30% Defragmention

[trebla]

Hi,
I've got a new PC with Vista Home Premium installed.I have 30% of
defragmented files on my C Drive.I have tried a couple of different Defrag
utilities on it O&O,Perfect Disk etc and after a Defrag run the 30% of
defragmented files are still there.Also tried offline Defrag runs with the
same result.When I was using XP Pro with the same programs the
defragmentation level was usually between 3 to 7%.
I believe Microsoft state that NTFS formatted disks don't need Defragging.
Thank you

 

[Steve Thackery]

Vista has its own built-in defragger which runs invisibly in the background.
It is actually scheduled once per week, but it runs at the lowest CPU
priority and the lowest I/O priority, so it may well take hours or days to
run.

The important thing to remember is that it works just fine. You don't need
to pay it any attention. It has no impact on your day-to-day usage (because
it backs right off as soon as you do anything).

Finally, "30% fragmented" is almost meaningless. The only thing that
matters is what impact this has on your real world performance, and there is
no easy way to translate 30% into a responsiveness figure.

Note that the Vista defragger does NOT concentrate on minimising
fragmentation or making the disk "pretty" - it is targeted at optimising the
disk performance. Quite a different thing.

Therefore you could and should forget all about disk fragmentation. Don't
use any other defraggers (some of them actually mess up the file
optimisation that Vista performs). Just get on and use your PC for its real
purpose, and be thankful that you have one less thing to worry about.

SteveT

 

[Mike Hall - MVP]

Hi,
I've got a new PC with Vista Home Premium installed.I have 30% of
defragmented files on my C Drive.I have tried a couple of different Defrag
utilities on it O&O,Perfect Disk etc and after a Defrag run the 30% of
defragmented files are still there.Also tried offline Defrag runs with the
same result.When I was using XP Pro with the same programs the
defragmentation level was usually between 3 to 7%.
I believe Microsoft state that NTFS formatted disks don't need Defragging.
Thank you

If Microsoft really believed that NTFS disks never needed defragging, they
would not have included a Defragmenter in Vista..


--
Mike Hall - MVP
How to construct a good post..
http://dts-l.com/goodpost.htm
How to use the Microsoft Product Support Newsgroups..
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?pr=newswhelp&style=toc
Mike's Window - My Blog..
http://msmvps.com/blogs/mikehall/default.aspx

 

[trebla]

Vista has its own built-in defragger which runs invisibly in the background.
It is actually scheduled once per week, but it runs at the lowest CPU
priority and the lowest I/O priority, so it may well take hours or days to
run.

The important thing to remember is that it works just fine. You don't need
to pay it any attention. It has no impact on your day-to-day usage (because
it backs right off as soon as you do anything).

Finally, "30% fragmented" is almost meaningless. The only thing that
matters is what impact this has on your real world performance, and there is
no easy way to translate 30% into a responsiveness figure.

Note that the Vista defragger does NOT concentrate on minimising
fragmentation or making the disk "pretty" - it is targeted at optimising the
disk performance. Quite a different thing.

Therefore you could and should forget all about disk fragmentation. Don't
use any other defraggers (some of them actually mess up the file
optimisation that Vista performs). Just get on and use your PC for its real
purpose, and be thankful that you have one less thing to worry about.

SteveT

Thanks very much for your responses to my query.

Much appreciated.

After a bit more research I got this below.

With Windows Vista it is not possible for any defragmentation software to
defragment the files from System Restore (C:\System Volume Information),
because there is a bug in "volsnap.sys" (a component from Windows). Until the
problem is solved we cannot touch this files for safety reasons and have to
exclude them. Microsoft has published a knowledge base article:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/932790/en-us
With Windows Vista it is not possible for any defragmentation software to
defragment the files from System Restore (C:\System Volume Information),
because there is a bug in "volsnap.sys" (a component from Windows). Until the
problem is solved we cannot touch this files for safety reasons and have to
exclude them. Microsoft has published a knowledge base article:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/932790/en-us