Is disk defragging still necessary?

I looked at other posts dealing with defragging, and did not find the answer. They dealt with the pros and cons of various software packages mostly. So I hope this isn't a repeat of an already answered question.

I was forced to change to Win 7 recently by lightning destroying my old PC. I have been faithfully using a disk defragger since Windows 3.1 but somewhere - I think it was PC World - I saw an article that said it is no longer necessary with Windows 7 and the much larger disk capacities that most of us have now.

So I went to the Microsoft forums and asked. I got answers from both sides, "Yes you need to." and "No, it is a waste of time and doesn't improve performance."

So I am coming to the Real Source of All Knowledge for the answer: Do disk defraggers improve performance in Windows 7 systems?

Thanks.

 

Much depends on your usage and your free disk space. Online gamers that require regularly updated patches to play might see measurable benefit from defragging weekly or monthly (some 3rd party defraggers allow defragging on a folder level).

SSD users and users of Digital Audio Workstation's shouldn't use defraggers at all (at least, not on the SSD or audio data drives).

Most people lie somewhere in between; a monthly cleanup and defrag for heavy users with less than 50% free space might be beneficial, light users may only need to defrag once a year.

Generally, the slower the PC, the greater the benefits of defragging. If the PC is more than about 75% full (HDD) or 85% (SSD), it's time for a new disk or to move data over to a secondary drive.

 

In general, it's always good to maintain the filesystem at a low/minimal level of fragmentation for best performance, even from Windows 7. If you do a lot of installing/uninstalling, or use disk intensive apps such as Photoshop, games (loading times) etc, then a defragmented drive will perform better than a fragmented drive. If system files like the MFT are badly fragmented, then file access for other files can also slow down since the MFT is referred to each time, this can also affect boot times AFAIK.

One interesting thing I was told by a techie was that in case of a HDD failure, recovering data from a defragmented drive is relatively easier than a fragmented drive since the logical blocks are contiguous. I've never verified this, and neither do I wish to, lol.

In summary, there are no cons to defragging (as long as you use a reliable defragger), only benefits. The magnitude of the benefits will depend on the state of initial fragmentation as well as the usage patterns of the system.