Defrag query

[Netty]

Last night I defragged my HD using Auslogics defrag program.

I've just turned on my PC and checked how much free space I now have and
I've gone from having 54.2gb free space on one partition of the HD to 51.3gb
after the defrag. How can this be? Surely there should be more empty
clusters/free space on my HD now than was before?

Would it best for me to run the defrag tool a few more times? This is the
first time I've actually defragged the HD since getting this PC 2 years ago.
I now know I should run the defrag tool more regularly.

TIA
Netty

 

[John Galt]

Last night I defragged my HD using Auslogics defrag program.

I've just turned on my PC and checked how much free space I now have and
I've gone from having 54.2gb free space on one partition of the HD to 51.3gb
after the defrag. How can this be? Surely there should be more empty
clusters/free space on my HD now than was before?

Defragging does nothing to regain space.

If you get an increase in space after defragging, it's probably due to
the Volume Shadow Copy Service seeing moved files as being new, ending
up with additional space being used by that service.

Would it best for me to run the defrag tool a few more times? This is the
first time I've actually defragged the HD since getting this PC 2 years ago.
I now know I should run the defrag tool more regularly.

Defragging is way over-rated, especially with Vista. If you NEVER
defragged your drives and merely let Vista do its own thing on its own
schedule, you'd be just fine, and have something less to worry about.

 

[Saucy]

One thing you might do is run "Disk Clean-up" as an administrator.

Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > right-click on Disk
Cleanup and select "Run as administrator"

Under the "More Options" tab look at the lower section called "System
Restore and Shadow Copies" and click the button marked "Clean-up..."

When it asked, click "Delete"

Then click the OK button.

This should not only clean up the drive, but also remove excess System
Restore points (which can take up a lot of room on the drive). The utility
deletes all but the most recent System Restore points.

Saucy

 

[Netty]

Defragging does nothing to regain space.

<snip>

Are you sure??? So my college tutors were wrong when they told me that if I
was running low on HD space to defrag and run the disk clean up tool?

It's something I've always done in over 20 years of using a pc (apart from
the last couple of years). It's just that this is the first time when I've
actually *lost* space after a defrag and it's comfused me as to why it
happened.

 

[Gordon]

Are you sure??? So my college tutors were wrong when they told me that if
I was running low on HD space to defrag and run the disk clean up tool?

It's something I've always done in over 20 years of using a pc (apart from
the last couple of years). It's just that this is the first time when I've
actually *lost* space after a defrag and it's comfused me as to why it
happened.

XP, Vista and Windows 7 have a far better file management function than the
9x versions of Windows.
You shouldn't need to defrag more than once a month in XP, and Vista all you
need to do is to let it do it's own defragging, which it will do on an
on-going basis while the machine is idle.

 

[John Galt]

<snip>

Are you sure??? So my college tutors were wrong when they told me that if I
was running low on HD space to defrag and run the disk clean up tool?

Please. Surely you should see how this statement differs from your
previous one.

You added the disk cleanup tool to the mix... THAT will gain you space
- if there is anything of note to delete. Defragging won't. And
defragging could result in your LOSING space to Volume Shadow Copy
Service action.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

<snip>

Are you sure??? So my college tutors were wrong when they told me that if I
was running low on HD space to defrag and run the disk clean up tool?

I'm not John Galt, but I'm sure. Your college tutors were completely
wrong about defragging. Defragging rearranges the used space on a
drive, and gives you no additional free space.

It's something I've always done in over 20 years of using a pc (apart from
the last couple of years). It's just that this is the first time when I've
actually *lost* space after a defrag and it's comfused me as to why it
happened.

From the information you've provided, I can't tell you why you lost
space, but I can tell you it had nothing to do with defragging. Again,
it just rearranges, and does not change the amount of free space (in
either direction).

And if your college tutors told you to run the disk clean up tool if
you were running low on HD space, they weren't literally wrong, but it
wasn't good advice. If you are short of disk space, deleting the files
that disk cleanup does will save you only a tiny amount, and will be
nothing but a stopgap measure. Buy a bigger hard drive.

 

[Saucy]

When you use the Disk Cleanup tool, be sure to run it as an administrator
and to go to the More Options tab and delete excess System Restore points -
there can be dozens of them and they can take up a lot of room. And if you
do not ever put your computer into "hibernation" (different from Sleep),
then you should run

powercfg -h off

at a Command Prompt running as an administrator (right-click and select 'Run
as administrator). You will gain as much disk space as there is RAM,
typically 1 to 4 GB.

Does defragging gain disk space? Maybe - it used to, but now if it does it
does so inconsequentially - it's really not a way to gain disk space! You
could run the defragger from the command prompt:

defrag C: -v

'Else just set Vista up to do it automatically.

Saucy

 

[Richard G. Harper]

Yes, they were absolutely wrong. Defragging the hard drive has never
resulted in more available disk space. By its nature all it does is
re-arrange the existing files so there would be no gain nor loss - the exact
same space would be taken up.

 

[Saucy]

[NTFS - Wikipedia]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ntfs

Saucy

 

[Jim]

<snip>

Are you sure??? So my college tutors were wrong when they told me that if I
was running low on HD space to defrag and run the disk clean up tool?

It's something I've always done in over 20 years of using a pc (apart from
the last couple of years). It's just that this is the first time when I've
actually *lost* space after a defrag and it's comfused me as to why it
happened.

Clean up first , then defrag .

 

[MikeB]

 <snip>

Are you sure??? So my college tutors were wrong when they told me that ifI
was running low on HD space to defrag and run the disk clean up tool?

It's something I've always done in over 20 years of using a pc (apart from
the last couple of years). It's just that this is the first time when I've
actually *lost* space after a defrag and it's comfused me as to why it
happened.

Netty, a couple of observations.

You probably want to run the disk cleanup *before* you dfrag, so that
defrag can reclaim (consolidate) the space freed up by the cleanup.

Defrag simply reallocates unused space into larger blocks of
contiguous free space that has some benefits for large files, and
little benefit for smaller files.

On a defragged disk the heads *may* move less to access a file,
leading to slightly enhanced performance.

What I look out ofr is to make sure the page file and the hibernation
file is not fragmented. The rest is just IMHO, window dressing.

 

[Bill Sharpe]

I'm not John Galt, but I'm sure. Your college tutors were completely
wrong about defragging. Defragging rearranges the used space on a
drive, and gives you no additional free space.

Defrag won't gain any space but disk cleanup most likely will.

Bill

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Defrag won't gain any space but disk cleanup most likely will.

Right, however the amount of space disk cleanup gains has two things
wrong with it:

1. As I said, the amount of space it gains is small, and if that
amount is significant to someone, that person has a more serious
problem, and the only real solution is a larger drive.

2. The space that disk cleanup gains is essentially a temporary gain.
Very quickly, that space will be reused by the same things.