Can't defrag system drive though 29% fragmented

[pxfragonard]

10% is the limit over which the system will auto-defrag but the system disc won't be defragmented. I'm wondering if that might be the reason for slow starting, double icons and other niggling things like a mysteriously increasing memory at an inexplicable rate. Are system drives not supposed to be defragged? Does it mean I have to reset to factory? (I avoid this like the plague)

 

[LMiller7]

How much free space do you have on the drive? Microsoft recommends about 15%. With less a defrag may be slow or not possible at all. A stalled defrag could also indicate a failing drive or one that has corruption.

Do not defrag an SSD.

 

[pxfragonard]

How much free space do you have on the drive? Microsoft recommends about 15%. With less a defrag may be slow or not possible at all. A stalled defrag could also indicate a failing drive or one that has corruption.

Do not defrag an SSD.

Oh, lots and lots. I have 1.07TB left and am using 187GB. I think the problem might be that, under system protection, C drive is marked protected and D drive is marked unprotected. I didn't do that. I never do anything I don't understand. Well, not anymore, LOL!

The mystery of the increased disc usage is solve though. I changed the space used to store restore points and since then did some uninstalls with Revo which made registry backups and restore points before the uninstalls. That explains why the disc usage jumped.

Can I click, under system protection, to protect the drive (if I can find it again... forgot where) and then defrag it safely? There must be a good reason it's not protected by default.

 

[pxfragonard]

Oh, wait. You meant drive D. It's got 1.63gb left of 11.6gb. That might be the problem. Is there a solution?