I'm taking a different slant on this. What I want foremost from a
defragment program is that it is careful! A defragmenter that's too
quick could trash a whole lot of data if conditions aren't perfect. ("Do
you want it fast or do you want it good?") AFAIK, the Windows defragger
is a Symantec product, one of those items with a good lineage from Peter
Norton. A defragmentation program should be cautious and check where
it's going to put stuff safely while running -- also to have a foolproof
way to keep track of where things got put; hopefully, for example, it
should be able to recover all the data in the event of a power failure
during the process (did you think about that?).
My System Suite utility set includes a fast defragger. I notice that its
instructions say to run Scandisk before using it. The Microsoft and the
traditional old Norton defraggers don't have such a caution. Guess why?
I'm going to defragment my hard drive this Tuesday. I have elected to
use the Windows program rather than the System Suite version.
I know that Norton Utilities ( Symantec ) has a very fast defragmenter
as I used to own NU 2001.
Defragging a hard drive used to take only about 10 minutes with it.
Would the windows 98 SE defragmenter be a little too harsh on the hard
drive, seeing that it can take a lot longer and the hard drive sounds
like its getting a good workout during the whole time ?
So maybe it does do a great job but is there a wear and tear cost to
the life of the hard-drive ?
Thanks for your comments Richard. I have seen some other so called
defragmenters on download.com ( CNET ) and some rather poor reader
reviewers so obviously faster isn't necessarily better and especially
if you need to run scan disk, unless they advise it as it may be
considered good practise to check for errors before defragging.
I generally do out of habit
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Please be patient for my reply as I only log on Wednedays
and Saturdays to read messages & reply.
