Disk Defrag

[Colin Barnhorst]

That is one of the nice things about some of the third-party defraggers like
Diskeeper and PerfectDisk. They give you choices between defragmentation
strategies based on things like frequency of access or high performance,
etc.

 

[Twayne]

That is one of the nice things about some of the third-party

defraggers like Diskeeper and PerfectDisk. They give you choices
between defragmentation strategies based on things like frequency of
access or high performance, etc.

From what I've read, so does MS. That's why apps like NOrton can report
say 33% fragmented and tell you to defrag, but MS's defrag will tell you
it's not needed. Supposedly it looks at the how often accessed flags.
I've never heard of anything that determines how "important" a file
is to anything; not sure I'd trust that sort of a judgement to software.

My 2 ¢

 

[Gerry]

Twayne

That's why you should ignore "MS's defrag will tell you it's not
needed." You should select View Report and look at the real situation.
However, it's not just a matter of frequently accessed files. You will
normally not need to access System Restore restore points but if left
fragmented their size, will on a disk with limited free disk space,
cause fragmentation of other files, which are in active use.

It's questionable whether you want any Norton product on your computer.
Perfect Disk is I suspect more highly rated but there is really no need
to pay for a third party defragmenter.

--



Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Twayne]

Twayne

I am Twayne: I did not write what's below. It is misquoted by someone
apparently ignorant of such things.

Since the dummy trying to pose as me knows so much, I wonder why he
didn't post a solution? 3rd party apps are the easiest, but it CAN be
done without them by basically turning off/moving the PF, starting in
Safe Mode, and defrag the hard drive, then turn the page file back on
and set it up. Once the files are defragged and contiguous, then the PF
will have to be the same and will be the same; contiguous. Caveat: If
you're not familiar with how to do this effectively and moving the swap
file around, don't do it; you'll have less than satisfactory results.
Better to use a trusted 3rd party app.

HTH

Twayne, the real one.

That's why you should ignore "MS's defrag will tell you it's not
needed."

Untrue: MS's defrag will indeed tell you a defrag is needed, when it is
needed and is causing too many waits during accesses.

You should select View Report and look at the real situation.

Yes, assuming you're talking about Defrag's report. BUT, you will still
need to be experienced enough to know whether the fragmented files are a
problem yet or not.

Depding on what I'm doing, I defrag monthly. But, if I'm doing
something that creates zillions of temporary files such as design work,
or especially video editing and rendering, I do so more often. Video
work in fact requires a defrag every day, sometimes more often,
depending on what's going on with any particular drive. Those are good
reasons to keep a separate working partition for design/video etc. types
of work; they defrag faster and don't mess with the boot drive much.
It's a matter of learning your machine and experience, mostly.

However, it's not just a matter of frequently accessed files. You will
normally not need to access System Restore restore points but if left
fragmented their size, will on a disk with limited free disk space,
cause fragmentation of other files, which are in active use.

Existing Restore Points will have zero impact on fragmentation.
Fragmentation only happens when data is written TO the drive. The total
space used for restore points, although excessive IMO, is limited and
they do not grow uncontrollably.

It's questionable whether you want any Norton product on your
computer. Perfect Disk is I suspect more highly rated but there is
really no need to pay for a third party defragmenter.

It's none of your business to comment on what anyone else had decided to
use on their computers. I'm sure I could say the same about some of the
apps you use too, but even if the opportunity arose and you asked for
assistance, I wouldn't tell you to trash it unless it was actually rogue
or malicious somehow.
Norton, BTW, has an excellent ability to open up the area where a PF
wants to live, and makes it easy to create a continguous PF. Norton's
defrag app is also far form the only feature provided by their software
package; in fact, it's a small part of it. Symantec's Norton Ghost is
pretty decent as is their firewall app. But you don't know that because
you allowed Norton to slow down your computer by bad setups and probably
have no idea what it's capable of. That's fine with me. The only app
I'm using right now is Ghost, but it's a great app with True Image
running a very close second. But you won't know that either because of
your parrot/misattribution mentality.

Learn to quote properly. Flame away; I won't be wasting ether on you
for awhile to come.

 

[PD43]

I am Twayne: I did not write what's below. It is misquoted by someone
apparently ignorant of such things.

Since the dummy trying to pose as me knows so much, I wonder why he
didn't post a solution?

BWAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

That "dummy" wasn't attributing what you quote to YOU... it was Gerry
ADDRESSING what you quoted TO you.

You are the apparent "ignorant" one here.

 

[Guest]

Someone told me that the more you run disk defrg the better chance of
destroying your hard drive. Is this true?

The more fragmented a drive is, the more new or changed files will be
written fragmented, so fragmentation breeds fragmentation.

Defragging all of the seldom-accessed files only has to be done once,
then they are not going to cause further fragmentation and are not
going to inflate the % files fragmented in the report, and do not
themselves require defragging again.

