What's wrong with Window's native defrag?

[Fontaine]

I see a lot of threads discussing defrag software. I used to use O&O defrag (fine piece of software), but soon realized that I was fine with Vista's native defrag utility. O&O did offer different types of defrag (Space, Stealth etc) as well as 'jobs' that I could set up to be run. Other than that, Vista's seems fine for me.
If anyone has a non-windows preference, can you tell me why you are using it? (i.e. what features are included that you find essential?)

[RAD]

From my perspective, I don't really know if the Windows defrag is inadequate because it just doesn't give me enough information. Maybe it is great....maybe not. Also, I have a total of eight disks attached to one computer. When the native defragger starts up, it analyzes all 8 disks before it will even let me select anything. That takes quite a while. Then, it just reports "Defrag not needed" most pof the time.

I use PerfectDisk. It lets me analyze what I want and force a defrg whenever I want. Mainly, i was just interested in knowing what it was doing.

Frankly, the aftermarket defraggers are probably not worth the money. But it is interesting to know what is going on.

I have another PC that does not have an aftermarket defrag and only one disk, and I have the Windows defrag set to run every day at 3:00 AM. That one also seems to run smoothly. But most of the time it just reports that "A defrag was not needed".

[Howard Kaikow]

-{ Quote: "I see a lot of threads discussing defrag software. I used to use O&O defrag (fine piece of software), but soon realized that I was fine with Vista's native defrag utility. O&O did offer different types of defrag (Space, Stealth etc) as well as 'jobs' that I could set up to be run. Other than that, Vista's seems fine for me.
If anyone has a non-windows preference, can you tell me why you are using it? (i.e. what features are included that you find essential?)" }-

PerfectDisk, and likely the other defrag software companies have articles describing the advantages.

I too use Perfect disk, it does make a difference.

[Baldrick]

I would agree. The aftermarket defraggers do make a difference. I use DefragExpress and boy does it make a difference when compared to the Win XP native defragger! ;D

[PROROOTECT]

Remember: Defrag ONLY in Safe Mode.

I use IObit Smart Defrag v1.03 from Advanced SystemCare v3.2.0 PRO. Only PRO version have OPTIMIZE function!

I click: Defrag & OPTIMIZE ( here is the difference; files Frequently Used - at the beginning of HDD!:argh: ). Improve the efficiency of the whole disk.

Disk Size: 41.61 GB. Total Files and Dirs: 30980.

Fragmentation before: 0.71% ; Fragmented File Count: 556. I see very red everywhere!

Elapsed Time: 00:20:47.

Defrager File Count: 556. I see very blue, nothing red ...:argh:

Fragmentation after: 0.00%.

Yeah! OPTIMIZED. Here is the difference.

[AKAJohnDoe]

I like the visibility, flexibility, and control the aftermarket products provide.

I picked up PerfectDisk 2008. The only issue I have with it is that it is expensive, a new version comes out (seems like every year), and the upgrade price break for being a current user is almost an insult.

[Fontaine]

Thanks for all the good responses.

[Howard Kaikow]

-{ Quote: "I like the visibility, flexibility, and control the aftermarket products provide.

I picked up PerfectDisk 2008. The only issue I have with it is that it is expensive, a new version comes out (seems like every year), and the upgrade price break for being a current user is almost an insult." }-

I still use PD 8 on my Win 2000 system, but I purchased a PerfectDisk 2008 Professional 3-License Power Pack v8 to v2008 Upgrade for $34.99 last May.

[Fontaine]

Just got to think about something. I have a server PC with about six drives (a few internal, a few external) and I noticed windows defrag is set to run on them all at the same time every week. Would be it be best to cascade them (1am, 2am, 3am, etc) or is running defrag on all those drives at the same time ok?

[Howard Kaikow]

-{ Quote: "Just got to think about something. I have a server PC with about six drives (a few internal, a few external) and I noticed windows defrag is set to run on them all at the same time every week. Would be it be best to cascade them (1am, 2am, 3am, etc) or is running defrag on all those drives at the same time ok?" }-

Running weekly defrags may be overkill, depends on how you use your system.

PD has tools that allow to to monitor fragmentation.

Running defrag concurrenly on more than 1 drive is just a performance issue.

FYI.

ALL defrag progs, be they MSFT or 3rd parties, use the same built-in Defrag API provided by MSFT.

