Defragging, worth the time?

ok- ive never really gotten into the habit of defragging my hard drive. Should I? is it really worht the hour or so it takes? what does it do and would it benifeit u?

 

Yep, its worth it.

Fragmented files cause longer load times, slow performance and if bad enough, they could even cause the program to stop working.

 

When I purchased my new computer which is about a year newer than my other, I commenced defragging before I downloaded or installed a new program and both computers have basically the same programs on them and the same "xp" home edition OS.
I learned from my other one which I didn't Defrag that often, that the performance is definitely slower. And just looking at the analysis report shows me the status of the files as a result of my reluctance to take the time.

on the newer one, I started right away and use Perfect Disk 7 which I find is fast and reliable depending as the original post said how many programs you download etc. over a period of time.
I tried O & O and Diskkeeper Pro 9 and find Perfect Disk certainly gets the Boot in order.
It did a better job than the other 2 programs, in fact I still run Diskkeeper Pro 9 on my older PC and there simply is no comparison in the time required to do the Defrag and as well the performance of the PC's after they have been Defragged.
Perfect Disk 7 does cost, and so did Diskkeeper Pro 9; but for me the $ was well spent after I used the Raxco Trial version of Perfect Disk 7, which by the way you can use the Trial for 2 periods of 30 days and then you have to make a choice to purchase or not.
That is the way I did it, and it gave me a good opportunity to give it a go!!

And my computer is really working great, I wish I had done this with my 2 year old computer right off the bat, however chose not too.

Just thought i would add my experiences to this post!!!

Happy Defragging, do it and you will notice a Big Difference!!

 

I've gotten to where I defrag every time I install or uninstall, but then I have what, for me, is an underpowered computer (Dell 2400, P4 2.2) so I'm always trying to squeeze as much out of the turnip as possible.

If you have any apps that can't work off RAM well and require a lot of HD access, as organized of a drive as possible is a must. I stream big data for Flight Simulator photo scenery as well as Gigastudio 3 sample files (which are often over a gig) and the difference in performance is pretty big.