Defrag and Cleaning

[jack1953]

I am the guy that is now going from XP to 7. I've read all the threads on defragging and have concluded that there is more support given to defrag as opposed not to.

Questions:

1. Is the Windows 7 utility competent?
2. Is it a good idea to run the programs that defrag on the fly?
3. At what percentage would be a gauge to defrag?
4. Is the clean utility competent in 7? If not I see overwhelming support for CCleaner.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Windows Defrag is competent.

Its default schedule is weekly.

I have NEVER manually defragged my drives and I have never seen fragmentation levels above 5%.

The clean utility of Windows 7 is competent. So is CCleaner, but try to restrain yourself from using its registry cleaner.

 

[pcunite]

I would venture to say that most of us have moved on to using SSD drives about the same time we moved to Windows 7. Thus, no defrag tools needed ... at least on the boot side. The main reason to defrag is for speed, so with only my data drive not being SSD, speed is not really the problem it once was. So, I just use the built-in tool. Defraggler is a nice option if you want more visual feedback of what is happening.

 

[jloc]

Windows defragmenter is good, it does the job. CCleaner is good but registry cleaners + Windows 7 = Bad Idea

Ignatzatsonic, i've got my PC up on my desk and whenever my hard drive is being defragged, it sounds like a jet's taking off next to my face! :biggrin:

 

[jack1953]

I would venture to say that most of us have moved on to using SSD drives about the same time we moved to Windows 7. Thus, no defrag tools needed ... at least on the boot side. The main reason to defrag is for speed, so with only my data drive not being SSD, speed is not really the problem it once was. So, I just use the built-in tool. Defraggler is a nice option if you want more visual feedback of what is happening.

Learning Curve Question; What is unique about a Solid State Drive as opposed to the regular ones?

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Learning Curve Question; What is unique about a Solid State Drive as opposed to the regular ones?

Speed.

More particularly, access times. Most noticeable in booting, defragging, virus scans, and overall "responsiveness".

 

[jloc]

Learning Curve Question; What is unique about a Solid State Drive as opposed to the regular ones?

Speed.

More particularly, access times. Most noticeable in booting, defragging, virus scans, and overall "responsiveness".

The access times are around 0.1ms, 170 times faster than a hormal hard drive :shock:

 

[jack1953]

Learning Curve Question; What is unique about a Solid State Drive as opposed to the regular ones?

Speed.

More particularly, access times. Most noticeable in booting, defragging, virus scans, and overall "responsiveness".

I thought the speed was determined by the processor?

 

[jack1953]

Learning Curve Question; What is unique about a Solid State Drive as opposed to the regular ones?

Speed.

More particularly, access times. Most noticeable in booting, defragging, virus scans, and overall "responsiveness".

Is it me, or do the SSDs require less space? What I mean is, the ones I have seen advertised are usually much smaller in G size.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

SSDs are much more expensive per gigabyte. but most people only keep their operating system and programs on the SSD, so 60 to 120 GB is enough. Maybe $100 to $150 in the USA.

Re speed: CPU speed helps at some things (such as encoding video, mathematical computations), but disk speed is an over-riding issue on many PC tasks.

 

[MilesAhead]

SSDs are much more expensive per gigabyte. but most people only keep their operating system and programs on the SSD, so 60 to 120 GB is enough. Maybe $100 to $150 in the USA.

Re speed: CPU speed helps at some things (such as encoding video, mathematical computations), but disk speed is an over-riding issue on many PC tasks.

I'd like to try a video mux with one of those babies.

 

[MilesAhead]

I am the guy that is now going from XP to 7. I've read all the threads on defragging and have concluded that there is more support given to defrag as opposed not to.

Questions:

1. Is the Windows 7 utility competent?
2. Is it a good idea to run the programs that defrag on the fly?
3. At what percentage would be a gauge to defrag?
4. Is the clean utility competent in 7? If not I see overwhelming support for CCleaner.

