Disk Fragmentation

[Snowman88]

Hello again. My new Thinkpad came installed with a program called Diskeeper that takes care of defragmenting. I defragmented for the first time today, and directly afterwards it told me that 0% of the drive is fragmented. Now, several hours later, I analyzed the drive again and it says "The volume is moderately fragmented, with 67% of the total volume space available for defragme tation. If you haven't run Diskeeper yet, it is time to do so." Does it make sense to have this much fragmentation already? In the few hours since de-fragging I've installed a few new programs (all part of a new printer software) - could that have caused this or is something else going on?

Thanks

 

[John]

Originally posted by: Snowman88
In the few hours since de-fragging I've installed a few new programs (all part of a new printer software) - could that have caused this or is something else going on?

Absolutely.

 

[Snowman88]

Thanks for the response. Does that message mean that 67% of my drive had become fragmented, or am I misinterpreting it?

 

[corkyg]

And, if you use a dynamic page file, Windows will be constantly shoving things around causing fragmentation. That's why I keep my page file in a small, separate partition with a fixed size.

Another thing that causes fragging is the Internet. When on line, temporary Internet files are constantly being created and rarely deleted. These are also good to be placed in the "trash partition" along with the page file.

 

[Pirotech]

Frankly, I don't see any sufficient reason for defragmentation nowadays. Now the drive sector size is too small compared to the size of files. Besides, now repositioning of HDD head is fast enough, which makes defragmentation pluses very doubtful.

 

[corkyg]

Every little bit counts. Besides, it's something to do, and the end result looks better.

 

[daveybrat]

Originally posted by: corkyg
Every little bit counts. Besides, it's something to do, and the end result looks better.

Agreed, i can't stand seeing all the little red dots in my program, the blue looks much cleaner

 

[Snowman88]

Hey guys. So I figured out that my drive was probably about 6-7% fragmented after installing 450 mb of software last night (I had de-fragged before installing the programs). I defragged again last night, and now 24 hours later my drive is at about 1% fragmentation (408 fragmented files, 1400 excess fragments). Does that seem like a reasonable rate of fragmentation for a day? I just surfed the internet today; no program installations. Thanks

 

[bluestrobe]

Your always going to have fragmentation after any use.

Compare it to washing your car. If you did nothing with your car and left it in the garage(did nothing with your computer), it would get dusty but otherwise stay clean. Now if you took your clean car out for a spin, especially after a rainstorm or dew on the ground, it'll get a little dirty. (using your computer one day or so). Now turn your car into a daily driver. (average day to day use).

I defrag about every two weeks or after a major install/uninstall. Anymore more than that you're just adding wear to your hard drive with minimal benefit.

 

[thirtythree]

Originally posted by: Snowman88
Hey guys. So I figured out that my drive was probably about 6-7% fragmented after installing 450 mb of software last night (I had de-fragged before installing the programs). I defragged again last night, and now 24 hours later my drive is at about 1% fragmentation (408 fragmented files, 1400 excess fragments). Does that seem like a reasonable rate of fragmentation for a day? I just surfed the internet today; no program installations. Thanks

Sounds normal to me.