Defrag Defrag Defrag?

Recently my computer crashed while I was attempting to defrag in safe mode using a simple 3 line command line file. I've used it before so it couldn't have been the file. Before it started to try and defrag it did a Disk Cleanup (which it was supposed to because that was part of the commands). Anyways after the crash I tried to get back on the computer but my hard drive died and I couldn't access it anymore (the problem is being solved now and I don't need further help with this). Long before this happened (like maybe six months or so) I had my computer schedule a disk cleanup and defrag every night while I was sleeping. Although after that the computer stopped defragging at the time I told it to and didn't really do anything after that unless I manually told it to (I had been awake before when it was meant to defrag). My dad (i'm in college right now) believes that the hard drive dieing was caused by the everyday defragging of my computer. Basically what I'm wondering is:

1. Could defragging your computer this often cause the hard drive to die out on me?

2. How often should the computer be defragged, if at all?

3. Should a third-party defragger software be used in place of the default Windows defragger or is the default defragger the best way to go? (please don't answer with software that would take away the default Windows defragger because I have used a third-party defragger before that did this to me when I uninstalled it)

4. If a third-party software is recommended then what are a couple of recommendations that you would suggest and what particular one (if there's more than one) do you use?

5. How often should a disk check and disk cleanup be done?

6. Should a third-party software be used for disk check or disk cleanup be used instead of the windows defaults (if such software exists)? If so, what programs are recommended and which particular one do you use?

 

Depends Depends Depends. It depends on your usage, but the vast majority of users have no need whatsoever to defragment daily. Did you not pay any attention at all to the graphical representation of your hard drive displayed by Defragmenter and the color coding using to represent Fragmented files (red), Contiguous files (blue), etc. and the response Defragmenter gives in the popup message that appears when you click on Analyze?

I'm not saying that you should always follow the response Defragmenter gives when you click on Analyze. In other words, I may go ahead and defrag even though Defragmenter's analysis says "You do not need to defragment this volume." But, I normally don't defrag more than twice a month. For many users, monthly, quarterly, or even less frequent defragmentation is adequate. And, keep in mind, a hard drive formatted as NTFS generally does not need to be defragmented as often of drives formatted FAT or FAT3

I don't know for sure whether your daily defragmenting contributed to the demise of your hard drive, but I would not be a bit surprised if it did. Another thing I'm wondering about is that "simple 3 line command line file" that you used to run disk cleanup and defragmenter. Why did you feel you needed such a thing when you could have used Windows Task Scheduler?

I use Windows Disk Defragmenter for my Win XP computer. Diskeeper Lite 7.0 seems to be well known and can be downloaded from http://www.majorgeeks.com/Diskeeper_Lite_d1207.html; for more, see MajorGeeks' Drive Utilities

I think running Disk Cleanup before defragmenting is a good practice. Windows Disk Cleanup is fine. However, there are some good third-party software tools, including the free CCleaner, that are quite good.

 

Since Windows 98se I have seen very little value in defrag. With the speed of the hard drives now days I can't imagine you would see any noticeable gain in speed.

Just my two cents.

 

Often times I am on my computer 24 hours a day doing the hobbies I like to constantly do on there. I used the command file so that instead of having to choose an option it would be automatic. I did use windows scheduler to start the defragmentation and disk cleanup, that's what I used to schedule the file to run, the 3 line commands only contain commands to run the disk cleanup from a saved registry entry (you set this by using the sageset command once to set up what you would like cleaned up). Plus if I didn't do it this way then I would probably forget completely to ever do a defrag because I've got so many hobbies and so many things to keep me busy (I usually never am not doing something unless I just need to take a break). So far from the replies I have gotten I will probably do as recommended and just do these things monthly. I also posted this topic hoping that many people would reply so I could get a good idea on the best way to go about using these utilities. So, if you have any input then please reply =o). I also have another question to ask which is: If the default disk cleanup is recommended then what settings are recommended for it? I figure that OS and size of the hard drive is important so my OS is Windows XP Professional and one hard drive is a 160 GB with 8 MB Cache and the other is 250 GB with 16 MB Cache. I use the 160 GB for capturing music videos on my computer with my capture card and the 250 holds the OS along with anything else (such as my ripped CDs music collection). I also have an external backup hard drive that's 140 GB (I think) so that I have something to fall back on when a problem does arise. I already use CCleaner and LOVE the program and think it is a great asset to any computer that is used often. If anyone has any input or anything they'd like to add then feel free .