Thanks,

Jack

[ Lyrics from: Blue Suede Shoes Lyrics - Elvis Presley ]

Well, you can knock me down,
Step in my face,
Slander my name
All over the place.
Do anything that you want to do, but uh-uh,
Honey, lay off of the defragger I use
You can do anything but question the defragger I use!

It's called instant jihad. Defrag arguments have a tendency
to, er, fragment the user forums.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

[ Lyrics from: Blue Suede Shoes Lyrics - Elvis Presley ]

Well, you can knock me down,
Step in my face,
Slander my name
All over the place.
Do anything that you want to do, but uh-uh,
Honey, lay off of the defragger I use
You can do anything but question the defragger I use!

It seems Elvis was not one to be trifled with when wearing those blue suede shoes:

 

[MilesAhead]

[ Lyrics from: Blue Suede Shoes Lyrics - Elvis Presley ]

Well, you can knock me down,
Step in my face,
Slander my name
All over the place.
Do anything that you want to do, but uh-uh,
Honey, lay off of the defragger I use
You can do anything but question the defragger I use!

It seems Elvis was not one to be trifled with when wearing those blue suede shoes:

I have to say I prefer the way Jimi Hendrix did it. Elvis could croon but not much of a guitarist.

 

[GeneO]

Learning Curve Question; What is unique about a Solid State Drive as opposed to the regular ones?

Speed.

More particularly, access times. Most noticeable in booting, defragging, virus scans, and overall "responsiveness".

Regular HDD are not very good at random access of files because data is read from them serially as the disk platters spin around. For random access, you have to spin the disk around and locate the disk drive head over the segment to read, then do it again at a different location for the next... They are pretty good for accessing sequential files like videos and photos if the data for the file is contiguous on the disk so that the file's data blocks can be read in a single pass as the disk rotates. This is what defragging does - moves a file's blocks around on the disk to make them physically adjacent so they can be read in one swoop. This is why people defrag HDD.

SSD access is not mechanical, it reads and writes similar to RAM - you address the data electronically. So it is very good for random access and sequential access with no need to defragment the data (in fact defragging an SSD has no physical meaning like it does a HDD). Since writing to an SSD reduces its lifetime, defragging an SSD not only does not improve its performance, but reduces its life.

 

[MilesAhead]

Hmmm, writing is bad. Sounds like not yet ready for prime time. Kind of takes the glory out of putting the swap file on it doesn't it?

 

[wanchoo]

I think the best would be to use the free Puran Defragger and carry out the defragging of C drive during boot time. The next best is I think Auslogics Free Defragger but it doesn't do boot time defragging.

A friend of mine reported recently that he was downloading a large file simultaneously with the defragging operation and the file got corrupted and he had to do it all over again. It is for this reason that boot time defragging is the best option.

 

[GeneO]

Hmmm, writing is bad. Sounds like not yet ready for prime time. Kind of takes the glory out of putting the swap file on it doesn't it?

Oh, they are ready for prime time, swap file is fine, they will last longer than you would want to keep one. But defragmenting does a lot of writing with no benefit.

 

[cluberti]

Hmmm, writing is bad. Sounds like not yet ready for prime time. Kind of takes the glory out of putting the swap file on it doesn't it?

Actually, on Win7 most of the time you are reading from the paging file, not writing. Given an SSDs random I/O benefit, the paging file is exactly the kind of thing you would want to store on an SSD.

Plus, assuming you aren't buying bargain basement devices, an SSD should last as long as it's mechanical counterpart, and perhaps slightly longer. This would be especially true for enterprise SSD drives.

 

[gregrocker]

I used the Auslogics defraggers for 10 years with great results but have recently changed to Puran free defragger to get their boot-time defrag which is the only one which gets at System files that are otherwise running in Win7.

I use it approx. monthly after running CCleaner "Run Cleaner" and Registry tab, which has never had a confirmed case reported of causing a problem in spite of the folklore. It's also probably the most highly regarded app in all of the tech world.