Best Practices and apps for defrag?

[Dorfdad]

Now that im coming back to windows from using Mac OS X for the last few years I would like to get some information about defraging on Windows 7.

I assume its still needed and we should be using it, is setting the default windows 7 defrag tool to run each night good enough? Or do I need to look into getting a real commercial solution for the machine?

I am primarily using this machine for gaming, and graphics editing.

Im running x64 as well if that matters.

 

[swarfega]

Sadly there is still need for regular defrag. Dont set it for nightly defrag, that is shear overkill and will wear out your drives sooner. Once a week is the bare minimum and is the default period MS sets.

I recently purchased Raxco PerfectDisk 10 after testing out several programs (both commerical and free) and found it gave the best results. However for the non power user the new improved windows 7 defrag should be adequate.

Hope this helps.

 

[Victek]

Now that im coming back to windows from using Mac OS X for the last few years I would like to get some information about defraging on Windows 7.

I assume its still needed and we should be using it, is setting the default windows 7 defrag tool to run each night good enough? Or do I need to look into getting a real commercial solution for the machine?

I am primarily using this machine for gaming, and graphics editing.

Im running x64 as well if that matters.

.
There's a long thread about defraggers here if you dig back a little. There is no consensus which is to be expected. FWIW I really like PerfectDisk which is now Windows 7 compatible. It offers the classic disk map which provides useful information. It also has a boot-time option which can defrag files that are locked when the GUI is running, such as the pagefile. It is available as 30 day trial-ware so if you're interested just try it out.

 

[zigzag3143]

Now that im coming back to windows from using Mac OS X for the last few years I would like to get some information about defraging on Windows 7.

I assume its still needed and we should be using it, is setting the default windows 7 defrag tool to run each night good enough? Or do I need to look into getting a real commercial solution for the machine?

I am primarily using this machine for gaming, and graphics editing.

Im running x64 as well if that matters.

hey dorfdad

Glad you came over to the dark side. I lean toeards a 3rd party app called perfect disk 10. while any disk needs defragging in win 7 its less critical. It does a good job on running scheduled defrags and uses smart defrag'ing.

Ken

 

[ten]

I wouldn't bother with any 3rd party defrag programs. While they may be faster at getting the job done, I have yet to see any benchmarks that show it makes any difference. I think selling them is a con.

Save your money and just use the built in one whenever you feel the need. I don't defrag for months at a time and don't notice didly squat before and after.

 

[zigzag3143]

Ten I just went to take a look at your system specs to see what kind of system you have and guess what they haven't been filled in

 

[ten]

Curiosity killed the cat
If I wanted you to see my system specs don't you think I would have filled them out?

 

[Antman]

If I wanted you to see my system specs don't you think I would have filled them out?

I found them.

 

[zigzag3143]

Curiosity killed the cat
If I wanted you to see my system specs don't you think I would have filled them out?

true just looking to see the hard drive specs.

Ken

 

[ten]

If you must know it's a raid 0 array with 2 500 gig 7200 rpm 16mb cache

 

[zigzag3143]

defragging a raid 0 I think I understand why you want to leave it alone

 

[Antman]

Fragmentation occurs in RAID arrays. Defragmentation is appropriate. Defragmentation, while treated like a religion, is not a church. You don't have to go every week. You only need to go to confession. So, if you torrent, defrag - if you manipulate file locations frequently or have large writes (movies, FLAC, et al), defrag.

The physical disk is the physical disk.

 

[Tews]

I've found Raxios' PerfectDisk 10 one of the best as well. As long as MS uses NTFS you will need to defrag... Maybe this will change with WFS... It would be totally unnecessary with a Linux type ext system though...

 

[chuckr]

I found them.

Support team, just in case:

 

[mickey megabyte]

who's the dweeb at the bottom left? - pff, i'm sure he never amounted to anything!

 

[gamepro127]

Hmm. I find Auslogics Disk Defrag - Free software downloads and reviews - CNET Download.com

To be the best free defrag. Scheduler, SUPER FAST (Defrags 1000 files in less than 5 minuntes)

Recommend to run daily (I defrag all my games so yea)

GOOD LUCK!
Oh and you'll love windows 7!

 

[HerrKaLeun]

I ran the W7 defragmenter and had 1% fragmentation. After defragging it showed 0%.
- right afterward I ran Auslogics and it showed 23% fragmentation (it is a bit faster than the W7 tool, but not by much, CPU load is much less and the HDD less noisy). After that it was 11% fragmented
- then I ran Defraggler and it showed 11% defragmentation as well. It uses about the same CPU load as Auslogics and makes little HDD noise as well. It seems to take the msot time defragging for the temporary folders of bittorrent. So the ability to exclude folders is pretty valuable for it. After defragging it still showed 11% fragmentation.
- After that the W7 defragmentation tool still showed 0% fragmentation.

I only had bittorrent on and did some browsing. I'm sure my bit torrent files cause the most fragmentation since the temporary file size constantly grows. So my 11% fragmentation is not bad.

If i had to rank them then I'd prefer Defraggler for its options. auslogics does a similar good job.
I'm a bit disappointed in the built-in defragmentation. Sure it improved over XP and Vista. but it seems to show too little defragmentation.

I'm sure in real life it doesn't matter which one is used as long as one uses it weekly for the installation drive or partition. I think for the data drive or partition a bi-weekly defragmentation is sufficient.

 

[Duesco]

You know, I've had good results with MyDefrag (formerly JkDefrag) for quite a while now. It's light and fast and has a bunch of sorting options.

 

[harpua]

I've used Perfect Disk and like it, although it is kind of slow.

Disktrix Defrag Express is pretty slick and fast.

For me, it's between those two.