Disk Defragmenter stuck at 1%

dbtmellis said:

I use the Defragmenter that is included with Windows

XP's defragmenter was a joke so I used Defraggler. However, I nothing but problems when I tried to use it in Win 7; it was ridiculously slow and frequently crashed the computer. I started using Ein 7's native defragger and it works great. It's fast, can be set to run automatically at a specified time daily, weekly, or monthly and I have had no problems with it. I have mine set to run in the wee hours every Wednesday when I'm normally unconscious. My data HDDs stay at 0% and, very rarely, may get up to a whopping 1% I see no reason to use any other defragger.

dbtmellis said:

so...consensus says that 1% is nothing to worry about?

Correct. My boot drive is an SSD and it stays at 11% with no ill effects (SSDs should never be defragged to avoid wearing them out prematurely; the nature of them doesn't require defragging anyway). The only nonmovable files I'm aware of are files that are in use, such as system files. The only system files I have on my data drives are my data folders (I didn't move the entire User folders) and, since Win 7's defragger is set to run when I'm highly unlikely to be using them, it's no problem to get 0% defragmentation. The rare times I've seen it at 1%, I can't tell there is any problems.

Just for excrement and merriment, I just now checked my drives and the boot drive was at 11% and the HDDs were at 0%

dbtmellis said:

I run the defragmenter once a week. Should I run it less often?

It depends on your usage. I run mine once a week but my computer runs 24/7 and gets fairly heavy usage. You can try running it once a month to see what your fragmentations levels get up to. If they go over 5-10%, you can always go back to one a week.

Frankly, I feel that people worry too much about fragmentation. All that is really needed is to set the native Win 7 to run on a schedule (assuming the computer will be always be on at a certain time) and forget it about it. One of the reasons for having a computer is to reduce our work load but that won't happen if we don't let out computers do what they can do on their own.

Well put mt12345.

I do the same with my notebook but my desktop rig runs 24/7.