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at what % do I defrag?
I did analyze on my defrag and it said I have 1% defragmentation...at what percent should I defrag?
I did analyze on my defrag and it said I have 1% defragmentation...at what percent should I defrag?
Myth: Frequent Defrag Will Wear Out Your Hard DriveMyth No. 4: You can wear out your hard drive if you defragment too often.
Not true. The truth is, your drive is going to work much harder if you never defrag at all! It is a common misconception that defragmentation is stressful to disk drives. In reality, fragmentation results in many more disk accesses.
Here is an example: If you have a file that is fragmented into 50 pieces, and you access it twice a day for a week, that's a total of 700 disk accesses (50 x 2 x 7). Defragmenting the file may cost 100 disk accesses (50 reads + 50 writes), but thereafter only one disk access will be required to use the file. That's 14 disk accesses over the course of a week (2 x 7), plus 100 for the defragmentation process = 114 total. 700 accesses for the fragmented computer versus 114 for the defragmented computer - the benefits are obvious.
Defrag is done once a week by default on windows seven. You can stop that from happening if you want.
In reality, hard drives are designed to take much more thrashing than most homes/small business users give them.
And it takes a fair bit of fragmentation to cause any noticeable performance issues.
Think how many small office users never defrag, and life goes on.
BUT, as the HD gets fuller fragmentation can take more of a toll and becomes slower to sort out. So, 10% isn't dire, but you probably won't want to leave it much longer and that doesn't mean that 1% is too little either, if you want to do this manually and have a spare moment - it can't hurt.
There isn't any solid rule that makes any real difference.
Just make sure it gets done from time to time.
Yeah the entire defrag thing is so... nebulous.
For the last several years of ext2 use on Linux, Linux and windows have shared a fragmentation potential that has been pretty much equal. The file systems work in a very comparable way. Both "resist" fragmentation but both do suffer from it.
In the Linux universe, almost everyone witll tell you that "Linux doesnlt fragment or need to be defragged" and they never do (users that is) And in the same breath say post that Windows horrible fragmentation woes are like a top ten detraction for the OS.
It's complete malarky. Ext2 and NTFS both fragment for the same reason and at the same rate and in most user cases never need to actually be defragged, especially with the rediculously large drives that people buy today and will NEVER fill up.
Servers with huge file drop locations ARE prone to severe fragmentation on Linux and Windows and need to take special precautions. But regular users...
So anyway, defrag, don't defrag, doesn;t hurt, probably rarely does anything noticable. Windows does not suck because it fragments and Linux is not superior because it does not
In the end.. do whatever, let W7 defrag on it's schedule and never worry about it again...
I noticed that the two scheduled defrag's since I got this computer were at 0 because the computer was off during that time so I think I'll take the advice of the 10% rule or do defrag, and if it says no need then I'll take its word for it...say once a month. I dont have enormous files or usage so that should do.