Defrag or not to defrag?

The following was in a recent article I read.

"In Windows 7, the built-in Disk Defragmenter utility runs automatically at scheduled times, usually once per week. This happens by default, so chances are good your hard drive is already defragged. And by most accounts, the utility compares favorably with third-party alternatives, so don’t spend money on another defragger unless you have very specific reasons for doing so."

Windows 8 on a USB Drive, Defragging Tips, Launch Apps Fast | PCWorld

That's just one editor's opinion as far as I'm concerned. Windows' defragger will do a decent enough job for most folks, but I regard several third-party defraggers as superior, including Defraggler and MyDefrag.

In a way, defragging is a science unto itself...you can do a quick job of it or you can work through every single cluster on the harddisk and piece it all together any which way, depending on which strategy you follow...sort by name, sort by size, place directories with files or place them ahead of the files, sort files by last access date, give special considerations to pagefiles, temp files, boot caches (Superfetch) etc. etc. etc.

I like the quick defrag option in Defraggler the most - it really is quick as it basically just defragments files without worrying too much about their placement. Windows basically trains itself on the existing placement of most files including the Superfetch and Readyboot caches, so not moving a lot of files works best IMHO.

I turn off any background apps/processes i feel should be User controlled which includes defrag

I manually defrag once a week...others may have differing opinions.

About two years ago I purchased O&O Defrag 14. I was satisfied with its performance until I purchased a WD 1TB and WD 2TB external hdd.

After these purchases I began to see how time consuming it is to defrag such large hdd's. I don't remember exactly but I do know that it took over 1+ hours to defrag the 2TB hdd and even then the defragmentation was only partially finished. I stopped the defragmentation out of frustration and the need to use the drive.

I contacted O&O. I do not remeber the specifics of their reply to my problem but I do remember it was not to my satisfaction.

Not only am I not going to buy any more defragger's but I am seriously considering uninstalling O&O and using Win7's defragger. I hear its not only adequate but quite good.

C32C3 said:

I am seriously considering uninstalling O&O and using Win7's defragger. I hear its not only adequate but quite good.

I built this PC in April, 2011. Since that time, I have not done any manual defragging. I rely on Windows 7 built-in defragger on the default once per week schedule.

I just checked: my 2 spinning drives show 0% fragmentation when analyzed.

Dating back more than 5 years ago, I used to do manual defrags rather frequently. I eventually decided I just enjoyed seeing flashing lights, the feeling I was doing something, and was mostly giving in to my obsessive nature.

Thanks for the posts.