Better defragmenter needed

[CWatters]

Can you recommend a better defragmenter than the one supplied with Windows
XP?

I'm using Drive Image to image two hard drives to a third one every night.
The images are split into 600MByte chunks so there are about 40 x 600MByte
files written every night. The drive is never more than about 60% full.

Problem is that after awhile the standard defragmenter seems to give up. It
recommends defragmenting but terminates after 1 second and reports many
"files that did not defragment". These are split into 200 or 300+ fragments.

Would it help to increase the size of the chunks to say 4GByte or reduce
them so more smaller files are created?

 

[Irwin]

I use diskeeper 9, which is the newer version of the stripped down
diskeeper that windows uses, and am very happy with it, but without
testing it in your environment I can't say that it would work any
better. Intuitively, smaller chunks would fragment less and should
defragment better. Still, it is a lot of work on the drive to defrag
all that stuff every night, like rewriting the entire drive. Any also,
why do it? It's not like you work or boot off the drive, right? Is
performance such an issue? There was a time I wanted to defrag my
backup partitions, and then I decided not to because I couldn't figure
out why I cared, other than being obsessive compulsive.

Perhaps you would consider a different backup strategy? Why back up the
entire drives every night? Why not do incremental backup with Ghost 9
(do not like the product but it does do incremental) or a real backup
program like Backup MyPC?

IMF

 

[Al Dykes]

Can you recommend a better defragmenter than the one supplied with Windows
XP?

I'm using Drive Image to image two hard drives to a third one every night.
The images are split into 600MByte chunks so there are about 40 x 600MByte
files written every night. The drive is never more than about 60% full.

Problem is that after awhile the standard defragmenter seems to give up. It
recommends defragmenting but terminates after 1 second and reports many
"files that did not defragment". These are split into 200 or 300+ fragments.

Would it help to increase the size of the chunks to say 4GByte or reduce
them so more smaller files are created?

Perfectdisk by raxco.com


(no relationship....)

 

[CWatters]

I use diskeeper 9, which is the newer version of the stripped down
diskeeper that windows uses, and am very happy with it, but without
testing it in your environment I can't say that it would work any
better. Intuitively, smaller chunks would fragment less and should
defragment better. Still, it is a lot of work on the drive to defrag
all that stuff every night,

Sorry I didn't mean I defrag every night! I just write a lot of data
everynight.

 

[CWatters]

Perfectdisk by raxco.com

Thanks. I downloaded the trial and set it to work.

It reported that the largest free space was 513MBytes despite there being
about 80GByte free. Since I only ever write 600MByte files to this drive no
wonder it badly fragments. It seems the WinXP defragmenter isn't
consolidating free space well enough.

 

[Al Dykes]

Thanks. I downloaded the trial and set it to work.

It reported that the largest free space was 513MBytes despite there being
about 80GByte free. Since I only ever write 600MByte files to this drive no
wonder it badly fragments. It seems the WinXP defragmenter isn't
consolidating free space well enough.

Look at the list of fragmented files. Sometimes you'll find something
suprising there.

If the eval-version will let you, try the offline (aka reboot) defrag
operation. It might aggregate a couple chunks of a file that can't be
moved in normal operation and increase your largest free space size.
YOu only have to do this once, IME.

The Microsoft defrag is fine for end users that run office and outlook
and browse the web.

 

[Irwin]

Note that Diskeeper, and maybe the other programs, but definitely
diskeeper does not fully consolidate free space by default. Default is
to go fast (performance mode), you have to manually choose to fully
defrag free space which of course takes longer. Don't know about the
other programs, you can tell us about PerfectDisk.

IMF

 

[Peter]

Does your third drive (holding those 600MB backup image chunks) has any
other files on it?
You might review your backup strategy. Delete old backup files - defragment
disk - put new backup files. That should keep them unfragmented.

 

[Irwin]

Peter makes a good point. I have two backup partitions, just split the
drive in half. I fill one, then the other. When the second is full, I
reformat the first and fill it, etc. Keeps fragmentation low.

IMF

 

[CWatters]

Does your third drive (holding those 600MB backup image chunks) has any
other files on it?

Mostly just the 600M chunks although an image is never exactly a multiple of
600M so there is always 1 file that varies in size. I guess I'm surprised
that the fragmentation is so bad given that most of the files deleted are
600M and most of the new ones created are also 600M.

You might review your backup strategy. Delete old backup files - defragment
disk - put new backup files. That should keep them unfragmented.

I've set up DriveImage to only keep a few previous images - that
automatically delete the old ones so the drive never fills up.

Colin

 

[CWatters]

Peter makes a good point. I have two backup partitions, just split the
drive in half. I fill one, then the other. When the second is full, I
reformat the first and fill it, etc. Keeps fragmentation low.

Hey that sounds like an interesting idea.

I'll see what happens when PerfectDisk finishes. It's been going several
hours now and is about 45% done.