 

If you have a capture card in your computer and use then you'll come to find that the biggest way to not drop frames (video frames) with it is to defrag before you capture every time (I've tried doing it without defragging and it did drop frames). But you're probably right in saying that there would be any noticeable gain in speed when only using the computer in the typical state.

 

The occasional defrag will actually extend your HDs life. My definition of occasional is every 1 to 3 months. Doing it daily does get excessive movement (ie: wear and tear) out of the heads, which is why you defrag in the first place. Defragging will keep head movement to a minimum long term. A freshly created file is mostly defragged to begin with, other than filling up gaps left by previous deletions/rewrites.

Sorry if I'm beating a dead horse, but he wiggled you see.

 

Bill_Marsden---"Sorry if I'm beating a dead horse, but he wiggled you see."
Bwaaahahahahaha. I'm so going to steal that line!

 

Bill - I don't believe that defraging a drive will lengthen the life of a HD. A reguarly defragmented hard drive will perform more additional seeks and writes, because of the defrag, on the hard drive than would have been done by an "undefragmented" hard drive over the same period.

 

Actually it is true, try defragging a drive that hasn't been done in a year or two and it takes up to 8 hours. Do the same drive that has been defragged in the last few months and it takes 30 minues to 1 hour. A drive that hasn't been defragged is very chaotic, with data splattered over the platter. You can have the drive moving all over the drive for the most minor files every time you use your computer or you get do it all at once and get it over with.

If you ever get a chance to watch a drive without a cover you will see the heads move back and forth (I have on both old and new drives). On a defragmented file the head only moves in one direction until the file is completely read. One a fragmented file it can cover the whole drive in more than 40 descrete steps, just for one file.

 

This is EXACTLY my point. Do you realize how many seeks/reads/writes occur in that 8 hour DEFRAGGING period? I'll bet far more than running with that hard drive in its fragmented state over a given period of time. The point I am in disagreement here is the one that said the hard drive will last longer because of the defragging process. We can discuss all day the benefits or lack of benefits of the defragging process, which I personally see very little, but I do not see how it can extend the life of a hard drive.

 

The point is, you can remove a vast majority of the seeks just by running this utility. It was incorporated in the OS (and put on the scheduled maintenance) for a reason, and not just for speedups. Doing this utility 3 - 4 times a year is nothing like the routine use of a computer, which is where real wear and tear come in.

Like I said, watch an uncovered drive and it will go a long way to proving my point.

nuff said.

 

Can't argue with that. That pivot is a major point of wear, but most drives I've had go out tend to be the platter motor, usually stiction. I've had a few where the head has welded to the platter. Don't know whether defraging would have helped with that or not, I've always heard that mode of failure is dirt or other contamination ruining the smoothness of the platter, and bridgeing the cushion of air the head normally rides on.

I agree a daily defrag is too much, one every several months is benifitial for several reasons.

 

Some rather long defrag times mentioned here. I can usually defrag my OS partition in about 6 - 9 minutes if I defrag once every month or so.

Actually, I think it's worth stating that defrag time and a practical frequency of defragmenting are going to vary according to the nature each individual's activity on their computer. During times of uninstalling and installing software, and heavy moving or deleting/cleanup of files, fragmentation will happen more rapidly and, therefore, more frequent or extra defragmentation may be prudent.

 

hey folks,

i'm new here and thought i'd stick in my two cents. i run a computer consulting firm with roughly 600 clients. whenever i'm asked about defrag, i always recemmend diskeeper. this is because my clients say they hate the hassle of remembering to defrag all the time!

instead of me having to advise them as to how often to defrag, i simply explain that if they use diskeeper they can set it to defrag automatically.

i've lost count as to the amount of positive feedback i get from my clients regarding this.

