Death by Defragmentation

The following may sound a little silly, however, the topic is an important one: Defragmentation.

One time I idly predicted that if I ran Norton's SpeedDisk defragmenter enough times in a row it would crash my XP system. I was then compelled to test my theory, and wouldnt you know it, it crashed after about a dozen consecutive runs.

Then I did a little bit of research and came to the conclusion that the SpeedDisk deframenter in Norton System Works 2003 is considered not to be very good with XP's ntfs file system.

I tried a couple more before I found one that I think is much better. It's PerfectDisk by Raxco. I realize that the numbers that most defragmentation programs present as proof of their effectiveness are only slightly more believable than scanner and printer specs, but still this one seems for real.

I predict I could run PerfectDisk until it would generate a repeating pattern of arrangments that were all very well defragmented. However, I am just not up to putting it to the test. Am I too confident or too skeptical of defragmenting. I should say defragmenting at every reboot is not even close to the same thing, for the purposes of my prediction since I believe the more fragmented a disk is, the less likely that a defragmenter will make serious mistakes.

Just seeking any comments on the subject.

- HandsOff

 

Personally I like the defrag in xp. Never did like speed disc either. I can't imagine why anyone would run a defrager till their computer crashed. I think you must have to much free time on your hands.

 

Big C, you are correct, i have to much time on my hands. I also have too much money, and I am way too thin.

Anyways, I realize XP's defragmenter works. If patience is a virtue you must be a saint!!!

Well, you seem criticle of my experiment, only it was not quite a drastic as it seems. You see, it was done right after a backup, and I was back functional in under five minutes. (Time to restore the system partition from external HDD and then reboot and rename and reboot again). The thing is, I was annoyed that my performance was degrading too fast and I wanted to confirm that speedisk was hurting, not helping.

- HandsOff

P.S. I believe from reading your posts that you are pretty efficient, and probably the built in defrag is fine. Someone took a swipe at me lately for my mentality of "spending money on hardware but not...(presumably not spending enough on software). Well, I see you have the Western Digital 7200's - Good man! Come on, why don't you tell me what you are really using to deframent your system files, MFT, pagefile, and so on! (Just between you and me)

 

I use the built in xp defrager. It will defrag my comp in approx. 5 to 6 minutes. It suits my purpous very well and it is free.



P.S. I use Maxtor Hdd's