Which defrag?

[Dave]

That's also part of the philosophy behind PerfectDisk, and PerfectDisk
otherwise does a much better job than Norton.

Well, I took the plunge and downloaded, installed and ran a trial copy
of PerfectDisk. Must say that I like it. However, I do wish it would
allow you to configure how you would like to sort your
files/directories. An included PDF manual would also be nice.
However, the defrag on boot is nice. I can see that you get a better
defragging and "hole filling" (some call it compressing) while at the
system level. I also like the fact that they don't treat you like a
common criminal by making you prove that you didn't steal their
software after paying for it by using that activation trash certain
companies are adopting. Being so, it will be more than a pleasure to
send them money to register their software. Its nice to be treated
with respect instead of being treated with suspicion of thievery like
you are by the activation scheme crowd.

Regards,
DW

 

[Enkidu]

:




Although I disagree with you about defragmentation, you are
actually closer to the truth than many people might think,
especially if you have a machine with lots of RAM and you
either leave your machine on all the time or you merely log
out without actually rebooting, i.e. a system in which lots of
program code and data end up in the RAM system cache and stay
there for long periods of time.

Yes, all the testing that I've done was on servers, which
typically have the characteristics you mention.

The point is that -- other things being equal -- CPU and
RAM probably account for about 95-97% of system performance,
with a defragmented and junk-free hard drive accounting for
the remaining 3-5 percent.

If you mean that you could improve performance by those
%ages, I'd agree with you. Disk is so slow relatively,
though, that the 3-5% improvement *should* make a huge
difference. In a server situation though, I've not seen it
make a noticeable difference.

One test I'd like to make, if I were doing this today would
be to run a script-based testing tool rather than use simple
batch files.

There is no good justification for putting up with a 3-5
percent performance hit by not regularly defragging doing
idle periods, but on the other hand the benefits of
defragmentation are often overhyped, especially by
the third party defragmentation vendors.

There very few independant studies. Search for
defragmentation on the web and you there is almost no hard
evidence. There's plenty of references to Microsoft
documents which talk about defragmentation and how it works,
but little evidence that quantifies the possible
improvements. Which are likely to be different for database
servers or web servers or workstations or home machines.

There was a need for defragmentation back in the early days
of Windows with small, slow disks on FAT16 filesystems. I'm
not convinced there's a need when we have large, fast disks
and NTFS filesystems. Not to mention large amounts of RAM.

Cheers,

Cliff

 

[Enkidu]

I mostly agree. That's why I had the "theoretically" in
there. However defragging involves reading and *writing*
lots of data as opposed to normal use which has a bias in
favour of reading.

However, defragging might destroy a certain natural
optimisation that comes from actually using the data. Small
frequently used files and fragments might come to move
closer to the MFT and MFT extension. Larger and less
frequently used files might tend to move further out.

I don't know, I'm guessing on that. But pragmatically, I've
not been able to see any significant benefits from a
defragmentation.

Cheers,

Cliff

"If you have a reasonably large hard disk, there
is little real advantage in defragging a disk. In
addition it exercises the disk which theoretically
reduces its life."

Conversely, if you don't defragment, then it causes
extra seeks on your hard drive which theoretically
reduces its life. So-o-o, darned if you do, darned
if you don't

Seriously, defragmentation doesn't reduce hard life
expectancy with modern hard drives. This ranks right
up there along with other computer myths. And, it
doesn't matter how large of a hard drive you have,
fragmentation happens - it is designed to happen -
its part of how the file system function.

 

[Jou simpel kont]

I mostly agree. That's why I had the "theoretically" in
there.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Nice back-pedal, chopfuck.

 

[Modem Ani]

Newsgroups are available to an audience of millions. You should pick one
group and post there.

Modem Ani

 

[Modem Ani]

So, now that you've taken the plunge, how much faster does your system run?
How much faster does it boot? Got any before and after benchmarks to share?

