FD-ISR and Perfect Disk

Discussion in 'FirstDefense-ISR Forum' started by Long View, Jan 9, 2008.

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  1. Long View

    Long View Registered Member

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    Decided to try out FD-ISR and with a primary and secondary snapshot and find that
    Perfect Disk 8 produces some rather ugly defrags.

    which files from FD-ISR need excluding if any ? and do people defrag all snapshots or just the primary.

    As both FD-ISR and Perfect disk both work fine no matter what I do perhaps it doesn't matter. It's just that the defrags look so ugly and having snap shots not perfectly defragmented is something I'm not used to.

    any help appreciated
     
  2. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    Strange, I get perfect defrags, with this combo, and have nothing excluded except what PD sets up automatically, which for FDISR, is just one file.
     
  3. starfish_001

    starfish_001 Registered Member

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    Same here..... 8 snapshots ... some spare.... some used .... some for test

    ....no data to speak of all on other drives
     
  4. Long View

    Long View Registered Member

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    I wonder if it makes any difference which is installed first ? I don't recall this issue previously. I will restore an old image and install FD-ISR and then Perfect disk and see what happens.

    what about which snapshot to defrag ? just the primary ?
     
  5. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    I always defrag from primary, but PD defrags the whole disk, so it gets all the snapshot. I grant you if you delete a snapshot your disk will look like a mess, but one defrag cleans that up, and from then on it's fine.

    Pete
     
  6. Long View

    Long View Registered Member

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    Thanks

    I think what I'm trying to achieve is probably impossible. I have now reversed the installation procedure with FD-ISR installed first and then PD. I have left the exclusion to PD to determine. Having defraged C: I then made a snapshot and defraged again. All the pinks at the start and so on. Then rebooted to secondary and of course a PD analysis shows pinks here and there. Defrag that and then go back to primary and now that is in a mess. the circle would go on for ever - its just the way FD-ISR works - I guess - both snapshots can not have optimal placement at the same time ? In performance terms it's probably not important with % Fragmented at 0.1%.
     
  7. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    I never even look at PD in my secondary snapshot. Not even installed there.

    Pete
     
  8. Long View

    Long View Registered Member

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    In practical terms I don't think it matters but do you agree though that using snapshots makes perfect defragmentation of all snapshots impossible ?
     
  9. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    if you mean each snapshot independently yes you are right. PD, looks at at the whole disk and bases it's defrag on that. I also agree it doesn't matter.
     
  10. beethoven

    beethoven Registered Member

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    How important is defrag really nowadays? I have read different comments over time with some stating that the normal user having a recent pc does not really gain much by defragging
    .
    There is an interesting thread here at Donation Coderhttp://www.donationcoder.com/Forums/bb/index.php?topic=2166.0 -

    does the use of FD_ISR cause a higher than normal defrag?
     
  11. Huupi

    Huupi Registered Member

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    I think if you do heavy lifting with massive write/delete operations on your disk,then in no time its time to defrag,but one solution is using Returnil and do it all on your virtual disk.After reboot everything is back to normal,there members here who use it mainly for this purpose.
     
  12. Long View

    Long View Registered Member

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    This is the way I operate normally. I use different machines with either Deepfreeze or Returnil. Set C: XP and programs only up the way I want it and then protect.

    Unlike many I have never found FD-ISR particularly useful. I found the freeze function slow on old machines and much preferred to combine small C: with Returnil and Acronis on faster machines giving me sub 1 minute image times.
    As a result of the noise made by the loyal FD-ISR fans I have periodically gone back to see if I could see the magic but so far without success.

    I think what I have seen today probably shows that defraging is not as important as is often thought. On the other hand a perfectly fragmented drive when frozen stays that way and the defrag issue although not vital can hardly be put forward as a benefit of using FD-ISR
     
  13. Acadia

    Acadia Registered Member

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    I asked the defrag question of Raxco tech support a few years ago, the response: defragging (with any defragger) will defrag ALL SNAPSHOTS. And since ANY SNAPSHOT is your c:drive when you are in it (and you can prove that by uninstalling FirstDefense and all of the Snapshots leaving only your c:drive which will be the last Snapshot that you were in not necessarily your Primay) PerfectDisk, and all defraggers, should properly drag your entire c:drive including all Snapshots.

    Acadia
     
  14. Long View

    Long View Registered Member

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    defrag your primary and then boot to secondary. Then run analysis and you will find a certain amount of fragmentation but also find boot sector files all over the place and excess fragments. The any snapshot is c: does not mean that it will be defragmented particularly well. Perhaps we should all throw our Defrag programs away ? perhaps it doesn't matter ? but the answer given by Raxco doesn't make sense. Files are stored sequentially and although files may be fragmented the supposed benefits of placement can not apply to all snapshots ?
     
  15. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    Couple of things. First remember just rebooting will cause minor fragmenting of a lot windows boot files. When it comes to FDISR and PD, the FDISR files don't represent snapshots, but just files in different folders.
     
  16. DVD+R

    DVD+R Registered Member

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    PD actually shrinks my snapshots by 2GB :D
     
  17. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    Are you running it with Rollback?
     
  18. DVD+R

    DVD+R Registered Member

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    No, Rollback is on another (this) machine, FDISR is on my main system I use for Office work
     
  19. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    Okay. I have had them on together, but it was a touchy relationship.
     
  20. osip

    osip Registered Member

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    I just went over to PD 9.00 build 44...Some here says that PD by default excludes needed ISR file...Could´nt see that in exclusions. So, thinking that the working snapshot is the main one (for the moment) on the drive I excluded $ISR with 2 other snapshots and ran a defrag ...Why defrag $ISR ? Is´nt it better to make defrags according to the snapshot you are in...?
     
  21. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    It really doesn't matter. I just do it in my primary as thats the only place PD is installed. The new PD doesn't exclude $ISR. Hasn't been a problem here
     
  22. osip

    osip Registered Member

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    Ok Pete,no problems here also...but I´m thinking if you defrag in your primary then the primary is on the outer track I beleive...if you later choose another snapshot it means that the system is´nt optimized...and you will have to defrag again to have the secondary or whatever in use to the outer track. Maybe not essential but nevertheless seems logical to me...
     
  23. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    Perfect Disk doesn't know snapshots, it just see files. So the files from both snapshots, are intermixed, based on the dates. It doesn't know the primary snapshot, and place those files together. So there is no point in defragging with PD from different snapshots.

    Even if you were to use Ultimate defrag, you would just specify the snapshot folders and placements, and you still could just defrag in the primary.
     
  24. Long View

    Long View Registered Member

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    still have concerns here. Is the primary really that different ? or is the primary just another snapshot ? I haven't played with this for some time but vaguely remember that if the primary was defragmented then PD showed the others as looking pretty ugly. if they were then defragmented the primary looked ugly.
    The more I think about this the more I think that unless each individual snapshot is a complete system in itself then I do not see that it could ever be possible to have ALL snapshots well fragmented at the same time - one of the costs that has to be paid to get the benefits of multiple snapshots ?
     
  25. osip

    osip Registered Member

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    Yes, that´s understandable but
    and the one in use must be treated as such meaning that win dir and other performance files are placed according to smart defrag...$isr is treated as file and therefor if you change snapshot then it goes from file to new complete system and the former defragged turns to file...So for me it seems as the defrag should be done in conjunction with changing the snapshot...Am I wrong here ?
     
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