The only differences among the programs are:

1. The GUI.
2. Options/Tools offered.
3. How they chose to layout the defragged files, affects bothe effectiveness of th edefrag and the speed of execution. But they all call the same MSFT provided Defrag API functions.

[Fly]

Windows XP Home Edition, one harddrive.

Windows' own defrag 'thingy' has always worked fine for me, I really don't need another tool.

Perhaps things are different if you have more harddrives or other things that make a difference.

But I really don't think that the average user (I have no experience with Vista) needs a third-party defragger.

[aigle]

I used windows builtin one and to be honest never felt any signifiacnt difference after defrag. IMO defragging doesn,t make any significant difference in practice but it,s a good way for software companies to earn. ;)

[Aaron Here]

-{ Quote: "....IMO defragging doesn,t make any significant difference in practice but it,s a good way for software companies to earn. ;)" }-
I certainly agree with that (since NTFS). However, back in the days when I was using the FAT file-system, as in Win 95-98, defragging made a very noticeable improvement!

[Fly]

-{ Quote: "I used windows builtin one and to be honest never felt any signifiacnt difference after defrag. IMO defragging doesn,t make any significant difference in practice but it,s a good way for software companies to earn. ;)" }-

I don't know from experience if 'defragging' a seriously fragmented drive will improve speed, but it should make it easier to recover data/files if something goes seriously wrong (Corrupted OS, damaged FAT or NTFS table (if there is such a thing)).

[Howard Kaikow]

-{ Quote: "Windows XP Home Edition, one harddrive.

Windows' own defrag 'thingy' has always worked fine for me, I really don't need another tool.

Perhaps things are different if you have more harddrives or other things that make a difference.

But I really don't think that the average user (I have no experience with Vista) needs a third-party defragger." }-

One has to understand what defragging does, and the importance of the layout chosen by the defrag program.

A proper defrag will make a difference.
Read the articles at the (http://www.perfectdisk.com/)
and that of their competitors.

[Howard Kaikow]

-{ Quote: "I used windows builtin one and to be honest never felt any signifiacnt difference after defrag. IMO defragging doesn,t make any significant difference in practice but it,s a good way for software companies to earn. ;)" }-

One has to understand what defragging does, and the importance of the layout chosen by the defrag program.

A proper defrag will make a difference.
Read the articles at the PerfectDisk (http://www.perfectdisk.com/)
and that of their competitors.

[Howard Kaikow]

-{ Quote: "I don't know from experience if 'defragging' a seriously fragmented drive will improve speed, but it should make it easier to recover data/files if something goes seriously wrong (Corrupted OS, damaged FAT or NTFS table (if there is such a thing))." }-

Defragging affects speed of access.

[Mrkvonic]

I don't see anything wrong. I have machines installed in 2005, once, running like the day they were installed. Boot time is 12 seconds. I defrag all the partitions once a month using the built in defragmentation utility.

The one thing that does seems to make a difference is the partitioning, lots of small partitions seems to does the trick. Less fragmentation, less seek, better performance.

Mrk

[Arkham]

Windows defrag (I use XP BTW) is okay for basic conditions, nothing wrong with it.

On the other hand, I have 5 drives currently (500GB or higher) and a few of them see a lot of file traffic that tends to cause fragmentation. With the XP defragger, it would be slow and need scheduling for individual drives. I use Diskeeper '09 Pro on automatic mode to deal with it. Works fine, I can also use the system when defrag is running, and I don't have to worry about overseeing each drive individually.:)

[Osaban]

-{ Quote: "From my perspective, I don't really know if the Windows defrag is inadequate because it just doesn't give me enough information. Maybe it is great....maybe not. Also, I have a total of eight disks attached to one computer. When the native defragger starts up, it analyzes all 8 disks before it will even let me select anything. That takes quite a while. Then, it just reports "Defrag not needed" most pof the time.
" }-

I agree Windows own defrag in Vista gives even less info than the one in XP, and it's painfully slow analyzing and defragging. I got UltimateDefrag 2008 for speed, the graphical interface but specifically for the consolidate feature (among many other possibilities) which allows the virtual volume of Shadow Defender to start with 0 MB (using free defrags or Windows own, SD virtual volume starts with 1,3 GB instead).

To be honest, I'm not totally satisfied with UltimateDefrag 2008 although they are minor things.

