Disk defragmenting

  • Thread starter Thread starter Arif Mehal
  • Start date Start date
Arif said:
How often should I defrag my disks? I use my PC on average, 90-120 mins a
day.
Click to expand...

Hello Arif:

MyDefrag is the new name of the venerable JKDefrag. Version 4.2.1 was
released yesterday and contains the scripts to run daily, weekly and
monthly defragmentation with optimizations with increasingly greater
thoroughness.

<http://www.mydefrag.com/>

Many have known Jeroen Kessels' good work for years. I'd allow all
his scripted routines to run and to be preceded by CCleaner.
 
MyDefrag is the new name of the venerable JKDefrag. Version 4.2.1
was released yesterday and contains the scripts to run daily,
weekly and monthly defragmentation with optimizations with
increasingly greater thoroughness.

<http://www.mydefrag.com/>

Many have known Jeroen Kessels' good work for years. I'd allow
all his scripted routines to run and to be preceded by CCleaner.
Click to expand...

It's a little buggy. I just had it crash on me during a "Monthly
Defrag" operation. I've seen reports on the user forum of others with
similar problems.

I never had any problems with version 4.1.2 or JKDefrag.
 
Arif Mehal said:
How often should I defrag my disks? I use my PC on average, 90-120 mins a
day.
Click to expand...

It's not how often you use your PC but what you do when you are using it.

Since everybody a little bit different on how they use their PC I can only
give you a rough guideline.

Start by defragmenting your drive, let one month go by and see how badly
your drive is fragmented and if there is any noticeable slowdown. If things
are still going smoothly skip the defrag for another month, so now two
months have passed. Again check your fragmentation and if the PC appears to
be slowing down its time to defrag.

On my PC which is on every day for at least 12 hours a day, I only find the
need to defrag about every 3 or 4 months.
 
Nil said:
It's a little buggy. I just had it crash on me during a "Monthly
Defrag" operation. I've seen reports on the user forum of others with
similar problems.

I never had any problems with version 4.1.2 or JKDefrag.
Click to expand...

Hello Nil:

Although I ran my 4.2.1 in monthly mode yesterday with no trouble just
means the situation is fluid and might be software/hardware dependent.
Even if your system total froze, it's been the nature of JKDefrag and
beyond to follow all the rules and /nothing/ should have been lost.

FWIW
 
when vista was released a white
paper was issued.

in it, the microsoft software
engineers stated that running defrag
on an ntfs disk is not necessary.

there is a correlation to the amount
of time a disk spends looking for
fragmented files during the course
of normal use

to that of the amount of time spent
spends defragging the disk.

in other words a disk can spend
15 minutes extra in a month seeking
fragmented files

or you can spend 90 minutes a
month defragging a disk.

------------------

however, if your system seems to runs
better after a defrag then run it since
it is your system and not the software
engineers.

at best defragging the registry is more
important than defragging the other
files on the disk.

-------------------

so my suggestion is to use microsoft's
one care online scanner to tune
up your system monthly.

however, before running a defrag
be sure to clean it up from trash
files, because you don't need them
to be defragged or spend time with
them.

also, run a chkdsk to ensure your
mft (master file table) is up to date
before a defrag,


--
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DatabaseBen, Retired Professional
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
when vista was released a white
paper was issued.

in it, the microsoft software
engineers stated that running defrag
on an ntfs disk is not necessary.
Click to expand...

Not necessary? Perhaps with Vista. Vista is so slow anyway, hard drive
performance is the least of its problems. But on prior versions of
Windows periodic defragging will noticeably improve HD performance,
particularly if the HD is more than about 75% full. And by periodic, I
mean every few months. Certainly not daily or weekly. Waste of time.
If the HD is 50% or less full, I never bother defragging.

[snip]

so my suggestion is to use microsoft's one care online scanner to tune
up your system monthly.

however, before running a defrag
be sure to clean it up from trash
files, because you don't need them
to be defragged or spend time with
them.
Click to expand...

