Defrag tips for heavy process user (BIG photos, LOTS of Photoshop, etc)

Hey there. I'm running Win 7 Pro on a laptop I purchased new about 8 months ago (Toshiba Tecra A50 a1550). I'm a semi-professional photographer shooting in RAW format and I usually have Photoshop running at *least* once a day. I do a ton of heavy processing in PS, doing HDR photos and huge panoramas, etc.

Anyways, I've been bad and haven't backed up or cleaned the laptop since I bought it - I know, bad! Don't shoot the messenger, she's been busy! So, I've got 8 months of RAW files (like 12,000+ going in and out [half of them deleted], plus all the processed files, etc...) I am currently in the process of doing a back-up and clean out. Poor laptop was getting sluggish!

My question(s): Do you recommend the Windows Defrag utility or something else? I've been doing a ton of reading and everything I see actually says defragging Win 7 won't make much of a difference. I feel like they're talking to an end user who uses the computer much less intensely than my situation.

I read some articles on here and they all seemed outdated. One outside utility I'm considering is Defraggler. This is my first Win 7 system. Before this I was hanging on to XP til the last second...

Anyone have any suggestions or input they'd like to add?

Thanks!

 

Head over to the MajorGeeks.com Home Page. Look to the right, you'll see TOP DOWNLOADS. And number 1 is... Smart Defrag. Download and run it. I have been using it for 5 years.

PS Download CCleaner and get rid of the junk. Then defrag.

 

Piriform's Defraggler is good. Make sure to go into Settings -> Exclude and UNCHECK the files associated with the System or your SVI folder won't be defragged.

Iobit Smart Defrag is also good but, be careful to choose Custom Install or potentially unwanted third party programs will be installed.

Personally, I use Auslogics Disk Defrag Free. In Program Settings -> Algorithms, you can delete temporary files before defragmentation, choose how large a fragment you want to skip, move System files to the beginning of the disk (which will speed up startup) and Defragment in VSS compatible mode which will allow defragmentation of files while they are in use.

Auslogics will also have to be monitored during installation for a PUP.

 

Thank you all for the replies. My HDD is 500 GB with 294 GB free....all that space (except for programs, I do have a few heavy adobes installed) is being filled by photos - some unedited RAW and many edited - general post processing, many HDRs and many panoramas. The system is running as clean as it can (minus the issue with too many files). I do virus removal and computer clean-up, so I always try to run a tight ship in that regard. I've already checked to make sure there isn't some kind of nasty in the background slowing me down....

I was surprised to see SmartDefrag as the first suggestion. This is the only third party defrag app that I have used before and was actually trying to avoid. I will admit that I used it a number of years ago on an XP machine - I'm sure the software has improved, but at the time I used it, it seemed like it made my system worse (if I remember correctly, long time ago, it actually created MORE fragments....)

Thank you for the suggestions. I guess I will read up more on the programs that you have all suggested!