[layman]

-{ Quote: "IMO defragging doesn,t make any significant difference in practice but it,s a good way for software companies to earn. ;)" }-

As someone else pointed out, defragging imrpoves the chances of recovering a mistakenly deleted file. There are other, performance-related advantages to defragging, even under NTFS. Some of these relate to placement, but possibly the most significant factor is that AV scanning of a file is considerably slower when it is fragmented. So, even the simple defraggers like Defrag-A-File or Defraggler - or even contig - produce a performance benefit. Personally, I wouldn't care to use software that defrags in the background. I use Vopt (possibly the defragger with the longest pedigree) for full defrags, and simple file defraggers for daily untangling.

EDIT: It occurs to me to point out another benefit of defragging. This one applies especially to partitions on which are stored many very large files, such as disk images. It takes a long time to defrag huge files, but there is a downside to allowing them to remain in a fragmented state. For a partition used to stash such large files, fragmentation tends to increase dramatically over time. As disorder increases, so does the size of available chunks decrease, so that fragmentation feeds on itself. The increasing fragmentation also has a cost in terms of metadata the file system must retain to represent the structure of the disk. This scattered metadata further aggravates the fragmentation until the partition becomes a real jumble.

[Someone]

-{ Quote: "I don't see anything wrong. I have machines installed in 2005, once, running like the day they were installed. Boot time is 12 seconds. I defrag all the partitions once a month using the built in defragmentation utility.

The one thing that does seems to make a difference is the partitioning, lots of small partitions seems to does the trick. Less fragmentation, less seek, better performance.

Mrk" }-
If I remember correctly, in UtimateDefrag's help file they said that partitions aren't good for defrags because then files in the other partitions aren't placed in the outer rim of the disk, so the disk access is slower.

[Peter2150]

-{ Quote: "Remember: Defrag ONLY in Safe Mode.

I use IObit Smart Defrag v1.03 from Advanced SystemCare v3.2.0 PRO. Only PRO version have OPTIMIZE function!

" }-


I don't know about Smart Defrag, but there is no valid reason with some of the others to defrag in safe mode.

Pete

[Meriadoc]

I use PD 2008 Pro and PD for VMWare, plus Server for SBS2003 and Server 2008 and for Exchange server at work and I do notice a difference after defrag, but also I can do a boot time defrag.

Exchange, from the help file...
-{ Quote: "The best Microsoft Exchange practices recommend complete offline defragmentation

The offline defragmentation and compaction of your Exchange Server data stores allows the operating system to reclaim disk space taken up by deleted emails and attachments. As email is deleted, your Exchange Server frees the space inside the data stores but it is not returned to the operating system, so the data stores never shrink in size. Smaller Data Stores mean faster backups and more efficient disk utilization.

If your Exchange data stores are beginning to consume large quantities of disk space, the only way to reclaim the space is to perform an offline defragmentation and compaction pass.
" }-
PD handles this very well automatically stopping services and restarting them after compacting.

With VMs fragmentation can impact performance by slowing I/O speed.

[accessalternative]

I use the opensource JKDefrag (http://www.kessels.com/Jkdefrag/), there are both x86 and x64 versions of it. I love the defrag and optimize option. Fast and powerful.

[aigle]

I don,t say Defrag doesn,t make any difference. I just say I don,t feel any noticeable difference after defrag in my day to day use of computer. When i don,t feel, i can,t say that it makes a great difference.

[accessalternative]

-{ Quote: "I don,t say Defrag doesn,t make any difference. I just say I don,t feel any noticeable difference after defrag in my day to day use of computer. When i don,t feel, i can,t say that it makes a great difference." }-I felt the same way during all those years I only had tried MS's built-in defrag utility [and in fact, I just couldn't imagine any necessity to defrag since I thought it to be so ineffective], but now I just can't do without a once a week defrag with JKDefrag (http://www.kessels.com/Jkdefrag/). Not to mention that it being opensource, there's no way these guys are trying to get any bucks out of me ;)

[Raza0007]

One major difference between 3rd party defraggers and Microsoft's built in defrag is that 3rd party defraggers work even if the free space on the partition is less than 1%. Microsoft defrag requires something around 15% free space (I think) and will not work if free space is lower than this figure. This was a deciding factor for me as my partitions normally have around 5-10% free space available at any given moment.

I use PerfectDisk 10 by the way.

[lodore]

-{ Quote: "I use the opensource JKDefrag (http://www.kessels.com/Jkdefrag/), there are both x86 and x64 versions of it. I love the defrag and optimize option. Fast and powerful." }-
I also use jkdefrag.
my parents machine runs diskeeper 2007.
when i got my computer i couldnt afford defrag software so i decided to use jkdefrag.
I create shortcuts and add different commandline parameters depending on where i want to defrag for example C: or f: or both and what options.
very flexible and nothing needs to be installed.

