Defrag is useless?

[Caius]

What do you think?It is usefull of useless?

Discuss

There are much to discuss, but give a try

[x-dANGEr]

Useful.

EDIT:

But to what degree, depends on the filled space of the Hard Disk I think.

[edyzmedieval]

IMHO, Defrag only counts on a small HDD and on a low-end computer. Powerful computers don't necessarily need defrag too often.

[Caius]

It liberate space on disk?

[BlackAxe3001]

Defrag is very useful. I use diskeeper and it works wonders. What defrag does it take files that should be next to each other and places them next to each other. Yeah... lol. It also moves everything together on the drive so that the read/write heads don't have to look all over the platters for files that should all be together. It increases performance to some degree. I defrag every night and it makes a difference.

To improve file access by rearranging data so that whole files are stored in contiguous sectors on a hard disk.

That sums it up better.

[Xiahou]

It can be very useful. A PC with a severely fragmented system drive will crawl.

[LeftEyeNine]

Try Perfect Disk before jumping to conclusions about defragging being unnecessary.

[doc_bean]

I defrag every night and it makes a difference.

Err..doesn't defragging damage the HD (ever so slightly) ?

[Spino]

Err..doesn't defragging damage the HD (ever so slightly) ?

I don't see why it should. All defragging apps do is move file chunks around so that they're not scattered all over the place. It's not as if defrag apps force your hard drive to operate in an unorthodox or unnatural manner.

Hard drives used in large corporate servers get a much harder workout on an everyday basis than BlackAxe3001's hard drive will ever get from being defragged every day for the entire time he owns the drive. Although I will say that unless you're moving a ton of files around on a daily basis defragging your hard drive daily is serious overkill. Defragging once a week should suffice for the average user.

[BlackAxe3001]

I'm not an average user though. I do A LOT of stuff everyday and to keep performance up I defrag every night. It doesn't hurt anything and I am sleeping at night so it doesn't matter. Keeps everything where it should be. I will agree though, the average person only needs to defrag probably once a week.

As for servers, they are a different breed. Our file servers at work get pounded everyday, so a defrag everyday for them is a MUST. Exchange server, holy crap, now there is a box that gets pounded on. Database server, etc. It would be like having 1000 people using one machine. It gets worked over everyday. Anyway, that was sorta off topic.

[Xiahou]

I remember being called in to troubleshoot "slow performance" of an application on a server. After a cursory inspection of the program, I checked the system with 'Disk Defragmenter'... I've since forgotten the actual percentage, but the entire bar displayed was almost solid red. The server had been running for about 5yrs and had never been defragged.... ever.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

:shudders:

[Caius]

I never use it.

Lazy Caius

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Hmm I haven't defragged in 2 1/2 years.



Guess I should

[LeftEyeNine]

Your system did not ever got formatted for the last 2 1/2 years then, Sasaki ??! Whadda ?!!

[Xiahou]

Your system did not ever got formatted for the last 2 1/2 years then, Sasaki ??! Whadda ?!!

I loathe reformatting my system and only do it as a last resort. I've upgraded nearly every scrap of hardware in my system(even went from Intel to AMD) and just did a "repair" install to clean up the devices. It just takes too dang long to reinstall everything and it's mind numbing to make sure I back up every save file and preference for my games. And then there's the hassle of programs that I had to DL and unlock without having a CD to reinstall from- so then I have to go sifting thru old emails to find usernames, unlock keys, ect.

Sasaki, you'll have to let us know if you see any noticeable performance improvements after your defrag.

[Caius]

Last format:

Never



Thats the concecuences

[Caius]

Defrag complete

52000 fragment in excess
OMG!

[doc_bean]

I don't see why it should. All defragging apps do is move file chunks around so that they're not scattered all over the place. It's not as if defrag apps force your hard drive to operate in an unorthodox or unnatural manner.

Hard drives used in large corporate servers get a much harder workout on an everyday basis than BlackAxe3001's hard drive will ever get from being defragged every day for the entire time he owns the drive. Although I will say that unless you're moving a ton of files around on a daily basis defragging your hard drive daily is serious overkill. Defragging once a week should suffice for the average user.

Hard drives have limited uses, like USB sticks and most other storage media, they run the risk of getting damaged with every operation (professional HDs last at least twice as long as regular HDs I believe, it might be even more for serious servers). Defragmenting is an intensive operation (lots of files get moved around) so you'll be more at risk of damaging your HD quicker.

At least that's what i heard/read somewhere.

[Caius]

According to my maths

52228 x 16 / 1024 = 816 MB in fragmented files.

what can I do?

[BlackAxe3001]

1. Run a defrag
2. Run a defrag
3. Run a defrag
4. Run a defrag
5. See #1

[BlackAxe3001]

Hard drives have limited uses, like USB sticks and most other storage media, they run the risk of getting damaged with every operation (professional HDs last at least twice as long as regular HDs I believe, it might be even more for serious servers). Defragmenting is an intensive operation (lots of files get moved around) so you'll be more at risk of damaging your HD quicker.

At least that's what i heard/read somewhere.

Defrag does NOT run any risk of damaging your hard drive. The drive is made to move files around. Defrag just moves a BUNCH of them in one session. It's no different than any other regular operation. The only thing a defrag might do is raise the drive temp a few degrees, but if you have sufficient cooling thats not even an issue.

[Caius]

ran it twice.

No effects

[Xiahou]

Last format:

Never



Thats the concecuences

From the looks of that graph, you may not have enough free disk space to do a proper defrag. I believe Microsoft recommends at least 15% of your drive be free to defrag properly.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Yeah it wouldn't let me do it until I cleaned up some space.

It's cool, I don't get that flashlight thing when opening my computer anymore.

[Caius]

I only haved the 1% percent.
Runned with 6% now, but i need space

[naut]

The standard Microsoft Disk Defrag doesn't work on my computer(s), it's missing components. So I was forced to buy PerfectDisk, works great though.

[Caius]

Still defragging, but i canT make much percentage

[Motep]

I havent defragged my compuetr in ages...maybe thats why it so slow...

[TosaInu]

Err..doesn't defragging damage the HD (ever so slightly) ?

I recall, from a years back article, that a low level format is damaging for HD performance by removing 'markers'. It was required for some sort of rescue, forgot what, but also removed 'markers' (?) on the HD which were there for normal smooth operation.

As the defrag proces basically moves data from one block to another, I can see files getting damaged due to copy errors.

A defrag tool that is incompatible with your OS version and/or filesystem will corrupt your system.