DeFraggler vs Win7 defrag?

[Maxxwire]

About the new defrag in Vista (enhanced in 7):
Features of the Windows Vista hard disk defragmentation utility

When I first got Vista I found out that the defrag had no GUI to show placement of files and was not programmable in that it would automatically defrag every drive on the computer. Since I have several drives on my computer with over 5 TB of storage this built in defrag would spend endless hours defragging. Is the defrag in Win 7 any different?

I really like Defraggler because it lets the user choose among which files on which drive to defrag. Defrag algorithms may differ somewhat from one program to anther, but for someone who has several TB of storage the ability to choose precisely which files and when to defrag them is extremely important.

~Maxx~
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[Garlic]

When I first got Vista I found out that the defrag had no GUI to show placement of files and was not programmable in that it would automatically defrag every drive on the computer. Since I have several drives on my computer with over 5 TB of storage this built in defrag would spend endless hours defragging. Is the defrag in Win 7 any different?

Yes, Windows 7 built-in defrag is very different. One can select which drives to defrag during automatic defrag and see the progress of defrag operation. Win 7 defrag is significantly faster than Vista's defrag as well - I ran Win 7 defrag on many different drives and it never took more than 40 minutes to finish.

But I certainly agree with you that, with large storage, having an ability to analyse fragmentation of individual files and to defrag them selectively is very important.

 

[Maxxwire]

Garlic- Welcome to the Windows 7 Forums and thanks for the detailed information about Win 7's built in defragger. Like I said Vista's defragger really scared me off and by the time I got my Win 7 computer I had already tried most of the leading 3rd party defraggers and had been using MyDefrag x64 (Formerly JK Defrag) which is completely customizable for quite some time. The software defrags the 23 GB of information on my C Drive in about 45 seconds where it has placed all of my most frequently used programs at the outside of the disc where the drive reads and writes the very fastest and the least amount of movement is required from the disk reader.

~Maxx~

 

[nailgunner]

For what it's worth, I got hooked on Defraggler on my XP. For whatever reason on my Windows 7 machine, Defraggler is slower than the Windows defragger, so I only use Windows for the defrag. I still run Defraggler to analyze and get the pretty screen with all the colors on it, and to check the files after Windows defrag.

 

[Garlic]

Thank you Maxx.

 

[Maxxwire]

I still run Defraggler to analyze and get the pretty screen with all the colors on it, and to check the files after Windows defrag.

I agree Defraggler has an excellent multi-color GUI that depicts exactly what the status of the files on the HDD are and their precise placement on the disk as do many other freeware defraggers which makes one wonder what is preventing the Windows 7 defragger from also having such useful amenities.

~Maxx~
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[nailgunner]

I do have a question about the Windows defragger. Lately when I run it it is making a lot of passes, as high as 13. Does this have any bearing on anything? The HD was only 4% fragmented.

 

[Maxxwire]

nailgunner- As I said earlier I've only used the Windows built in Defrag once in Vista and then I moved on because it seemed to take forever to do its job. Below are screenshots of MyD Defragging the 23.5 GB on my Win 7 C Drive with 6% fragmentation...

The Defragmentation took a total of 34.16 seconds. Also note that the programs on the C Drive have previously been put in order according to when they were last accessed and are graphically represented in the green section on the fastest outside part of the disk with black representing the free space and the smaller red section being the 1 GB of System Volume Information and the larger red section representing the 8.4 GB Page File on the innermost part of the disk.

I can't make any comparison to the Windows 7 Defrag because I have never used it. The above documentation represents where several years of trying most every leading Defrag and Optimization software including O&O, Perfect Disk and a host of other shareware and freeware alike and finally going with the granularly programmable MyD, yes it will even allow you to run your own optimization scripts!

I know that some of the Members here say that the customization of file placement in Win 7 is something to be avoided, but I have never had a single problem result from organizing the software on my Win 7 OS partition the way I choose and as a result having my most frequently used programs start in about 1/2 the time that they used to is well worth the 1/2 hour or so that it took to safely reorganize them on the Disk using the MyD Script of my own choosing which now runs much more efficiently than the unorganized placement than they were in. As an example my 1 GB 64 bit Image Management Program which used to start in 6 seconds before MyD Optimization now starts in 3.47 seconds for a 42% faster start without any negative complications.

As is the standard recommendation with installing any new software have a good Restore Point, updated System Image and if possible a 3rd party Backup Image on hand and any problems that might possibly occur can easily and quickly be reversed leaving much to gain and absolutely nothing to loose by taking control of the placement of programs on your Win 7 OS partition should you want to.

~Maxx~
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[nailgunner]

Maxxwire...Thanks. Sounds interesting. Gives me an excuse to put the family photo-editing project aside, think I will try it and play around with it.

 

[sandman]

Run defrag from the command line
Open a command window and type defrag /? to show a list of commands.
Exampel:
defrag c: /analyze will show how much your disk is fragmented.