[accessalternative]

There's also a portable version of JKDefrag, located here (http://portableapps.com/apps/utilities/jkdefrag_portable).

Cheers

[TechGyrl]

I currently use Diskeeper 2009, and find that it works much better than the Windows native defrag. The Automatic Defrag feature is great since there is no user input. It also has a I-FAAST feature, which increases file access time. I think it is a great product to try.

[Masterton]

I use PerfectDisk. The reason is its defrag capability is superior.
About 1 year ago I used PerfectDisk to help someone to defrrag a somehow heavily fragmented partition and the patition got no fragment but ~2-3 upon completion. I was surprised and somehow I wonder if it's lying. I used another defrag program to double check he result and it's true. Impressive.

I also tried DiskKeeper but there are still quite some numbers of fragments after several runs.

No saying for Windows default. It has the worst result.

[Masterton]

-{ Quote: "I used windows builtin one and to be honest never felt any signifiacnt difference after defrag. IMO defragging doesn,t make any significant difference in practice but it,s a good way for software companies to earn. ;)" }-

Yes you are right in some extent. Don't be addicted in defragging often. It's unnecessary and may degrade your HDD faster. I would wait until the HDD is moderately fragmented before defrag, and it's about one-two month(s). Also separate data and windows/program files into different partitions.

[mistycat]

Kind of OT but here is a free previous version of Ultimate Defrag (think the link still work's) http://download.cnet.com/UltimateDefrag-Freeware-Edition/3000-2094_4-10582157.html (support's Vista)There is a thread around here on it, farther back than I thought: http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=152907 started year's ago, just not as pretty as the latest version but nice to see what's going on and very fast on only fragmented file's. Window's defragmenter is fine but just doesn't show enough info from what I remember, only used it a couple of time's.

[Gullible Jones]

I don't bother with defragging. It's time-consuming and I've never seen it make a difference on new machines. Maybe on old ones, with slow hard drives, low RAM, and tiny hard drive buffers... But it just seems to me that NTFS never gets really horribly fragmented.

Granted, on any filesystem you'll get some fragmentation, and it's worse for some filesystems than others. But on the desktop I don't think it's a real issue.

[mistycat]

If you want to see quite a bit of fragmentation on an NTFS system, try having 2-3 converted avi on your system. I've seen mine over 60% fragmented with only three encoded video. Even the avi can be fairly fragmented, granted, it is confined to only those file's but some keep them on their computer.

[the Tester]

I don't see anything wrong with Windows native defrag on XP Home.
On the rare occasions that I do need to defrag, it works fine.

[Masterton]

-{ Quote: "I don't bother with defragging. It's time-consuming and I've never seen it make a difference on new machines. Maybe on old ones, with slow hard drives, low RAM, and tiny hard drive buffers... But it just seems to me that NTFS never gets really horribly fragmented.

Granted, on any filesystem you'll get some fragmentation, and it's worse for some filesystems than others. But on the desktop I don't think it's a real issue." }-

Well you are right in some extents but you don't need sit at the computer to do defragging.
Schedule and run it before you sleep. Set that computer shuts down or hibernate upon completion.
Defrag 1 time every three months. It doesn't hurt either.

Defragging helps to keep your hard drive live longer as long as you don't over-defragging. It's because your hard drive will have to spin here and there to read/write if your data and free space are scattered and fragmented.

Also it helps a bit in Windows stability.

[DOSawaits]

Still, most of the defragger aren't so smart to understand the meaning of a GOOD defrag, especially the most used (commercial ones) named here.

A smart defragger will leave quite some free space at the very beginning of the partition, which none of those praised defraggers do, they place everything at the beginning, resulting in all newly created files (think about browser cache files, regularly modified temp files, altered other files) being places somewhere extremely far away from the inner circle, meaning more tear&wear for the HD.

At least, MyDefrag beta (follow up of JKDefrag) is smart enough to understand this very important feature in defragging.

[Masterton]

One thing I dislike Diskkeeper is their auto defrag feature. I think it's cleary within the case of overkilling. A low level of defragmentation is perfectly fine and you won't gain any much performance from it. Keeping defragging day-after-day is overkilling and many be harmful to HDD (defrag requires additonal reads/writes).

Diskkeeper is weak as a manual defrag when comparing to PerfectDisk.