Modem Ani

 

[Guest]

So, now that you've taken the plunge, how much faster does your system run?
How much faster does it boot? Got any before and after benchmarks to share?

If only people would answer these types of questions after trying all
so-called "performance enhancing" software, they would have a much better
understanding of how well XP actually performs even when you don't mess with
it beyond what it is already designed to do.

Ken

 

[Guest]

There very few independant studies. Search for
defragmentation on the web and you there is almost no hard
evidence. There's plenty of references to Microsoft
documents which talk about defragmentation and how it works,
but little evidence that quantifies the possible
improvements. Which are likely to be different for database
servers or web servers or workstations or home machines.

These points are sources of constant frustration that I have with most
so-called performance enhancing software, including but not limited to
defraggers. Intellectually I am perfectly capable of understanding that
other things being equal, a defragmented hard drive will out-perform a
fragmented hard drive. But are we talking here about seconds, tenths of
seconds, or milliseconds?

My own personal experience, which is as a workstation user, is that a
regularly defragmented hard drive can save you seconds rather than
milliseconds in disk drive operations, i.e. you can actually notice the
difference. However, I cannot notice any transparent difference between
defragging a hard drive using the XP built-in defragger and defragging using
a third party program such as Diskeeper or PerfectDisk. Of these programs,
only Diskeeper even attempts to measure the performance improvement you might
gain, but it does so in terms of percentages rather than actual time. If it
takes ten milliseconds to load a file when it used to take five milliseconds,
that may be a 50% improvement but no human being will ever notice it. If,
instead, we are taking about tenths of seconds, then the improvement will be
noticable.

Ken

 

[Modem Ani]

"My own personal experience, which is as a workstation user, is that a
regularly defragmented hard drive can save you seconds rather than
milliseconds in disk drive operations, i.e. you can actually notice the
difference."

I think most people would agree with you.

Many users do not seem to realize that XP performs partial defrags in the
background, and that the design of these defrags - as I understand it - was
well thought-out to get the best bang for the buck. A third party defragger
is 'improving' on regular partial defrags, not on a system that has not been
defragged at all for months.

I have no problem if someone wants to use a third party defragger. If it
makes them feel better about their system and does no harm, why not go for
it. For me, the unmeasurable improvement in performance is not worth the
extra lines of code in RAM or the extra CPU. In my experience, a leaner
configuration runs best.

Modem Ani

 

[Rebecca]

Newsgroups are available to an audience of millions. You should pick
one group and post there.

Modem Ani

Actually not. He did it correctly, what needs to be changed is to get rid of
self-appointed netkkkops like yourself.

AND STOP TOP-POSTING YOU ****TARD. If you're going to preach to others, "How
To Post" -- learn to do it right yourself. Now FROAD.

 

[14 Stone Ninja]

relic (e-mail address removed), wrote in message
[email protected]:

"Try it for free" link at the bottom:
http://www.vopt.com/VoptXP.htm

That's the best one.

 

[14 Stone Ninja]

Rebecca (e-mail address removed), wrote in message
[email protected]:

Actually not. He did it correctly, what needs to be changed is to get
rid of self-appointed netkkkops like yourself.

AND STOP TOP-POSTING YOU ****TARD. If you're going to preach to
others, "How To Post" -- learn to do it right yourself. Now FROAD.

You failed to call the **** a ****.

 

[Enkidu]

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Nice back-pedal, chopfuck.

Your nick suits.

Cheers,

Cliff

 

[Enkidu]

Many users do not seem to realize that XP performs
partial defrags in the background, and that the design
of these defrags - as I understand it - was well
thought-out to get the best bang for the buck.

That's interesting! Got a reference for that?

Cheers,

Cliff

 

[SteveK]

Hello all,

New user of XP home w/ sp2. Is the native defrag adequate or should I get
a better one? Which is better, O&O pro or PerfectDisk?

The native defrag is fully sufficient - no need for a commercial version.




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[Modem Ani]

Are you looking for a reference about whether XP performs partial defrags in
the background or whether these partial defrags were designed with "best
bang for the buck"?