 

[nailgunner]

I need to find another hobby before I do something serious to my computer. I installed Auslogics and MyDefrag to see how I liked them. I already had Windows defrag and Defraggler.

I only analyzed with Auslogics, but I liked the way it was set up.

I then used MyDefrag. I ran one of their scripts to "sort by size", then a defragger script.

I then analyzed with the other defraggers. Microsoft showed it still 2% fragmented, Auslogics showed it 3%, and Defraggler shows it a friggin 46% fragmented.

Plus it increased my used HD space from about 26GB to 50.3GB.

Gonna get this reversed before MyDefrag doubles it up on me again, and probably stick with Auslogics and Windows. I need to start collecting stamps or something.

And yes, my computer was and is working great, so NO, I have no logical reason for trying to make something work better that is already working fine. So please don't ask.

 

[GeneO]

I need to find another hobby before I do something serious to my computer. I installed Auslogics and MyDefrag to see how I liked them. I already had Windows defrag and Defraggler.

I only analyzed with Auslogics, but I liked the way it was set up.

I then used MyDefrag. I ran one of their scripts to "sort by size", then a defragger script.

I then analyzed with the other defraggers. Microsoft showed it still 2% fragmented, Auslogics showed it 3%, and Defraggler shows it a friggin 46% fragmented.

Plus it increased my used HD space from about 26GB to 50.3GB.

Gonna get this reversed before MyDefrag doubles it up on me again, and probably stick with Auslogics and Windows. I need to start collecting stamps or something.

And yes, my computer was and is working great, so NO, I have no logical reason for trying to make something work better that is already working fine. So please don't ask.

defraggler increased your hardrive space because it is not shadow copy aware. The shadow copy (VSS service) mistakes your moving a files blocks around as modifying the file so copies what it thinks is the old file data to the shadow copy - thus duplicating data it doesn't need to be copied, an thus using up hard drive space - and shadow copy space. Note this shadow copy space is your restore points. Eventually you will exceed the storage limit you set for your restore points and you will start losing them.

You are crazy if you use defraggler on windows 7.

- Gene

 

[nailgunner]

Well to be clear, it wasn't defraggler that increased it, it was Mydefrag.

 

[Maxxwire]

Plus it increased my used HD space from about 26GB to 50.3GB.

Well to be clear, it wasn't defraggler that increased it, it was Mydefrag.

It wasn't actually My Defrag that increased the amount of data on your HDD it was System Restore making restore points while the files are being moved according to your choice of scripts by MyDefrag, but not to worry Disc Cleanup can almost instantly remove all but the most recent restore point. What prompted you to choose the 'sort by size' script? As I said it was the 'sort by last access' that helped my programs start up so much faster.

~Maxx~
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[nailgunner]

OK...it happened when I ran MyDefrag. I have since returned my HD to it's 25GB size. Would prefer not to say exactly how I did it, , so I don't get scolded for that, but it's all good now.


edit
I actually tried a couple of the scripts just to test it, and size what the last one I tried.

 

[Maxxwire]

OK...it happened when I ran MyDefrag. I have since returned my HD to it's 25GB size. Would prefer not to say exactly how I did it, , so I don't get scolded for that, but it's all good now.

I'm glad to hear that things are back as they were now. I set my System Restore space back so far on my Win 7 computer that MyDefrag does not prompt System Restore to increase the amount of Restore Points as it did on your computer. In Vista I used to simply just turn System Restore off while My Defrag placed the files in the order that I had instructed it to so this wouldn't happen.

~Maxx~
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[nailgunner]

And in Defraggler it was that whole extra system restore file activity that was making it show 46% fragmentation.

I had been adding and deleting a lot of trialware photo editing programs and moving a lot of pictures around, so I was defragging on a fairly regular basis. I'm done now, so I think I will leave well enough alone.

 

[nailgunner]

Well again, to be clear, I was running Defraggler first, and it was slow as crap, which was why I started using Windows defrag and wondered if the 13 passes was unusual.
Both Auslogics and MyDefrag were quick on the defragging. I like Auslogics layout better so will probably stick with that.

 

[Maxxwire]

I'm done now, so I think I will leave well enough alone.

That sounds like a good plan. In the future if you ever feel the need to improve the speed which programs open on your Win 7 computer the My Defrag 'sort by last access' script can make it happen.

The reason that I know this is that I did benchmarks both before and after the most frequently used programs were moved to the fastest part of the disk and as I said the largest 1 GB program now opens in 3.42 seconds which is 42% faster than it did before My Defrag moved it and the other files I use most frequently to the outside of the disk for quick access and improved read times.

~Maxx~
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[Maxxwire]

Well again, to be clear, I was running Defraggler first, and it was slow as crap, which was why I started using Windows defrag and wondered if the 13 passes was unusual. Both Auslogics and MyDefrag were quick on the defragging. I like Auslogics layout better so will probably stick with that.

Gregrocker is also a huge fan of Auslogics software and for good reason...

~Maxx~
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