Also temp files, unneeded app install files, etc. I prefer CCleaner
instead of the system cleaner for this. Does a more thorough job. And
before defragging, backup all your data and files to an EXTERNAL source.
also, run a chkdsk to ensure your
mft (master file table) is up to date before a defrag,
Click to expand...

Good suggestion.


Stef
 
How often should I defrag my disks? I use my PC on average, 90-120 mins a
day.
Click to expand...


There's no answer that's right for everyone. It depends on how you use
your computer and it depends on how much you use your computer.

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.
 
1PW said:
Hello Arif:

MyDefrag is the new name of the venerable JKDefrag. Version 4.2.1 was
released yesterday and contains the scripts to run daily, weekly and
monthly defragmentation with optimizations with increasingly greater
thoroughness.

<http://www.mydefrag.com/>

Many have known Jeroen Kessels' good work for years. I'd allow all
his scripted routines to run and to be preceded by CCleaner.
Click to expand...

What does that have to do with his query? You completely ignored the
question posed, choosing instead to create a spam with your response.
When you have nothing to say, that's exactly what you should say.

Twayne`
 
Arif Mehal said:
How often should I defrag my disks? I use my PC on average, 90-120
mins a day.
Click to expand...

As others have said, there isn't any rule of thumb other than see what
happens and do it when it's convenient.

One thing that hasn't been mentioned very much is the length of time it
takes to defrag if you're also using the machine at the same time. The
more fragmented a disk becomes, the longer it takes to defrag,
especially if you're the type that has to sit and watch it work<g>,
which I am not.
But, a little contrary to the other's opinions, I look for the points
that would hopefully be before the fragmentation becomes bad enough to
require excessive time to do the drfrags. With 4 physical drives to
manage, you can see how the times could mount up. In general, I defrage
the C system drive monthly unless I do a bunch of installs and
uninstalls, at which point I'll usually do a defrag when all is done.
Drives C and D don't fragment much so they get done pretty much when I
remember to do them which might be three or four months at a crack.
Drive G though gets used for video editing and rendering so it gets
defragged after every session, meaning every day or maybe up to three,
depending on how long it takes me to complete a session. Fragmentation
is through the roof for activities like that. Drive E is a data drive
with varying fragmentaion rates so for that one I just look at the map
and decide from there. It also contains the page file. It gets a lot
of add/deletes in a feast/famine way, so it's never the same twice,
really.
When the dust settled out, it appeared, but this is not a hard & fast
rule because many other things come into play, that I usually defragged
at around the 15% fragmented level for fast defrags and minimum loss of
times spent on it.
Finally I placed a top-screen menu that shows at a glance the
fragmented level of each drive letter on each of the drives. Each one
is set with a 15% alert trigger so when that goes off I know it's time
to think about defragging again. That seemed to work the best and is
what I still use. Interestingly enough, it works out for about the same
time periods I described initially.

So all I'm trying to say is, IMO, defrag before it'll take an excessiveg
length of time to do so, which is usually before you'll notice a slowing
of disk accesses due to fragmentation. Thus I'm seldom bothered with
slowdowns due to fragmentation.
If you wait for a disk to feel slow, you may well be up over 50%
fragmented and that's possibly going to take hours instead of minutes to
defrag.
Once you're confident it's all working well, turn it over to your
overnight schedules and let it all happen at night, along with backups,
AV and other time consuming tasks. Just check periodically in the
mornings to be sure everything worked right and there were no failures.

Essentially, as others have said, experiment a bit to find the "sweet
spot" for your own use. Tweak it as time goes along if you have to.
And don't concentrate too much on whether the disk is starting to feel
slower; you'll drive yourself bananas<g>.

HTH,

Twayne`
 
Hi Arif: How about using the "Analize" button (in Win XP) to determine the
need for defragging?
Fred
 
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