at what % do I defrag?

[genxie]

I did analyze on my defrag and it said I have 1% defragmentation...at what percent should I defrag?

 

[richc46]

I did analyze on my defrag and it said I have 1% defragmentation...at what percent should I defrag?

The usual recommedation is about 10%. A feature in win7 is that if your request a defrag, it will say that it is not needed if that is the case.

 

[IggyAZ]

I did analyze on my defrag and it said I have 1% defragmentation...at what percent should I defrag?

When I have nothing to do on the computer I do a disk cleanup and check my defrag. If it is 1% or more I just defrag. This way it is done on my schedule when I can walk away from the computer for a few minutes. Preventive maintenance is always good.

Iggy

 

[richc46]

I have heard that frequent defrag is not the best thing for a HD.

 

[SlackerITGuy]

I have heard that frequent defrag is not the best thing for a HD.

Myth 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.

Myth: Frequent Defrag Will Wear Out Your Hard Drive

 

[myzr7]

Defrag is done once a week by default on windows seven. You can stop that from happening if you want.

 

[tbernstein]

hard drives

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.

 

[fseal]

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...

 

[genxie]

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.

 

[lordpuffer]

I did analyze on my defrag and it said I have 1% defragmentation...at what percent should I defrag?

I put out the cash for Diskeeper 2010 Pro, and I noticed a huge performance improvement after I installed it....Just a suggestion.

 

[polarbear]

I did analyze on my defrag and it said I have 1% defragmentation...at what percent should I defrag?

I put out the cash for Diskeeper 2010 Pro, and I noticed a huge performance improvement after I installed it....Just a suggestion.

Diskeeper 2010 Pro was one of the programs I was looking at. Great to see another member doing the same. Hope you can start a new thread about the program and your findings. Would also be great to see if other members and findings are over this utility.

Thanks
Polarbear

 

[gregrocker]

I run (state of the art) CCleaner and Auslogics defraggers monthly.

If it takes less than seconds, I run it more often.

Scientific, huh?

 

[A320]

Not to stir controversy but just sharing my experience, Diskeeper for me was useless, always working and never defragging properly, I have since purchased o&o a few months ago and I gotta say the results for me are night and day. HD always stays defragged, I NEVER notice the HD tasking even when idle (complete opposite story with Diskeeper).

I completely forgot I had it installed!

 

[win7clutz]

I did analyze on my defrag and it said I have 1% defragmentation...at what percent should I defrag?

I put out the cash for Diskeeper 2010 Pro, and I noticed a huge performance improvement after I installed it....Just a suggestion.

Diskeeper 2010 Pro was one of the programs I was looking at. Great to see another member doing the same. Hope you can start a new thread about the program and your findings. Would also be great to see if other members and findings are over this utility.

Thanks
Polarbear

I usually don't expect much from a defrag utility, but Diskeeper 2010 has produced a significant performance gain so won't argue with the results. It is worth the investment...

 

[pparks1]

I usually don't expect much from a defrag utility, but Diskeeper 2010 has produced a significant performance gain so won't argue with the results. It is worth the investment...

Can you please quantify this "significant performance gain" for those of us who need a bit more convincing that frequent defragging or additional defrag utilities are worth it.

Did it reduce your boot times from 75 seconds to 43 seconds? Did it increase your file copy speeds from an average of 42MB/s to 71MB/s, etc? I mean what really happened...aside from the notion that "it just feels faster".

My experience has resulted in very little (if any) noticeable difference on modern hard drives. I've been unable to prove with a stopwatch or other utility that things really did improve after taking the time to defrag...or letting the computer run all night to complete the defrag. But I'd willing to still hear from those who do see improvements to better understand why our experiences differ.

 

[A320]

My opinion, I wouldn't go as far as stating that after market defrag software does a better job than the utilities included with windows but for me it's about functionality. Because of my triple boot situation and the fact that I am using Acronis OS Selector. There are a few files that if moved during a defrag, it deactivates the OS Selector during startup, therefore I need a program that allows me to specify exceptions to certain files during a defrag.

 

[sbrads]

I'm still learning 7.64 so I don't know how good its defrag is yet, but on XP I could let my C: drive get fragmented for a month and notice Firefox taking 9 seconds to start instead of its usual 6 on its first run after a reboot. If I ran the XP defrag then it barely changed, but if I then ran JKDefrag it went back to 6 seconds. This was repeatable every time I started to notice the slower startup of various programs. So yes, I believe a good defrag program can help quite a bit in responsiveness.

 

[JimLewandowski]

Defragging in today's world is virtually a waste of time.

Question #1: are any BOOT-related files fragmented on your hard drive? If so, how MANY and in how many fragments?

Question #2: How much longer will it take to seek to each fragment (an add'l 15-20 milliseconds per seek + another 5 ms latency)? Let's say of all your boot-related OS files, there were 100 extra fragments. 100x .020 (20 ms) is 2 seconds.

From my recall of defragmenting my old XP system disk, MOST of the highly fragmented files are huge user files (i.e. NOT boot or OS-related).

Repeat: defragging is a VIRTUAL waste of time. Technically, you MIGHT reduce seeks, but it likely won't ever add up to anything you, a human, can ascertain or perceive.

I'm in the IBM large-scale mainframe computer performance field and I know disc access like the back of my hand (including controller logic). This myth won't die until we go full SSD. Oh, wait, there's arguments on whether to defrag a NON-HDA drive...

Additionally, are you aware of what Windows (since XP) does at startup to PREVENT seeks EVEN if the OS file is in fragments? Are you aware of what W7 does to also prevent seeks for fragmented files?

 

[sinbin]

12% is the best time to defrag ,any less and u just pop files around to no performance affect.

 

[fatedquest]

The question is actually not really at what %. You should just defrag your HDD whenever you're not using the computer for a few hours.