Defrag?

[kf9vh]

Is the defrag that is in window 7 good enough or is they another that one should download and use?

Thanks

 

[linnemeyerhere]

I've always found MS defrag to work fine.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Windows 7 defragger is good enough.

I think there is a high degree of correlation between obsessive-compulsive disorder and defragger discussions and opinions. If you just can't stand to see defragmentation, you are going to be unhappy if you can't drive the defragmentation percentage down. Whether it has any measurable effect on performance is irrelevant.

 

[whs]

And you should defrag as little as possible. There is very little performance to be gained, but the defrag is a big stress on the disk. And an SSD you NEVER defrag.

 

[Wishmaster]

The built in defrag does do just fine.

I do tend to agree the idea that defrag is not as important of a factor these days as it once was. Which give even more wieght to the built in defrag being more than adequate.


Personally, I prefer Perfect Disk, although it is a paid program.
Mainly because:
It has a few different methods of defragmenting drives (and a different method can be applied to seperate drives/partitions)
Its has more options/features and much more control of defragmenting and schedules.
Also its MS certified.
I like it because I can get a graph of each drive, have it show the % of space certain things take, where they are located etc.
(Kinda like Directory STAT)

Really comes down to what features you want/need, if that even matters to you for a defragger.
In the grand scheme of thing, the default defrag is fine..
UNLESS you have a SSD. Then its a really,really bad idea.

If you have a SSD, the only option you have is a consolodate on occasions, but it has to be a defragmenter designed for it. Like PD.
That or never defrag it at all. Which will be fine as well for a SSD

 

[scrotiny]

If you can't achieve some necessary task (like shrinking your system partition because of a file placed at the end of the partition) then a search might lead you to using a defrag other than the MS version. That is why I tried Defraggler, which achieved the task, but also lead me to PerfectDisk. Although a bit expensive for what it does, and I tend to agree that defragging is not that necessary, PerfectDisk has many options and features as the previous post stated making it one of the best on the market. Although I tend to go for free software if it does the job I will spend cash when I think it worthwhile.

 

[techcal]

Well, the MS defrag is better than no defrag, and you should definitely defrag your drives regularly for the best disk performance. Personally I prefer automatic defraggers (I used a paid one) with more control, better GUI, and some level of defrag customization for each drive than what the default utility offers. YMMV ofcourse.

 

[dragon6687]

MS defrag is crap. It's horribly slow and pathetically inefficient. Try out auslogic defrag (you can google it easily) it's super fast, crazy efficient and it actually gives you a graphical representation of your drive and what it's doing! (what a concept) It will do twice what the MS defrag will do in half that time =) oh and it's free! =)

 

[pparks1]

I use the built-in defragger. And I usually just let it run automatically as it's supposed to do. It's extremely rare for me to actually run a manual defrag on any machine. I haven't ever been able to quantify a performance gain with a defrag, so I simply don't bother doing it anymore. Others will disagree.

 

[cluberti]

I'm not entirely sure I'd call the inbox defragmenter crap, and the Engineering Windows 7 blog from Steven Sinofski had some very interesting findings by Microsoft on how disk fragmentation affects performance, and the way the defragmenter in Windows 7 was redesigned to handle this reality:

Disk Defragmentation

Given Microsoft spends millions on research and gathers usage and tech data from millions of machines, their findings on things like this are usually a good practice to follow. I think I'd agree with ignatzatsonic as well - wanting to do something better than this long-term is probably more likely in folks with obsessive compulsive tendencies, and not based on any real world performance benefit in most scenarios.

 

[Layback Bear]

In my own simple I have tested many defrags programs and have yet to find one I think is better than the built in one. It takes a long time to do because of the fact it is hard on the hard drive if you do it over and over again when it's not needed. For what ever reason Window 7 that I have seldom get over 2% defragged. At the present time I'm testing Puran defrag and it seams to do the same thing that windows 7 does in the same way. My understanding is the built in Windows defrag was created by Diskeeper for Mr. Bill Gates and Windows 7.

 

[Mike Connor]

The Windows defragmentation program is perfectly adequate. Other defragmentation software is only advisable if you have special requirements which the Windows defragmenter does not cover.

If you don't know what those "special requirements" might be, then you don't need any other defragmentation software.

The Windows defragmentation software also works with other things in the operating system like boot optimisation. Many other products will not, and using them will actually degrade overall performance.

Various defragmentation/optimisation software uses various methods, including file placement optimisation, to achieve various things. These are theoretical optimums, and depending how you use your machine, this can also actually degrade the system performance.

It is absolutely essential to only use ONE defragmentation program. If you use several, then you WILL degrade system performance, and cause massive and unnecessary wear and tear on your drives.

The best plan for most normal users is to set up the scheduler to run the Windows defragmentation program once a week if you use the machine a lot for copying, downloading etc. Once a month is sufficient if you only run standard software, and don't change programs all the time.

Under normal circumstances you will not notice any difference in system performance after defragmenting,if you do it regularly. However, if you do not defragment a drive for a long time, and you do a lot of copying etc, then the system will become noticeably slower, more wear and tear will occur on your drive(s), and they may become noisy as a result of the excessive head movement required to carry out reads/writes on fragmented files.