 

Diskeeper is Majorgeeks approved!

 

The question of defragging your HD has been debated by most computer users, most just quote “Urban Myth’s” about defragging, and perpetuate the erroneous information that does little to help anyone. Defragging your HD should be carried out at least once a week, and by any program other than MS’s (way to slow & time consuming)! WHY, ….to eliminate constant head movement required when the HD is fragmented during normal computer operations. NO, it does not eliminate platter bearing wear, just head bearing wear, as your platters are spinning from the start-up of your computer. Defragging saves you time and reduces head bearing wear SIMPLY!!!!!

So why do people say my HD crashed when I tried to defrag it??? There are too many reasons to quote here, they range from the program used……to the fact that the HD’s time is up!!!! When I first started computing the first HD’s were only rated for 100 hrs, now there in the thousands of hours. The biggest killer of HD’s is actually heat, I’ve seen HD’s with temps in the hundreds, then they wonder why did it crash, and the data is unrecoverable, duh………..the heads are fused to the platter at 250°F man that’s cooking. That’s the reason a lot of tech’s use a freezer to freeze the HD in order to recover the available data. My solution for heat build-up in standard tower cases is a small dual fan set-up in front of the HD’s sucking the ambient air past the HD’s, vent holes have to be added to the front case or a grill. The space between most HD’s in standard desktops is less than and inch and sucking the air versus blowing seems to be more efficient.

Hey that’s my $0.02 worth

 

That horse, he still wiggles.

 

as far as how often to defrag...it's like i said before: any client of mine that has issues with remembering to defrag or can't figure out how often to defrag...i tell them to use diskeeper.

i mean, when you find good software for your clients, it's only natural to promote it within the community. diskeeper defrag as something called "smart schedule" which actually looks at your PCs hard drives and figures out ON IT'S OWN how often to defrag!

it's solutions like this that keep my clients coming back...

 

Interesting addition to the "Should you defrag argument".

23 Ways To Speed WinXP Without Defrag

TIP #18 is also interesting....

 

Very interesting arguements. I thought the point of much faster drives with internal RAM was telling, then he mentions defragging to avoid heat build up.

The only real downside I can see to this process is the chance of a power hit during the middle of it. I suspect everyone has a horror story about thier power company at one time or another.

I make it a point to turn off automatic schedules on the computer I build for friends/family. It took literallly years to get my Dad to understand you really have to use "start" to stop, and it took my brother (when he was alive) about a month to jam it in my hard head (I was transfering from C64's at the time).

I'll continue to stick with internal defrags that come with the OS.

 

A quote from the article......

"To defrag, or not to defrag? If you're looking for ways to speed WinXP machines used by your customers, then the answer is Not".

 

To quote from Diskeeper.com...

Why is it crucial to defrag your drives daily?

Disk fragmentation causes crashes, slowdowns, freeze-ups and even total system failures. The number one reason for performance bottlenecks is fragmentation. Even the best hardware will eventually slow down unless the drive is defragmented daily.

The disk drive is by far the slowest of the three main components of your computer: CPU, memory and disk. If the drive isn't defragmented the fastest CPU in the world won't improve your system's performance, because information from the disk simply can't be delivered fast enough.

Manual defragmentation just isn't practical—who has time to defrag every system, every day? Manual defragmentation is a break-fix situation. Automatic defragmentation with Diskeeper, the Number One Automatic Defragmenter, is the only true defrag solution. Diskeeper 10 uses "Set It and Forget It"®, Smart Scheduling and I-FAAST technologies to defrag drives as needed, keeping your systems running as fast as they did when they were brand-new.