Let the defrag utility decide when to defrag -- when fragmentation is
low it won't defrag and so will cause no wear on the drive, when it is
needed it will do it's stuff but only on the fragmented files, and
thus reduce unnecessary wear on the drive.

Neglected fragmentation is probably the main cause of computers
getting slower and slower until intolerable.

 

[Gerry]

Twayne or Whoever

I am Twayne: I did not write what's below. It is misquoted by
someone apparently ignorant of such things.

That's irrelevant so far as I am concened.

Since the dummy trying to pose as me knows so much, I wonder why he
didn't post a solution? 3rd party apps are the easiest, but it CAN be
done without them by basically turning off/moving the PF, starting in
Safe Mode, and defrag the hard drive, then turn the page file back on
and set it up. Once the files are defragged and contiguous, then the
PF will have to be the same and will be the same; contiguous.

Not necessarily true. It depends on the way the pagefile is managed. If
managed by Windows it will not stay contiguous. A fixed ie.
minimum=maximum pagefile will be immovable and if contiguous it will
stay contiguous, unless or until you change the pagefile setting.

Caveat: If you're not familiar with how to do this effectively and
moving the swap file around, don't do it; you'll have less than
satisfactory results.

I presently have a contiguous pagefile created without using a third
party utility.

Better to use a trusted 3rd party app.

If you have money to burn.

HTH

Twayne, the real one.


Untrue: MS's defrag will indeed tell you a defrag is needed, when it
is needed and is causing too many waits during accesses.

My statement was true just as your one is; because we are referring to
opposite sides of the same coin.

You should select View Report and look at the real situation.

Yes, assuming you're talking about Defrag's report. BUT, you will
still need to be experienced enough to know whether the fragmented
files are a problem yet or not.

It really does not matter if you run Disk Defragmenter more often than
might be absolutely necessary. Besides it's running Disk CleanUp or the
like before running Disk Deframenter, which when carried out together,
combine to bring benefits..

Depding on what I'm doing, I defrag monthly. But, if I'm doing
something that creates zillions of temporary files such as design
work, or especially video editing and rendering, I do so more often.
Video work in fact requires a defrag every day, sometimes more often,
depending on what's going on with any particular drive. Those are
good reasons to keep a separate working partition for design/video
etc. types of work; they defrag faster and don't mess with the boot
drive much.

I would agree with this line of thought. Benefits can accrue if you
remove files that fragment rapidly from the windows partition.

It's a matter of learning your machine and experience,
mostly.

Existing Restore Points will have zero impact on fragmentation.
Incorrect.

Fragmentation only happens when data is written TO the drive.
True.

The
total space used for restore points, although excessive IMO, is
limited and they do not grow uncontrollably.

Restore points can be of some size. They are created automatically daily
and if you install Windows Update. Their impact on fragmentation will be
more significant when there is limited free disk space.

It's none of your business to comment on what anyone else had decided
to use on their computers.
Irrelevant.

I'm sure I could say the same about some
of the apps you use too, but even if the opportunity arose and you
asked for assistance, I wouldn't tell you to trash it unless it was
actually rogue or malicious somehow.

I did not suggest trashing Diskeeper.

Norton, BTW, has an excellent ability to open up the area where a PF
wants to live, and makes it easy to create a continguous PF. Norton's
defrag app is also far form the only feature provided by their
software package; in fact, it's a small part of it. Symantec's
Norton Ghost is pretty decent as is their firewall app. But you
don't know that because you allowed Norton to slow down your computer
by bad setups and probably have no idea what it's capable of.

A lot of users have dumped Norton when they realised the way it
adversely impacts on system performance.

That's
fine with me. The only app I'm using right now is Ghost, but it's a
great app with True Image running a very close second. But you won't
know that either because of your parrot/misattribution mentality.

Learn to quote properly. Flame away; I won't be wasting ether on you
for awhile to come.

I am only interested in correcting what I see as incorect statements
made in the last post. I am not interested in trading personal abuse.


--



Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[RJK]

I've spent more time than I care to remember - fighting with pagefile.sys's.
Specifically getting, and keeping, the damned things contigous, (offline
defrags' etc), and trying to keep them that way, ...i.e. tinkering with
"fixed size" pagefile.sys's. I think it was on aumha.org where one
described strategy was to set a fixed 60mb swap-file on the XP boot drive,
(because XP does not like there to be no swap-file at all on its'
boot-drive), and the larger, (1.5 x's the amount of memory in the box / XP
default size), (2nd) main swapfile on the 1st drive on 2nd hard disk.

Across the years, I've found this strategy does "smooth" things out a
little, and under some conditions there is a small but noticeable
performance benefit e.g. XP can be skittering around doing what it want's
with its' swap-file on 2nd hd, whilst the boot-drive is simultaneosly doing
other things - .... - depending of course on what you're doing on your PC !

regards, Richard