Defrag made my hard drive actually lose space?

[tylar112]

Did I miss something?
I always thought defrags made more space on your computer by organizing files and making programs run faster

But when I did a defrag, using Defraggler
I went from 83 gigs free space to 79 gigs free space

I even restarted, and nothing changed

I think that's kinda weird .
Or maybe I don't know something about defragging, and its suppose to do that

I hope someone can explain, thank you

 

[mickey megabyte]

defragging shouldn't effect your free space at all.

it doesn't add or take away files, it merely gathers up all the scattered fragments and consolidates them, so if a file happened to be split into 10 fragments, defragging will join them all up.

so it's a mystery to me where your four gigs went to - were you doing other stuff whilst defraggling?

 

[poin2]

It wouldn't surprise me if the defragmenter established some temporary files while it was moving things around. It's also possible something like a system restore point occurred, too.

I'd run CCleaner and see if available space changes significantly.

 

[niceguy75]

I have also experienced that defragmentation acutally reduces the space.

 

[sup3rsprt]

as mickey said, that's not supposed to happen

 

[Rishone]

Clear out your old restore points

right click the drive -> Disk Cleanup -> More option -> Delete Restore points. - This will erase all your restore points except the last one.

 

[sup3rsprt]

are you saying that defraggler created a 4GB restore point??

 

[Rishone]

yup, most probably, that is the case with me most of the times.

 

[sup3rsprt]

Crazy.

Here's something I found on the defraggler site.

2. After you run Defraggler in Windows Vista, there is less free hard drive space available.
When you run certain third-party programs (such as Defraggler), Windows Vista creates an automatic System Restore point for security reasons. This System Restore point takes up hard drive space. See this topic for more information on Windows Vista and shadow copies.

 

[mickey megabyte]

yep - just seen this on the product website

2. After you run Defraggler in Windows Vista, there is less free hard drive space available.

When you run certain third-party programs (such as Defraggler), Windows Vista creates an automatic System Restore point for security reasons. This System Restore point takes up hard drive space. See this topic for more information on Windows Vista and shadow copies.

source

*edit* you beat me to it

 

[swarfega]

Some defraggers do include disk cleanup options. Defraggler empties the recycle bin for sure, so maybe you had stuff in there.

As mickey stated, defraggers dont affect size of free space unless they include cleanup options.

 

[logicearth]

A VSS Compatible defragmentation should help reduce the creation of restore points.
For example Diskeeper: Diskeeper Blog | DK'08 Feature Spotlight - VSS Compatibility Mode

 

[tylar112]

Clear out your old restore points

right click the drive -> Disk Cleanup -> More option -> Delete Restore points. - This will erase all your restore points except the last one.

Thank you!
That brought my hard drive back up to 87 free gigs!

 

[sagebrushfire]

It's probably the restore point like they're saying. Even if you don't solve your problem; losing 4GB of space is better than not being able to save a large file because there isn't enough contiguous room on your HDD or having horrible seek times because your files are fragmented and strewn all throughout your HDD.

EDIT: Oh cool you solved it, all the better!

 

[dragotron]

Same thing happened to me with Defraggler! But I went from 120GB of free space to 24 GB!! I deleted latest restore point (shadow copies) and it freed up 40 GB.. but i'm still down 80 GB.... so that sucks. Any ideas as to where the 80 gbs went? Should I just delete all my restore points and create a new one?

 

[tylar112]

Same thing happened to me with Defraggler! But I went from 120GB of free space to 24 GB!! I deleted latest restore point (shadow copies) and it freed up 40 GB.. but i'm still down 80 GB.... so that sucks. Any ideas as to where the 80 gbs went? Should I just delete all my restore points and create a new one?

I say, as long as everything is working properly, and you dont need to restore for any reason, delete all of the restore points, and then manually make a new one right after. Just name it the days date. for example "Restore Point 2/17/2010"

Thats what I did

 

[RIPPED TORN]

Recovered 162 GBs with Free Auslogics Defragger

Did I miss something?
I always thought defrags made more space on your computer by organizing files and making programs run faster

But when I did a defrag, using Defraggler
I went from 83 gigs free space to 79 gigs free space

I even restarted, and nothing changed

I think that's kinda weird .
Or maybe I don't know something about defragging, and its suppose to do that

I hope someone can explain, thank you

I lost 162GBs after defragging over time....especially with Prioritize Files check... using another 3rd party defragger on my 2TB Programs drive...also my System Restore points often did not work when used. Auslogics Free defragger info page on use explains that most defraggers can erase restore points and the Volume Shadow Service can hog space. They have the options to check VSS compatibility in theirs and I just used it. My Drive went from 133GBs to 295GBs! After a short Defrag! Space was HOGGED. I deleted all restore points and created a fresh one now. For 15 yrs I used 3rd party Defraggers and Always had problems with System Restore NOT WORKING....got no solution until now.

Where I learned about the VSS stealing space and erasure of restore points.

How to Defrag Your Hard Drive Properly

 

[Layback Bear]

I would suggest using the Windows 7 built in defrag.

Windows 7 know where it wants to put things so Windows 7 can find them later.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Listen to the Bear, he knows of what he speaks. Win 7's native defragger is good enough a third party defragger is no longer needed, like it was in XP. Defraggler worked great in XP but it has been problematic in Win 7. There is no way I will ever recommend a third party defragger for Win 7, especially Defraggler.

To find Win 7's defragger, just hit the Windows key and type "defrag" (without the quotes), then click on Disk Defragmenter. You can run it manually or it can be scheduled to run automatically on pretty any schedule you want. Depending on your usage, you may want to run it anywhere from once a week to once a month. As long as you never or rarely have more than 10% defragmentation and your data never takes up more than 90% of your formatted HDD space (20-25% for SSDs), you will be fine.

Speaking of SSDs, there is some controversy on whether they should ever be defragmented or not to avoid wearing them out prematurely from excessive writes. However, generally speaking, if you defrag them no more than once every year or two, you will not hurt them enough to ever notice. SSDs are far more tolerant of defragmentation than HDDs.