 

Most of those statments are bunk. Yes, fragmentation slows a computer down, but it takes a while. Monthly is more than enough for most people. If you have a special project like video editing then it would be a good idea just to have a smooth play. But daily just for the heck of it? Drives do not fragment that fast. If you never deleted a file (an impossibility I know) then the drive would never fragment, fragmentation is caused by new files filling in the gaps left by deleted files, and one or two breaks in a long file is not a big deal. Sheesh.

Manual fragmentation is not just impractical, it's impossible. It's like changing the cat box one grain of sand at a time. The cat would be using the carpet long before you had 10% done. Remember, we are talking gigabyte drives here. I wasn't exagirating when I mentioned the 8 hour time on a 1.2Gig processor for a drive that hadn't been done in over a year. The drive was 100 Gig, and it actually took a lot longer. How much longer I don't know, I went to bed on it.

I love it when marketing gets involved in trying to explain technical stuff.

 

From Diskeeper's website:

Myth No. 1: The 'built-in' defragmenter that comes with Windows is good enough.

"...Many people don't realize how much of their computer's power is lost to fragmentation and how soon it happens. The graph below is the result of a two week experiment we did using only Microsoft Internet Explorer and Microsoft Word. We performed the test using an ordinary desktop computer, not a file server...."

http://www.diskeeper.com/diskeeper/images/myths_twoweeks_blue.gif

"Note that each test starts with zero excess file fragments. That means that each line represents the fragments generated from the RECENTLY created or modified files; in other words, these are files that were used and fragmented THAT DAY. These recent files are the ones you least want to be slow to access. These are the ones you want to get at fast!

You don't wait until you car is spewing blue smoke and the engine is rattling before you change your oil. Don't wait for your computer to slow down or grind to a halt before defragmenting. Install Diskeeper and keep your computer performing at peak all the time."

 

Well, if that doesn't sound like something a company would say that's trying to sell something, I don't know what would.

 

I have NEVER had a computer lock up due to defrag issues. The speed differences between long defrag times wasn't that noticable either, and with my family I've had lots of chances to see it, well over 10 computers, if you count the last 20 years nearer to 100. Only files that are modified or newly written can be fragged (modified files are rewritten on the drive), an old file that is never changed stays intact forever, baring drive failure. My experiencs starts with DOS 3.1 on 50 Megabyte drives to new systems.

I'll take personal experience, and that of friends, over a company making claims any day.

Older systems, like my Commodore 128 with a 4 gig HD, never get defragged either. The utilities have never existed. The only thing that causes system lockup or instability is plain old HD failure, in the form of data dropouts. These kinda problems can happen whether the drive is defragged or not. They can also happen, in a big way, if there is a power glitch, brown out, or plain power failure. In other words excessive defragging can create problems where none existed. It's like rolling dice, unless you have a UPS (which I do, on my BBS). Most power companies are pretty good, but all of them have bad days. The only advantage a daily defrag will give you in that situation is the utility will work faster, not having to rewrite the entire drive. Even then the time spend defragging if done daily versus weekly or monthly is going to be exessive, the software is going look at the entire drive to see if anything has been changed.

There isn't a lot of room for optimization defragging either. It's not that complex a task, just very tedious, the kind computers love.

 

Bill_Marsden, I'm on your bandwagon.

With todays technology in hard drives and controllers the idea that defragging keeps PC's operating at peak performance is simply not accurate.

I would also assume that the manufacturer of defragging software would make statements and present "facts" that would help him sell his product.

 

Please see below:

 

Bill Marsden said: "...Only files that are modified or newly written can be fragged (modified files are rewritten on the drive), an old file that is never changed stays intact forever, baring drive failure..."


i've had clients call me with similar claims regarding defragging their PCs. now, if you don't use your PC AT ALL, you are correct, the need to defrag would not exist. of course, if you buy a new car and never use it, you won't need to service it either.

i feel so strongly about the need to defrag because of clients that place service calls to me regarding slow PCs, and when i arrive at their site i find the PC to be virus and spyware free yet completely "fragged"

its like this, if you use your PC at all...even a little bit, it needs to be defragged regularly. below is a partial list of items that become fragmented even with minimal PC use. some of these are for corporate users only, but most are for home users as well:

