What are the benefits on defragmentation?

[yadielfeliciano]

It takes forever, is it worth the wait? does it really improve system performance? I always end up canceling... it just takes way to much time..

 

[zigzag3143]

It takes forever, is it worth the wait? does it really improve system performance? I always end up canceling... it just takes way to much time..

How much time is too much? defragging has its benifits.

 

[yadielfeliciano]

...

It takes forever, is it worth the wait? does it really improve system performance? I always end up canceling... it just takes way to much time..

How much time is too much? defragging has its benifits.

It takes a lot of time I could leave it for 2 hours and come back and still defragmenting

 

[mickey megabyte]

over the course of time, files on your hard drives become 'fragmented' - bits of them get scattered around all over the place.

if you're old enough to remember vinyl records, you will also remember that the audio tracks were arranged more or less in concentric rings around the disc - the first inch from the outside was track one, the second inch was track two etc. that is an example of a perfectly defragmented disc.

now imagine if the first five seconds of track one were at the edge of the record, but the next five were half way into the disc, the proceeding ten seconds were right in the middle and the rest were similarly all over the place. this is an example of severe fragmentation.

in order to play the record, the record player's head has to jump about all over the place, taking time and wearing itself out.

hard drives are similar in this respect - if you defragment your computer, all the files end up being arranged nice and neatly on your drives, and so theoretically load up quicker.

in practise, you probably won't notice that much difference, but why not set the defrag running before you go out or something, and let it do its thing.

you can probably speed up the process a bit by clearing out all your temp files and emptying your recycle bin before you start.

 

[yadielfeliciano]

ok

over the course of time, files on your hard drives become 'fragmented' - bits of them get scattered around all over the place.

if you're old enough to remember vinyl records, you will also remember that the audio tracks were arranged more or less in concentric rings around the disc - the first inch from the outside was track one, the second inch was track two etc. that is an example of a perfectly defragmented disc.

now imagine if the first five seconds of track one were at the edge of the record, but the next five were half way into the disc, the proceeding ten seconds were right in the middle and the rest was all over the place. this is severe defragmentation.

in order to play the record, the record player's head has to jump about all over the place, taking time and wearing itself out.

hard drives are similar in this respect - if you defragment your computer, all the files end up being arranged nice and neatly on your drives, and so theoretically load up quicker.

in practise, you probably won't notice that much difference, but why not set the defrag running before you go out or something, and let it do its thing.

I could give that a try, are there another options? like third party software? free ones? the defrag tool from microsoft takes forever, are there any other faster programs?

 

[Pikey]

It's not something you should be sitting there watching .. it's a 'set and forget' type of thing.

If you just leave it at the default settings, you won't even notice it .. no real need for a third-party app either in my view.

 

[harpua]

Imo, O&O defrag 12 (latest version) is the best defragger I've used. It runs in the background mostly with no noticeable impact on system performance. Every now and then it does a more complete defrag along with repositioning files for better performance when it thinks it's needed. Again, I haven't noticed any impact on performance while it's doing these tasks, unlike other defragging apps I've tried. So that's why I like O&O. Gets the job done, and optimizes file placement, all on auto pilot without any noticeable performance hit while it's running in the background.

(Note: I gave up on Perfect Disk because my system got laggy while it was operating in the background.)

Also, I'm not 100% sure but my impression is that the native windows defgragging app doesn't reposition files for better performance, or if it does, it doesn't do so in as sophisticated a manner as O&O does. Jmo.

 

[Win7User512]

Defrag overnight. You won't even notice it while you sleep.

 

[zigzag3143]

over the course of time, files on your hard drives become 'fragmented' - bits of them get scattered around all over the place.

if you're old enough to remember vinyl records, you will also remember that the audio tracks were arranged more or less in concentric rings around the disc - the first inch from the outside was track one, the second inch was track two etc. that is an example of a perfectly defragmented disc.

now imagine if the first five seconds of track one were at the edge of the record, but the next five were half way into the disc, the proceeding ten seconds were right in the middle and the rest was all over the place. this is severe defragmentation.

in order to play the record, the record player's head has to jump about all over the place, taking time and wearing itself out.

hard drives are similar in this respect - if you defragment your computer, all the files end up being arranged nice and neatly on your drives, and so theoretically load up quicker.

in practise, you probably won't notice that much difference, but why not set the defrag running before you go out or something, and let it do its thing.

I could give that a try, are there another options? like third party software? free ones? the defrag tool from microsoft takes forever, are there any other faster programs?

Usually when defraging takes large amonts of time its because there isn't much free space on it. When defragging the data must be moved somewhere else and if there isn't much space it goes really slowly.
Try deleting temp files, and other junk before and it will go faster.

Ken

 

[johnwillyums]

I've not tried O&O defrag as mentioned by Harpua but I do find Perfect Disk 10 really good.
I don't run it in the background just as part of my Sunday routine. In fact I run it while I'm taking a bath.
It put all the boot files up at the front of the disk.
Seems to speed things up to me. I remember noticing the difference especially the first time and if you do it regularly it doesn't take as long.
I also used a free one called Smart Defrag and that was better and swifter than windows own.

Cheers, John

 

[johnwillyums]

Just had a look. O&O ain't cheap is it? J

 

[johnwillyums]

This is free and works pretty good:Defragment Disk | Smart Defrag | Free Disk Defragmenter Download

 

[mickey megabyte]

Just had a look. O&O ain't cheap is it? J

maybe it also defrags vinyl?

 

[DeaconFrost]

Did we just leap back to the early 90's? Even my non-techie users at work know they should be defragging their hard drives (at home...it's scheduled at work).

Since you keep canceling it, it will take longer and longer, because you don't let it complete. Speaking of...what OS are you running that it isn't scheduled by default? With VIsta and Windows 7, you don't ever have to worry about it.

 

[yadielfeliciano]

Did we just leap back to the early 90's? Even my non-techie users at work know they should be defragging their hard drives (at home...it's scheduled at work).

Since you keep canceling it, it will take longer and longer, because you don't let it complete. Speaking of...what OS are you running that it isn't scheduled by default? With VIsta and Windows 7, you don't ever have to worry about it.

I'm running windows 7

 

[DeaconFrost]

How much data do you have on your system volume? It shouldn't take very long at all to defrag, even if you do a manual defrag...unless you are very impatient of course. I have 30 GB, and I've only done a manual defrag once, since August 7th, and that only took a few minutes.

 

[gizbug]

It takes forever, is it worth the wait? does it really improve system performance? I always end up canceling... it just takes way to much time..

Spend some money, buy PerfectDISK, and set to stealth patrol. Won't have to wait, improves performance, enough said.

 

[Jordus]

the built in tool works fine. Ever since vista you can set it to run automatically so that you never encounter it.

If you keep it running on a regularly scheduled basis, it wont take any time at all. Its when you've let it go for a long time that it will take forever once you finally defrag.

 

[yadielfeliciano]

the built in tool works fine. Ever since vista you can set it to run automatically so that you never encounter it.

If you keep it running on a regularly scheduled basis, it wont take any time at all. Its when you've let it go for a long time that it will take forever once you finally defrag.

Ok Thanks for the advice, a lot of you helped me

 

[harpua]

Just had a look. O&O ain't cheap is it? J

Well I suppose not. They have a free trial (30 days iirc) so you can see if you think it's worth it or not. That's what got me. I demoed it and really liked it, which seems strange to be saying about a defragmentation application.