most expensive operations a computer does. Adding realtime defragmentation makes I/O the much more expensive when communicating with the Hard Drive. Is that a trade off you are wanting?

Now in my opinion. These things are nothing but gimmicks. There is no need to constantly clean up junk files or defragment every single waking day of the computer's life. It is hardly that much of an issue. The Return of Investment you spend on doing all of this stuff is nil, you give more in Investment then you get returned. Not worth it.

That's an opinion, mate. However in my opinion, it is necessary to defrag the hard drive periodically lets say after a few weeks or once a month after a thorough disk cleanup. In my experience it has also improved performance and this improvement on performance is much more noticeable on computers with lesser resources like like those with just 1-2GBs RAM or less.

I dislike realtime defragmentation cause it stresses the disk. However, it is nessessary to do a manual defrag after some time. Microsost still advices periodic defragmentation of the hard disks that's why they had a defrag utility built into Windows...Third party defrag software seem to do it quicker. 3 years I've been using my computer, I defrag it manually using a third party software and its still alive.

However, Defragmentation should NOT be done on SSDs from a source I read.

none of the above is necessarily true, merely my opinion at one point in time...

now, where have i heard that before?

logicearth said:

Umm...I believe I clearly indicated "Now in my opinion." So is it really necessary to tell me I told an opinion and arguing my opinion as it is just that an opinion just as yours is?

Now if you are saying my statement of realtime defragmentation is an opinion then you would be wrong to think that. As for the speed of Macrosoft's defragmentation, it doesn't need to be fast. It was designed not to be watched it was designed to run in the background and take little resources as possible. It does not need to be fast for the way it was designed to be used.

I am deeply sorry if I had rather been not specific but this is the part of your statement that I contradict. My explanation as to why is on my statement above.

logicearth said:

These things are nothing but gimmicks. There is no need to constantly clean up junk files or defragment every single waking day of the computer's life. It is hardly that much of an issue. The Return of Investment you spend on doing all of this stuff is nil, you give more in Investment then you get returned. Not worth it.