1. User Profiles

2. System maintenance and logging files

3. Advanced system features, including:

System Restore
Prefetching
PC Health
Registry
Internet browsing

4. System updates/upgrades:

Service packs
Hot fixes

5. Application updates/upgrades including:

Anti-virus definition files
Network management software (e.g., SMS)

6. Systems/applications never defragmented or
recently updated may have fragmented executables

7. Print spools

8. Paging file

9. Hibernation file

10. Metadata (MFT, et al.)

11. Directories



in closing: the success of my business depends on my ability to troubleshoot and resolve my clients' problems. when it comes to a "healthy" yet slow PC, i could answer "i don't know" and possibly lose the client or i could defrag the PC and...in most cases actually fix the problem.

hey, i've gotten hugs from clients after a quick defrag!

 

i feel that defragging is necessary, but not to the extent the average computer user would believe. Meaning the average user doesn't need to defrag every week, day etc. I personally install, uninstall a lot of programs, create lots of content (music, pictures, web dev stuff) usually on a daily basis i'll do all of these, therefore my drive DEFINATELY gets severely fragmented and i can DEFINATELY see a degredation in performance. Its very noticeable. I'm also running fast current generation drives, so its not like I'm running a real slow drive. I guess the whole point is that different users have different needs in defragging, but at some point unless you don't use the computer defragmenting is definately benefits the user. I'm going to let my drive get fragged up a bit and do a few benchmarks. I'll post them on here and actually write an article on my site Personal views, reviews and miscellaneous ramblings

 

Hey, is this true of newer computers?

I was warned a long time ago, when I was using Win95, that there can be mistakes made when defraging... incomplete files, corrupted data, losses and such.

 

Well with hard drives anything can happen. But that being said if your hard drive is a newer one the chance of that happening is very slim. Also Win 9x uses the FAT file system, while NT/2000/XP use NTFS which is a much more robust and stable system. I personally have never had a drive fail while defragging. If you defrag occasionally and not 5 times a day I wouldn't worry about it

 

lol Thanks.

I am not really rough on my machine and rarely defrag unless I notice a slow down and have no other possible cause/fix for it.

Thanks for the info, websiteforu!

 

Dat horse, he still wiggles.

I think we're going to have to agree to disagree on this point. There are a lot of files that are read only, and never rewritten, and so don't get fragmented. Where is the problem with this statement? I have never said defrag is not necessary, but once a day, even once a week is too often in many cases. Read only files do not fragment, period. Only modified files or newly written files fragment, and it is no big deal either in time or wear to have a file fragmented into several pieces. It is the long term fragmentation that causes problems. Part of the reason I have so many computers in my house is I use them. I have a lot of long term experience in this kind of stuff (over 20 years), including having open drives work in front of me. I used to align a lot of them as part of my job description.

A slow PC is much more likely to have something running in the background. I notice you keep talking like defragging is a major thing, it's not. It comes equiped with every PC and is not hard to access. I have had PC's that hadn't been done in years and were not significantly slowed. These machines were on at least 16 hours a day every day, playing games, and at most showed around 20% slow downs accessing the disk. It took a very long time defragging it, and that suprised me. If the software that is being used doesn't access the drive often then fragmentation is definately not a problem.

I've never said defragging would scrag your drive, dirty power does that. A drive in the middle of a defrag is in a uniquely fragile state, if there is a power glitch then major data loss is a given, even if the drive isn't physically damaged, not a good bet. Doing defrag too often just gives the power company a chance to make you practice your data recovery skills.

I admit I have learned some from this thread. The following was of particular interest:

The other thing that jelled for me was that defrag doesn't significantly increase wear and tear, since the vast majority of drive failures I've seen involve the drive motor, which is usually turning whether you are using the drive or not.

Defrag has another advantage, it reduces the size of the FAT (File Allocation Tables) file. This is the table showing where all the pieces are and how they fit together.

Short of it is, you can defrag too often, and you can defrag too little, as in all things in life moderation is the key.