advised to defragg every day?

[johngood_____]

I read somewhere that I could defragment my hard drive more quickly if i
used the free software 'Diskeeper'.

after it had finished defragging, this came up:

------------------------------------------------------
Findings on C:

Diskeeper has completed a defragmentation run on this volume and there
remain 2 fragmented files and/or directories and 741 excess fragments.
(There were 2603 excess fragments before the defragmentation run, and now
there are 71% less.)

The average number of fragments per file is 1.00.

On average, you have 0% excess fragments per file on this volume. This is a
slightly fragmented volume. You should schedule Diskeeper to run at least
once a day (if you haven't already done so) to keep fragmentation at a low
level.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I read somewhere that I could defragment my hard drive more quickly if i
used the free software 'Diskeeper'.

after it had finished defragging, this came up:

------------------------------------------------------
Findings on C:

Diskeeper has completed a defragmentation run on this volume and there
remain 2 fragmented files and/or directories and 741 excess fragments.
(There were 2603 excess fragments before the defragmentation run, and now
there are 71% less.)

The average number of fragments per file is 1.00.

On average, you have 0% excess fragments per file on this volume. This is a
slightly fragmented volume. You should schedule Diskeeper to run at least
once a day (if you haven't already done so) to keep fragmentation at a low
level.

Neither. You are fine as you are. Defragging once a day is *enormous*
overkill, and almost nobody needs to do that.

You should defragment your drive when doing so results in a speed up.
Here's what I recommend. Pick some arbitrary interval--for example
once a month. Defragment on that interval a few times, and assess
whether the computer generally feels faster after doing so. If the
answer is yes, defrag more frequently. If the answer is no, defrag
less frequently.

Repeat a few times, and you'll soon settle into a frequency that works
well for you.

Alternatively, you won't go far wrong if you just do it once a month.

 

[Ghostrider]

I read somewhere that I could defragment my hard drive more quickly if i
used the free software 'Diskeeper'.

after it had finished defragging, this came up:

------------------------------------------------------
Findings on C:

Diskeeper has completed a defragmentation run on this volume and there
remain 2 fragmented files and/or directories and 741 excess fragments.
(There were 2603 excess fragments before the defragmentation run, and now
there are 71% less.)

The average number of fragments per file is 1.00.

On average, you have 0% excess fragments per file on this volume. This is a
slightly fragmented volume. You should schedule Diskeeper to run at least
once a day (if you haven't already done so) to keep fragmentation at a low
level.

Never found it necessary to defragment daily. And it makes less sense
to re-install Windows in lieu of defragmenting. The time (and trouble)
to re-install Windows is significanty greater than routine defragmenting.

 

[Patrick Keenan]

I read somewhere that I could defragment my hard drive more quickly if i
used the free software 'Diskeeper'.

after it had finished defragging, this came up:

------------------------------------------------------
Findings on C:

Diskeeper has completed a defragmentation run on this volume and there
remain 2 fragmented files and/or directories and 741 excess fragments.
(There were 2603 excess fragments before the defragmentation run, and now
there are 71% less.)

The average number of fragments per file is 1.00.

On average, you have 0% excess fragments per file on this volume. This is
a
slightly fragmented volume. You should schedule Diskeeper to run at least
once a day (if you haven't already done so) to keep fragmentation at a low
level.

Defragmenting every day is really not needed, except in very specific
circumstances, such as professional-grade multitrack audio or video
production where absolutely maximum system performance is required.

With average use and a reasonable level of free drive space, there is really
no benefit from daily defragmentation. The performance hit from the very
mild fragmentation that occurs normally is likely far less than the time to
run the defragmenter.

I read that Diskkeeper is OK, but my own experience is that it reliably
blue-screened the computer I tried it on - this one - a plain XP laptop,
and that was and is simply unacceptable.

HTH
-pk

 

[gsjutla]

Fragment is inevitable. Even if you reinstall windows it is going to happen
again. Fragmentation happens when your OS chooses to write quickly to the
hard disk at a nearest block of available space. The problem happens when the
data is read back. Fragmentation moves all the bits of related content to the
nearest or the same block to make access faster. However defragmentation
requires a lot of calculations. Depending upon the available disk space, hard
disk access speeds etc defragmentation can be both good or bad. If you have a
reasonably fast hard disk and a lot of disk space available it may be a good
idea to have frequent defragmentation. If you have a slow hard disk, what is
the point for defragmentation everyday when most of the time will be spent
moving the data. I guess doing it fortnightly may be a good idea or schedule
if for a time when you don't use the computer. Avoid stressing up the disks
too much.

