About Boot-time defragmenter...

I am using now the trial version of Diskeeper Pro 10, and when I tried using their boot-time defragmenter function I was surprised... it takes very long to defragment my drive. It eats up 5 and a-half hours to finish my 20Gig HD.

The Windows built-in defragmenter has no boot-time defragmenter, do we really need this Boot-time defragmenter offered by some commercial defragmenters to improve performance of our pc?

If ever it's really needed, then, how often do we have to use boot-time defragmenter, like in Diskeeper Pro 10?

 

Scary. Took way too long. I've never had the boot time (ver 9) take longer than 10 minutes - 120 gb with 65,000 files and 43 gb free. Maybe Diskeeper was slow due to low disk space.

The boot time defrag is only needed for files that can't be defragged with their regular defrag, like the MFT.

I just wonder how a long a regular defrag would have taken. Too late now to see what's going on.

I scheduled the regular smart defrags and then on a rare (once every three months) basis manually run boot time defrags for the few left over files.

Anyone know the difference between 9 and 10 professional? It seems to me just the screens changed.

 

Perfect Disk is better than Diskeeper.

In any case, the INITIAL defrag, boot or regular, with products such as Perfect disk or Diskkeeper may indeed take many, many hours. It depends on what you have on the drive and the degree of fragmentation and the size of the drive.

And, yes, the boot time defragmentation does make a difference.

 

It depends.

In the case of Perfect Disk, when you do the Smart Defrag the first time, this can take a very long time. Of course, under normal circumstances, subsequent defrags are relatively quick.

It really depends on what's on the drive and what is RUNNING on the system at the time.

On my slow, ancient PC, as I recall, no drive took more than 3.5 hours.

However, my sister's system had 1 weird drive that took what seemed like daze to defrag. It definitely took more than 24 hours. We kept stopping and restarting, so I dunno the actual time. This could occur if some program was accessing the drive during the defrag.

One just has to eat this overhead the first time a proper defrag is done.

 

about a two weeks ago or so i began to have problems with windows disk defragmenter not being able to defrag all my files, but it dosn't list any fragmented files under the report section. i downloaded and i used disk keeper's boot time defragmenter, but i have since got rid of disk keeper because it was just the free trial. i still have like 1 pagefile and 1 mtf file fragmented. i never in the last year and a half had any problem with the windows defragmenter fully defraging the drive......any ideas? i recently used acronis true image to clone my old drive to a larger hard drive, and i cant remember if i was having the windows disk defragmenter problem before the switch or not.

 

Dag nab it!

I already responded here, but I think I forgot to SUBMIT my posting.
That's what I get for not having eatten since last night. My few brain cells need fuel.

In any case, the built-in windows defragger cANNOT fully defrag a drive.

Byte th bullet and get Perfect Disk.
The rebate offer via Amazon was supposed to have ended yesterday.
Perhaps, the rebate has been extended, or is available elsewhere.

In any case, the www.raxco.com web site has a price search engine that you can use to find the lowest price. The search engine did not list the rebate, but at the time I ordered, Amazn happened to have the lowest price, and also had th rebate.

Perfect Disk is worth getting, even without a rebate.

I used to use the free Diskeeper, Perfect Disk is better and has much less overhead, and does not disable the built-in defragger.

 

Yipppeee!
I remembered to use the Submit button!

 

Even the manual defrag of Diskeeper 10 Pro took very long that i think it will take forever to defrag so i just stopped it and used only the set it and forget it option. I was now thinking that Diskeeper is designed to run more effectively as a background defragmenter that defragments while you're doing something and it should not be used always for boot-time or manual defrag.

Are PerfectDisk 7 didn't have this background defragmenter feature like the set it and forget functions of Diskeeper?

 

Set.Flame = On

Background defragmentation is one of the most ridiculous options.
It makes no sense, but I get livid, so I'll say no more.

PD has a background Trend analysis that you can schedule.
It creates a report and recommends what itthinks you need to do.
PD has some tools that can be downloaded to use with the Trend Analysis.

I used Trend Analysis for a few weeks, but turned it off.

Set.Flame = Off

Heck it's 06:07, I better get to bed!

