Defrag opinions

its either BS to have this opinion about UD in case you never used it.

 

do you not accept the white paper in post#71 as evidence. As I already said people talk a lot of BS about the wonders of defrag programs and how they do fantastic things so I am not a fan of defrag programs. My view ( which requires no evidence ) is that any basic defrag program will do and need not be done very often. Your criticism appears based upon defraging a machine every few days and concluding that there is no performance gain - which is what I would expect. Try running your computer for 2 or 3 years, 8 hours per day without ever defraging and tell me that it won't slow down.

 

I have used it and those who claim that it improves performance over and above many other defrag programs are delusional.

 

In personal cases and yes somewhat subjective, there is no other proof than watching as Windows Explorer, Interent Explorer, Start menu....etc....is snappier when opening after defragging. In theory, going as far back as Norton's speed Disk of the early 80's, fragmented clusters was easily understandable but I'm not sure about being able to measure it. Personally, I haven't done a defrag in quite awhile but it is about time and when done programs will be snappier when opening.

 

Let say it different, to have any file contiguous and placing data on the most efficient location is in general the objective of defraggers,some do a better job then others,i use PD and UD on a few systems now for year and a half,and its my experience that UD doa better job,better said i do the job in case of UD by placing most frequently used files at the outer rim of the disk,and yes it appears to me that it makes a difference,but again i have no scientific evidence to support my "" SEEMS "".

 

Every comment I have read about the alleged efficacy of a defragger is subjective. Assertions are not facts.

In addition, now we have kind of an A vs. B discussion. I think A & B are both taking us for a ride- where is the proof that as either defrags speed is improved? It does not matter if you run it once a year or once a day- there is nary a fraction of a second of improvement. I have yet to see evidence to the contrary. Millions a year are spent by home users and corporations on defrag software that is useless or worse. That to me should be a big issue.

 

Sure they are

You have made your assertions and others have made theirs, based on facts. I saw the Sun rise this morning and that's a fact. If that's not good enough proof for someone then I suggest they are making an argument just to be arguing.

One takes a ten page book and relaxes in his easy chair. That individual can read it faster than if they took that same ten pages, placed in 10 separate rooms and then went about reading it.

 

Even a child can understand that keeping whatever stuff in neat and good order make live easier,why should it any different with your harddisk.In my case every morning when i wake up i have to search all over my place for shoes,and clotches and other stuff[i have not yet deffragged my house]and precious time flow tru my fingers,so obvious, defrag has some purposes if you understand.But hope Mr. Edwards drop in to give his latest test results.

 

Defragging a drive as being suggested here with all the elaborate applications above what Windows gives you is great if you have a need, but beyond the HOME user, this is getting extreme from what I have seen.

For the average HOME user Disk Defragmenter in Windows will do enough of a job to help bring back performance and keep the system running well.

Several years ago I ran and tested a few applications against Windows Disk Defragmenter, and there was no noticeable difference that I could tell.

But I will say as a PC geek, I do love software, and I enjoy piddling, so this article has me interested in playing once again...

In 20 years of using Windows, the Disk Defragmenter that comes in Windows has served me well on HOME boxes, and I do have an eye for performance, so if there is going to be any improvements with these Defrag utilities I will see them.

One thing I can tell you for certain is with my box I'm using right now, whether I'm on a fresh install of XP or have it stuffed up pretty tight with applications, I have never noticed a loss in performance ever on my systems, just by only using Windows Disk Defragmenter.

Windows Disk Defragmenter will keep your drives running as good as they did the day you've bought them, I know, I've been doing it for over a decade.

Actually what is being suggested here that I don't think people realize is that going beyond Windows Disk Defragmenter is going beyond using a system 'STOCK', and stepping into the world of 'Hot Rodding', reaching for higher performance tweaks. So will the stock system serve your needs, or do you need a hot rodded system at all, this is really the question here, and beyond disk defrag there are many other ways of achieving performance.

Now the only thing here is, do any of these other 3rd party applications give a boost, hot rod the system enough for your needs?

As I jump into the Defrag world again, what applications does everyone recommend I try?

From what I see these two come in good regards:

PerfectDisk 2008 Pro
JkDefrag

Also is it worth trying and using these?

Contig
PageDefrag

THANKS

 

I use Perfectdisk because I know it plays well with Firstdefense-ISR. Before PD I was used to use O&O and I can say my system is much faster with O&O. Especially O&O's complete/name algorithm decreases boot time.

 

I'm using JkDefrag. I set my pagefile to a fixed size which is recommended by Jeroen Kessels (JkDefrag Developer). So no need to run PageDefrag.

 

A bit OT ?

How do you find Perfectdisk with FD-ISR as regards each snap shot ? My experience has been that it is impossible to have each snapshot defragmented properly. You start by having a primary snapshot and a secondary. You use PD to defragment and then restore to the secondary. Run the PD analysis and the secondary is far from perfect. You defrag the secondary and then restore to the primary. Same issue - the primary is now far from perfect. If defraging doesn't really matter then this is not a problem. If defraging is a good idea then FD-ISR has a problem ?

 

But you can exclude whole secondary from defragged in PD GUI !

 

Sorry I cant help you, only ask another question: I have not set my pagefile to a fixed size. Within JKD GUI I have set PageDefrag to run every boot. Is it really needed or I could run once in a while? What is good and what is not so good about setting pagefile to a fixed size?

 

So would JKDefrag, O&O and PD pretty much cover the best of the bunch?

THANKS

 

I use both JKDefrag and UltimateDefrag.

 

Anyone else, and is there any differences worth getting PD 2008 over PerfectDisk8?

THANKS

 

Improved scheduling options (the StealthPatrol adds much needed idle mode scheduling), selected file defrag (great for the de fragmentation of one, or a group of fragmented files).

Try out the demo...

 

Thanks, well it looks like JKDefrag and PD seem to be the most popular, anyone else?

By the way I was playing with my friends lappy yesterday and I ran defrag on Vista, oh my GAWD it's so damm slow, took 2 hours to complete on a fresh install of Vista, what gives with that?

Is that called a good slow defrag or a crappy slow defrag?

 

Whatever it's called, it still needs defragging!

 

What are you talking about?

 

I'm new to this site, and I've read all of the posts about defragging. While reading about the various testing problems, I had the idea that a mirror program could be used to exactly copy one HD to other HD's of the same type. This way, the same situation would be seen against different defrag programs, or different configurations of the same program.

Another thought I had, had to do with how much a HD is fragged vs performance. It occurred to me that sometimes it is WHAT is fragged that's important to a given user than how much other fragmentation is there. Key areas which are defragged may give more perceived increases in performance.

I should add, I'm not a programmer. I just get ideas about this or that and like to throw them out for whatever they are worth.

 

I ditched my all time favorite since version 4x PD for free UD which does boot time defrag as well and is the only freebie defragger to do so. The reason..............everything opens way faster and loads in a flash, drop Opera, FF, Pidgin, Open Office to system stuff like Media Player etc. I have dual 500GB 16mb cache SATA in RAID. The performance difference with UD was too good for me to ignore anymore and sadly I had to part with my favorite.

 

so does the newest ud do boot time defrag yet??

 

UD has been doing boot time for quite a while. Give it a try.