Excessive fragmentation causes read/write timeouts and other errors, and if nothing is done about it, the drive will fail quickly.

Excessive DEFRAGMENTATION , using a defragmentation program too often, will not improve system performance, and also causes massive wear and tear on the drive.

Regards....Mike Connor

 

[pparks1]

However, if you do not defragment a drive for a long time, and you do a lot of copying etc, then the system will become noticeably slower, more wear and tear will occur on your drive(s), and they may become noisy as a result of the excessive head movement required to carry out reads/writes on fragmented files.

Excessive fragmentation causes read/write timeouts and other errors, and if nothing is done about it, the drive will fail quickly.

Of course with that said, I have numerous Windows file servers and Linux servers that have run without incident for years on end (5+) at work and have never had a defrag performed on them. They run 24x7 and are accessed by hundreds of employees copying and deleting files all day long. In the numerous systems admin jobs that I have had, I don't recall running a defrag on a server box ever. Just saying.

Thus, i would consider myself skeptical that by not running a defrag you are putting yourself into a very dangerous situation. In theory, it seems reasonable...but in practice, I honestly just don't see it.

 

[Mike Connor]

However, if you do not defragment a drive for a long time, and you do a lot of copying etc, then the system will become noticeably slower, more wear and tear will occur on your drive(s), and they may become noisy as a result of the excessive head movement required to carry out reads/writes on fragmented files.

Excessive fragmentation causes read/write timeouts and other errors, and if nothing is done about it, the drive will fail quickly.

Of course with that said, I have numerous Windows file servers and Linux servers that have run without incident for years on end (5+) at work and have never had a defrag performed on them. They run 24x7 and are accessed by hundreds of employees copying and deleting files all day long. In the numerous systems admin jobs that I have had, I don't recall running a defrag on a server box ever. Just saying.

Thus, i would consider myself skeptical that by not running a defrag you are putting yourself into a very dangerous situation. In theory, it seems reasonable...but in practice, I honestly just don't see it.

Basically a good point, but server systems are set up differently to "standard" Windows machines, not least in order to combat things like excessive fragmentation. File placement optimisation, data optimisation, and other techniques are now routinely applied.

At one time fragmentation was a massive problem which could bring a network to its knees very quickly. There are now many strategies and systems which actively prevent or combat it. Such systems are not relevant to the vast majority of standalone Windows machines.

At one time the only way to combat fragmentation was to run "copies" to clean discs. ( Still works by the way! )

So in this case it is "apples and oranges".


May be of interest;

http://www.diskeeper.com/defrag/impact-of-disk-fragmentation.aspx


Regards....Mike Connor

 

[Layback Bear]

After my own in house testing I stick with the Windows built in defrag. It seams to meet the needs of us average computer users. All other defrag programs have been removed from my pc's. Why my Window 7 gets less defraged than XP-PRO did I have no Idea.

 

[cluberti]

@Mike/pparks - Agreed. Copying files over a network generally hides any performance issues on a disk, because a 10/100 link is slower than the internal disk in accessing files, so there's a lot of performance "wiggle room" that end users wouldn't notice if a file server disk was fragmented, but would if that disk was actually local to them. Gigabit links can theoretically outstrip a nice fast SCSI disk, but in reality with network overhead this rarely happens.

With servers, it's also usually an availability vs maintenance battle as well - defragmenting a drive takes time, and large drives take a long time. I tend to have my file servers available using DFS mount points, and take certain replicas offline for defragmentation about once every 2 or 3 months - this way the files are still available and maintenance can still be performed.

 

[7user64]

try defraggler

 

[gregrocker]

Hi, my name is Greg and I'm an obsessive compulsive (the kind of guy you want to maintain your computer).

I like Puran Disk Defragger, especially that it offers a Boot Time Defrag which includes the best feature I've found yet in a defragger on it's Additional Operations tab: Intelligent Optimizer.

This is the only tool I've found to speed up my slower disks.

 

[mjf]

It is absolutely essential to only use ONE defragmentation program. If you use several, then you WILL degrade system performance, and cause massive and unnecessary wear and tear on your drives.

I'm curious about the rationale for this statement.

I let windows defrag do it's own thing and very occasionally run defraggler.
They obviously use different measures of fragmentation. Windows will say 0% framentation and defraggler can report a significantly higher level.

Of course defragmenting your drive too often time may cause wear and tear but running a fragmented drive could be worse on both wear and tear and performance.

 

[Wishmaster]

Hi, my name is Greg and I'm an obsessive compulsive (the kind of guy you want to maintain your computer).

I like Puran Disk Defragger, especially that it offers a Boot Time Defrag which includes the best feature I've found yet in a defragger on it's Additional Operations tab: Intelligent Optimizer.

This is the only tool I've found to speed up my slower disks.

I'm curious if thier method works similar to Perfect Disks Boot Time defrag?
PDs will defrag system files that are normally locked, and the PF as well.


And I do agree that ..
Use only one. Find one you like/prefer, and stick with only that one. If its 3rd party, disable the built in one, even though the defragmenter should do this on its own. Multiple defragmenters is not a good idea.