 

I tried them both and I really did not see any difference.

I turned off defrag on one of my machines for a couple of weeks. I then installed Diskeeper which told me that I have moderate to heavy fragmentation and I let DK to run for a couple of days. I then removed DK and installed PD which told me I didn't have fragmentation. So DK defragmented enough to make PD happy.

Then I reversed the test. On a fragmented systen I ran PD for a couple of days and when I installed DK I got the same result. They both seem to get the same level of defragmentation.

Maybe there is more overhead in one product over the other when they are actually defragmenting but on my machine I never noticed the difference - that is the machine did not have noticeably slow down during defragmenting.

 

OK,where do I start.

XP does have an auto boot optimise function which only defrags the boot files for the quickest startup.

It does this in the background every third start.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Dfrg\BootOptimizeFunction\enable

When I set PD to control the layout.ini layout I set \enable to "n".With this setting PD defrags boot files and normal files in realtime.

When PD is set to do a boot time (off line) defrag it only defrags the MFT and pagefile and not the normal and boot files.

Anyway I think I think I'll leave it at that as I'm starting to get confused myself.

 

Sweater, the only thing I can think of that no one has mentioned in this thread is that, if you are getting low enough on free disk space, ANY disk defragmenter can take exponentially more amounts of time to do its job. That applies to online defragmentation but also, and particularly, to boot-time defragmentation and particularly if your free disk space is low enough to make relocation of your page file difficult and time consuming for the defragger. You don't mention the free space on your drive, so I thought I'd throw that out. If you have better than 20% or more free space on your hard drive, though, I doubt that's your problem.

Anyways, I agree with the other posters that you COULD have a badly enough defragmented hard drive that that's simply how long it takes on the first pass of a REAL defrag program, boot-time or otherwise.

Aside from that, chalk one more vote up for PerfectDisk over Diskkeeper, based on personal experience.

Oh, and yes, chalk up one more opinion that DK's background defragmentation is a pain in the ass and naught but a gimmick.

 

iv tried a few of the pay defrags over the years but never felt they ever did enough to inspire me to buy them. i use the windows defrag but in a diffirent way. if you are running a lite machine with little software etc it seems to work well . After a reformat i defrag first in safe mode and then reboot into ordinary mode and defrag again the windows reinstallation . I do the same with each Cd that follows such as my resource CD or modem etc . takes a while but everything is tidy. After downloading all the windows updates I do the same. (Both in safe mode and ordinary mode) I also do this after loading up my firewall and than after any further software individually. If I have a user ac in safe mode I do first administrator and then reboot back and defrag in usermode ) Then back into ordinary mode for a final defrag. This may seem like a long process but its not too bad really. once that is done i may do a safemode and ordinary mode defrag once every few weeks or when ever i may sense the need. This is the poormans defrag but seriously works well.

 

PD claims to be able to properly defrag with as little as, I recll, 5% or 7% free. Of course, if you have files that are too largae and not enough space to defrag 'em noth ing will do the deed other than a reformat and restore.

 

It does little good to defrag afte ra reformat, at best the good defraggers would reposition page files, MFTs and directory stuff.

 

i do reformat from time to time and being on dial up with a average pc really notice my systems performance. I run my pc with very litttle software and even less security than i once did. i notice and also can see the results from defragging after reinstalling windows and defragging after software installation. Just look at the analasis on the defrag next time you reinstall all your Cds and reinstall windows /update etc. and your software. Or better still just check out the diffirence in surfing and ease .that being more important to me.

 

I don't think its the free space problem that took long to defrag my drive using the Boot-time defragmenter w Diskeeper 10 Pro, I have 30% free space when I run the boot-time defrag. And I have defrag this w this second time already, maybe I will never used this feature anymore.

Even the manual defrag of DK took very long. So what I did now is just to set its smart scheduling option to defrag my drives in the background.

 

Actually, I did metntion that baove. I guess not too many read my threads.

 

Ooops ! My bad, berng ! I did read your first post but I guess my memory has gotten so short, it slipped my mind by the time I got to the bottom of the thread.

 

Yes, a defrag after installing software is very helpful, reformatting is not relevant to the issue of defragging.