Do we really need an automatic Defragmenter?

I’d like to quote on the ads of Diskeeper Lite:

"In order to achieve maximum system reliability, uptime and performance, whether you own just a single computer or are in charge of an entire site, you need to defragment at least once a day, often several times a day. Doing this manually is impossible on a network and impractical for small offices. The time and money lost is considerable and completely unnecessary. Computers are designed to boost efficiency and production, why step backwards by using a defragmenter that must be run manually every time you use it?"

What can you say on this?

 

Need - no, if it was needed microsoft would of included as part of the operating system.

Occasional defragging is all thats needed for the average home or office user to keep things tip top, even not defragging is say a year will probably only reduce performance by an unnoticable amount to the human eye.

Its only when you get heavy disc use, file server, or transferring large % of files to your discs (I fall into this category) regularly that regular defragging is needed.

I regularly transfer 10-20 a week onto my server (2 x 20 gig partition) and I do notice that performance does drop. Here I feel once a week defragging would help. Performance loss is 10-20% at MOST on disc transfers which is what 1% impact on total system performance ?

I use automatic defragging as this machine is this machine is mostly unattended and that is the main reason.

Have a look at this thread I started https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?p=574746

 

Actually in XP MS does include auto defragging provided the Task Schedular service is running - its triggered by idle time and was written for MS by DK.

Regards - Charles

 

it only runs every three days tho and like u said only triggered by idle time.

 

That's the way I remembered it as well and reset SSM's rule so I could see how often it came up. Supprisngly, it can come up multiple times per day - right at the time the screen saver starts.

Regards - Charles

 

I think you are mistaken, I am 100% that its NOT defragging the hdd. Im pretty sure its optimising the location of the prefetch files (to speed up booting and loading).

 

Ok, we'll disagree on that.

http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,104961,00.asp

Regards - Charles

 

Windows on it's own, without manually defragging, will optimize the prefetch, I believe there may even be some defragging there (just for the prefetch files, and maybe boot files as well).

I don't agree with articles you see around saying it's not worth defragging, I've seen a lot of systems improved by it. I wouldn't recommend the ones that run in the background, though. I used to use Diskeeper and let it do automatic defragging.. but I was playing a game once, stepped away from it, came back to find it defragging and lost all my game saves. There were also just a lot of little issues that stopped happening frequently after I stopped using it, including corrupted files. Defraggers are a lot better than they used to be, but there is still SOME risk.

If you want to keep things in top shape and minimize the time needed to defrag, do so manually about once a week. Once a month is fine, too, it really depends on how much software you install, etc. If you can do so after reboot, before starting any apps, so much the better.

Personally I prefer PerfectDisk. It seems to be the safest and most thorough. It also tries to place files on the drive in a way that reduces future fragmentation. Very nice program.

 

No offense but have you any proof that a FULL defrag occurs ?
I have looked and the only thing I find about scheduled defrag in XP is for boot file and program execution optimisation, not full defraging.


http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/01/12/XPKernel/default.aspx

"To minimize seeking even further, every three days or so, during system idle periods, the Task Scheduler organizes a list of files and directories in the order that they are referenced during a boot or application start, and stores the list in a file named \Windows\Prefech\Layout.ini. Figure 1 shows the contents of a prefetch directory, highlighting the layout file. Then it launches the system defragmenter with a command-line option that tells the defragmenter to defragment based on the contents of the file instead of performing a full defrag. "

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/...Windows/XP/all/reskit/en-us/prkd_tro_uutk.asp

This article also mentions that prefetch optimisation is scheduled (and not a full defrag)
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/evaluate/xpperf.msp

Or what about this a quote from MSDN Magazine ?

http://faq.storagereview.com/tiki-index.php?page=XPDefrag

I hope this info helps.

 

Hi nickr,

No offense but have you any proof that a FULL defrag occurs ?
None taken and in all fairness, can't cite counter sources to yours other than that paragraph that I highlighted in one of my earlier posts.

However you argue this however, this is different from your statement that no defragging occurs, partial/full or something in between.

One thing that I can attest to, its happening more frequently than "every three days or so". So thats one departure from the references cited.

Regards - Charles

 

I think this comes down to terminology issues. Microsoft calls it an optimisation by defrag.exe as opposed to a defrag....

Well thats one thing I did'nt find and was any specifics on the frequency when this schedule runs. It wont harm much if done frequently, as if there are no files to move it will exit quickly.

 

Apart from mst which is the one is very light on resources & effective as well...anyy feedback would be very much appriciated...thx