XP Defrag requires 15 percent freespace

  • Thread starter Thread starter Kane's son
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Kane's son

XP Home SP1 defrag gave message that to successfully complete this operation
15 percent freespace was needed and I had only 7 percent. The drive is large
and 7 percent translates to 7.5 GB free, is this really not enough to run
defrag successfully? Thanks.
 
Kane's son said:
XP Home SP1 defrag gave message that to successfully complete this
operation 15 percent freespace was needed and I had only 7 percent.
The drive is large and 7 percent translates to 7.5 GB free, is this
really not enough to run defrag successfully? Thanks.
Click to expand...

First off, the percentage needed is because you need enough room to move
around a reasonable amount of your data. 15% is a reasonable amount of your
data. Defragmentation requires a large amount of data to be relocated. It
needs room to do this safely.

However, other products (the full version of Diskeeper and PerfectDisk) do
not have this requirement. But, you are using the "free version" of
Diskeeper, so you get what you paid for. =)
 
Defragmenting from the Command Line
http://www.microsoft.com/mspress/books/sampchap/6559.asp

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows XP - Shell/User

Be Smart! Protect Your PC!
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/protect/default.aspx

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

:

| XP Home SP1 defrag gave message that to successfully complete this operation
| 15 percent freespace was needed and I had only 7 percent. The drive is large
| and 7 percent translates to 7.5 GB free, is this really not enough to run
| defrag successfully? Thanks.
|
| --
| Regards
 
You probably can increase free space by deleting System Restore
points -Disk CleanUp, More Options, System Restore. Do you not also have
data files that you could back up to CD?

--


Hope this helps.

Gerry
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Shenan said:
First off, the percentage needed is because you need enough room to move
around a reasonable amount of your data. 15% is a reasonable amount of your
data. Defragmentation requires a large amount of data to be relocated. It
needs room to do this safely.

However, other products (the full version of Diskeeper and PerfectDisk) do
not have this requirement. But, you are using the "free version" of
Diskeeper, so you get what you paid for. =)
Click to expand...

Ah, but it is paid for, it is included in Windows, which as we all know
is not free, and Microsoft paid for it when they bought it from
Executive Software.

Steve
 
Shenan said:
First off, the percentage needed is because you need enough room to
move around a reasonable amount of your data. 15% is a reasonable
amount of your data. Defragmentation requires a large amount of data
to be relocated. It needs room to do this safely.

However, other products (the full version of Diskeeper and
PerfectDisk) do not have this requirement. But, you are using the
"free version" of Diskeeper, so you get what you paid for. =)
Click to expand...

Upshot is that in your opinion the integral XP defrag app is a bit cheap and
nasty and I should buy third party if I want a good product. As to the rest
really what I was asking is surely 7.5 GB is sufficient to run the defrag
process and that the 15 percent point is used unintelligently by the program
and based from a time when drives were smaller. The defrag still ran at 7
percent free. Once more with feeling - 7.5 GB is surely enough, does anyone
know if this actually is not the case. Thanks.
 
Kane's son said:
XP Home SP1 defrag gave message that to successfully complete this
operation 15 percent freespace was needed and I had only 7 percent.
The drive is large and 7 percent translates to 7.5 GB free, is this
really not enough to run defrag successfully? Thanks.
Click to expand...

Shenan said:
First off, the percentage needed is because you need enough room to
move around a reasonable amount of your data. 15% is a reasonable
amount of your data. Defragmentation requires a large amount of data
to be relocated. It needs room to do this safely.

However, other products (the full version of Diskeeper and
PerfectDisk) do not have this requirement. But, you are using the
"free version" of Diskeeper, so you get what you paid for. =)
Click to expand...

Kane's son said:
Upshot is that in your opinion the integral XP defrag app is a bit
cheap and nasty and I should buy third party if I want a good
product. As to the rest really what I was asking is surely 7.5 GB is
sufficient to run the defrag process and that the 15 percent point is
used unintelligently by the program and based from a time when drives
were smaller. The defrag still ran at 7 percent free. Once more with
feeling - 7.5 GB is surely enough, does anyone know if this actually
is not the case. Thanks.
Click to expand...


Let's put it this way - if other products can do it without 15% free, then
yes - it is enough - wouldn't you say.

Do it several times, until you notice no change or the only change you
notice is reversed and repeated every other time.

Essentially, as I put it before, the 15% is where the defragmentation works
best. 7.5GB is not much space when you are talking 115GB total. I have
individual files larger than 7.5GB. I have partitions on my home PCs that
are greater than 1TB in size.. 7.5GB surely would not be enough on these
partitions.
 
Kane's son wrote:

Upshot is that in your opinion the integral XP defrag app is a bit cheap and
nasty and I should buy third party if I want a good product. As to the rest
really what I was asking is surely 7.5 GB is sufficient to run the defrag
process and that the 15 percent point is used unintelligently by the program
and based from a time when drives were smaller. The defrag still ran at 7
percent free. Once more with feeling - 7.5 GB is surely enough, does anyone
know if this actually is not the case. Thanks.
Click to expand...

Well, if it won't run, then it's not enough for defrag.exe. The app
that comes with XP is fine, just not as full featured as 3rd party apps
of this kind, as is the case with most 3rd party apps - they provide
more functionality, but at a higher price.
 
And that added expense would be best spent on a new drive, IMHO.
Click to expand...

That added expense can be used across multiple drives to regain
performance and if you combine that with basic archival methods you could
regain lots of performance from the system.
 
Leythos said:
That added expense can be used across multiple drives to regain
performance and if you combine that with basic archival methods you could
regain lots of performance from the system.
Click to expand...

Prove it.
 
Kane's son said:
Upshot is that in your opinion the integral XP defrag app is a bit cheap and
nasty and I should buy third party if I want a good product. As to the rest
really what I was asking is surely 7.5 GB is sufficient to run the defrag
process and that the 15 percent point is used unintelligently by the program
and based from a time when drives were smaller. The defrag still ran at 7
percent free. Once more with feeling - 7.5 GB is surely enough, does anyone
know if this actually is not the case. Thanks.
Click to expand...

Why are you defragging? Do you have performance issues that you think
are caused by file fragmentation? If not, leave it alone. Save your
money for a bigger hard drive.
 
MS has always negotiated special limited versions of utilities for inclusion
in their OS'.
 
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