 

[Irwin]

I have never used PerfectDisk, but when I was considering it I noted
that it emphasized that it optimized the drive by putting all the files
in their proper order and location on the drive. Norton's old Speed
Disk did the same thing. That may be why it is taking so long. It is
basically sorting and rewriting your entire hard drive. And that is
totally unnecessary for what you want. The next defrag may be shorter,
maybe not. I would either not use it or tell it to not sort the files
(not sure if you even can tell it that).

Irwin

 

[Irwin]

I have never used PerfectDisk, but when I was considering it I noted
that it emphasized that it optimized the drive by putting all the files
in their proper order and location on the drive. Norton's old Speed
Disk did the same thing. That may be why it is taking so long. It is
basically sorting and rewriting your entire hard drive. And that is
totally unnecessary for what you want. The next defrag may be shorter,
maybe not. I would either not use it or tell it to not sort the files
(not sure if you even can tell it that).

Irwin

 

[Louise]

Perfectdisk by raxco.com


(no relationship....)

I had a terrible experience with PerfectDisk. After several years of
using Diskeeper, I decided to try PerfectDisk instead of upgrading
diskeeper.

I allowed PerfectDisk to place my files where it though best for quick
booting etc. After that, my whole computer was terribly slow until I
took it off, bought the new Diskeeper and defragmented with Diskeeper.

I don't know whether this is the program, or so interaction with my
configuration, but I was really distressed by the deterioration it
seemed to have caused.

Louise

 

[CWatters]

I have never used PerfectDisk, but when I was considering it I noted
that it emphasized that it optimized the drive by putting all the files
in their proper order and location on the drive. Norton's old Speed
Disk did the same thing. That may be why it is taking so long. It is
basically sorting and rewriting your entire hard drive. And that is
totally unnecessary for what you want. The next defrag may be shorter,
maybe not. I would either not use it or tell it to not sort the files
(not sure if you even can tell it that).

No it appears not. It appears to only have two modes. One mode doesn't merge
free space together (which is the bit I need). The other mode does merge
free space but also optimises placement. I can live with the latter by
modifying the setting that determines what the definition of a frequently
accessed file is. None of my files on this drive are older than a month.

I seems to have done a good job. Only two files still fragmented and they
are only in two parts. Before I had about numerous files with hundreds of
fragments.

Now to cure my other problem with Drive Image.

 

[Lil' Dave]

Can you recommend a better defragmenter than the one supplied with Windows
XP?

I'm using Drive Image to image two hard drives to a third one every night.
The images are split into 600MByte chunks so there are about 40 x 600MByte
files written every night. The drive is never more than about 60% full.

Am assuming you're splitting the image files for backup to CD. If you're
not, don't split em.

Problem is that after awhile the standard defragmenter seems to give up. It
recommends defragmenting but terminates after 1 second and reports many
"files that did not defragment". These are split into 200 or 300+

fragments.

Is this all the drives, one drive in particular, or what?

Don't defragment your target drive for the image files.

Would it help to increase the size of the chunks to say 4GByte or reduce
them so more smaller files are created?

The standard 4K cluster size is not a problem for NTFS. FAT32 cluster
default size depends on partition capacity.

 

[CWatters]

news:[email protected]...

Am assuming you're splitting the image files for backup to CD. If you're
not, don't split em.

Yes I figured if I choose 600MBytes I could move them to CD or DVD later if
necessary.

Is this all the drives, one drive in particular, or what?

Just the external USB drive I'm using as the destination for the backup.

Don't defragment your target drive for the image files.

Why not?

The standard 4K cluster size is not a problem for NTFS. FAT32 cluster
default size depends on partition capacity.

No I mean 4GByte splits not clusters (eg 600M allows either CD or DVD.
4GByte allows use of DVD only).

 

[Lil' Dave]

Yes I figured if I choose 600MBytes I could move them to CD or DVD later if

Just the external USB drive I'm using as the destination for the backup.


Why not?


No I mean 4GByte splits not clusters (eg 600M allows either CD or DVD.
4GByte allows use of DVD only).

You've removed critical information from the original post. Therefore, my
reply would suffer lack of information as basis that you removed.. However,
I will say that you're playing games that you seem to already know the
answers to.

 

[CWatters]

,

I will say that you're playing games that you seem to already know the
answers to.

Well I do _now_

 

[Guest]

Can you recommend a better defragmenter than the one supplied with Windows
XP?

Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional Service Pack 4
(plus all the latest updates)

AMD Athlon 900MHz

Installed Memory: 512MB SDRAM

Hard Disc: Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 60 (5T030H3)
Hard Disk (C: 9.8GB (4.7GB, 47% Free) (NTFS)
Hard Disk (G: 9.8GB (3.2GB, 32% Free) (NTFS)
Hard Disk (H: 9.0GB (1.9GB, 22% Free) (NTFS)



I have just stared to look at defrag programs.

I am evaluation O&O Defrag and Diskeeper.

O&O has 5 different options, it can be set to optimise for space access
speed etc.

Diskeeper can run in the background.

They both seem to work OK and my system seems to feel 'faster' but
that's not a very scientific measurement, but it will do for me.