If you're asking about partial defragmentation, information on this abounds.
For example, this from TechNet: "Once every three days, by default, Windows
XP will perform a partial defragmentation and adjust the layout of the disk
based upon current use."
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/evaluate/xpperf.mspx

If you're asking about "best bang for the buck" - sorry, while I have read
that more than once I can't remember a specific reference right now.

Modem Ani

 

[jt]

Newsgroups are available to an audience of millions. You should pick one
group and post there.

The fact that they are "available" does not equate to people "availing"
themselves of their services. Five groups is not an unreasonable
cross-post. If you don't like the "alt" hierarchy, you're certainly free to
post only in moderated groups.

 

[Dave]

So, now that you've taken the plunge, how much faster does your system run?
How much faster does it boot? Got any before and after benchmarks to share?

Well, as my past message indicates, I have only used it for a day now
so lets see if I can tell you what I have seen in one day.

And, as my previous posts indicated, I was using Norton's Speed Disk
which works much the same way as PerfectDisk in that it not only
defrags but moves everything forward to fill the "holes" which means
that refragmentation takes a bit longer to occur unlike on systems
that were only defragmented but the bunches of open "holes" were left
to excite further fragmentation.

So, with that, I have seen no difference between any speed taken to
load the mega CAD files we load on and off all day long between
Norton's Speed Disk and PerfectDisk. However, the defrag utilities
that I had tried before going to Norton's speed disk and now testing
PerfectDisk did show that they didn't do much to keep the loading time
on these mega CAD files down. I found out that the reason was because
they left open holes and every time a mega sized CAD file was saved,
it just starting filling in all the holes and thus became fragmented
and took longer to load up next time around.

So, All I can say is that in the specific type of operations we do
with computers, defragmenting Along With compression or filling the
holes up or whatever the specific utility calls it, does better at
mega CAD file loading performance. I see no sense in defragmenting if
you aren't going to fill up all the holes left behind. Sorry if I
don't use the proper technical terms for everything but I'm just a
business owner that looks for anything to keep the performance of our
CAD machines up to snuff. I go with what my operators tell me works
because they are on the systems 8-10 hours/day. They say
Defragmenting WITH Compression (filling the holes up) is the ticket.

Even though Speed Disk and PerfectDisk operate the same (give the same
performance benefits), I like this PerfectDisk's GUI and graphical
progress indicator better that Norton's. That is why I am leaning
toward changing from Norton to PerfectDisk and of course as long as it
keeps my CAD operators happy.

Hope this answered your question.

Regards,
DW

 

[Dave]

If only people would answer these types of questions after trying all
so-called "performance enhancing" software, they would have a much better
understanding of how well XP actually performs even when you don't mess with
it beyond what it is already designed to do.

If you want people to "answer these types of questions" then have the
common courtesy to allow them more than a few hours to evaluate the
software......

DW

 

[User N]

Are you looking for a reference about whether XP performs partial defrags in
the background or whether these partial defrags were designed with "best
bang for the buck"?

If you're asking about partial defragmentation, information on this abounds.
For example, this from TechNet: "Once every three days, by default, Windows
XP will perform a partial defragmentation and adjust the layout of the disk
based upon current use."
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/evaluate/xpperf.mspx

If you're asking about "best bang for the buck" - sorry, while I have read
that more than once I can't remember a specific reference right now.

Some more info is presented down the page at:
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/sysperf/benchmark.mspx

You can actually see the results via something like SysInternals DiskView,
which is just below this link:
http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/source/misc.shtml#diskext

Sometime after running an O&O complete by name defreg/optimization,
XP did its thing on my drive. I didn't check them all, but it appears that
the files listed in my layout.ini were moved to a contiguous block which is
approx 80% of the way into my volume and sits alone, the last thing on
the volume. Visually speaking that is. According to MS that should be
closer to the outer edge of the disk, but that still doesn't smell right to me.