 

[Shenan Stanley]

I read somewhere that I could defragment my hard drive more quickly
if i used the free software 'Diskeeper'.

I would recommend:
http://www.kessels.com/JkDefrag/

Simple, low overhead, can be scheduled easily and fast/efficient, free...

after it had finished defragging, this came up:

------------------------------------------------------
Findings on C:

Diskeeper has completed a defragmentation run on this volume and
there remain 2 fragmented files and/or directories and 741 excess
fragments. (There were 2603 excess fragments before the
defragmentation run, and now there are 71% less.)

The average number of fragments per file is 1.00.

On average, you have 0% excess fragments per file on this volume. This is
a slightly fragmented volume. You should schedule
Diskeeper to run at least once a day (if you haven't already done
so) to keep fragmentation at a low level.

Wow - once a day? That's insane (to me) unless you are doing some major
file writing/erasure on that system. millions upon millions of complete
file creation/file removal events perhaps?

 

[VanguardLH]

in message

I read somewhere that I could defragment my hard drive more quickly
if i
used the free software 'Diskeeper'.

The free version is extremely antiquated. Version 7 (freeware
version) is dated way back to 2002-10-18. Support and updates to it
were discontinued a long time ago. The "free" but newer versions are
SHAREWARE, not freeware.

Just use the defrag utility already included in Windows (use
defrag.exe if you are running it from a command line, like as a
scheduled event in Task Scheduler). If you schedule the event to run
while you are sleeping, it doesn't matter if one program is slower by
a few minutes than another.

since it still takes quite a time to defrag should i really be
running it
every day as they suggest?

And what boob told you to defrag every day? Even once a month is
probably more than you need, especially if you use NTFS instead of
FAT.

Just WHO is "they" or "I read somewhere"?

Or would it make sense to reinstall my windows XP.

That won't do anything regarding fragmentation (and getting rid of it)
since it will restart happening as soon as you install the OS and then
again when you install applications and then when you start modifying
your data files.

And the need to append 19 blank lines was why?

 

[Leythos]

I read somewhere that I could defragment my hard drive more quickly if i
used the free software 'Diskeeper'.

Actually, once a day is overkill in all except extreme cases. I would
suggest that you look at JKDefrag and then setup a TASK to run it as you
deem needed.

--

Leythos
- Igitur qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum.
- Calling an illegal alien an "undocumented worker" is like calling a
drug dealer an "unlicensed pharmacist"
(e-mail address removed) (remove 999 for proper email address)

 

[VanguardLH]

Oh, by the way, just what do you think you are saving by defragging
everyday? The purpose of defrag is to make it faster to find the
*rest* of a file. It still takes, on average, the same amount of time
to find the first sector of a file so you don't save anything with a
defrag for that. The savings is how long it takes to find the rest of
the sectors for the file. However, you are spending lots of time,
using up CPU cycles, maybe waiting around for it to complete, and
generating more wear on the drive than you are saving by the defrag.
The defrag gets you maybe a little more speed to read a [big] file but
you are just swamping that out by the huge load of doing an
unnecessary defrag.

 

[Shenan Stanley]

I read somewhere that I could defragment my hard drive more quickly
if i used the free software 'Diskeeper'.

after it had finished defragging, this came up:

------------------------------------------------------
Findings on C:

Diskeeper has completed a defragmentation run on this volume and
there remain 2 fragmented files and/or directories and 741 excess
fragments. (There were 2603 excess fragments before the
defragmentation run, and now there are 71% less.)

The average number of fragments per file is 1.00.

On average, you have 0% excess fragments per file on this volume. This is
a slightly fragmented volume. You should schedule
Diskeeper to run at least once a day (if you haven't already done
so) to keep fragmentation at a low level.

VanguardLH wrote:

And what boob told you to defrag every day? Even once a month is
probably more than you need, especially if you use NTFS instead of
FAT.

<snip>

*grin*
I believe it was the DisKeeper utility that made the suggestion they are
referring to. After all, that's what they state in their original post.

"... after it had finished defragging, this came up: ..."
(In reference to their prior statement, "i used the free software
'Diskeeper'"...)

And the statement the software gave them:
"You should schedule Diskeeper to run at least once a day (if you haven't
already done so) to keep fragmentation at a low level."

Yeah - crazy, but there... heh

 

[Plato]

I read somewhere that I could defragment my hard drive more quickly if i
used the free software 'Diskeeper'.

Waste of time.