How do You defrag the Large Hard Drives?- Is there a free Software Program?

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HumbleFish

Senior member
Aug 20, 2001
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Hi All, and hope Everyones doing well,

Anyways, I just installed a 200-Gig hard drive in my PC and I read somewhere that the defrag prog that comes stock in windows cannot handle the larger drives... So how do You defrag the Large Hard Drives?- Is there a free Software Program (I hope)?

Thanks for Your Help and Time.

Love You,
HumbleFish
 
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dBTelos

Golden Member
Apr 17, 2006
1,858
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Where did you read that? If it stated larger drives, maybe it was hinting at 2TB RAID arrays. I have a 320GB drive, on one partition and it can defrag it fine.
 
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alimoalem

Diamond Member
Sep 22, 2005
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Originally posted by: dBTelos
Where did you read that? If it stated larger drives, maybe it was hinting at 2TB RAID arrays. I have a 320GB drive, on one partition and it can defrag it fine.
Click to expand...

that's what i was thinking. did whatever you read state what GB is "too much?" and when was the article/whatever you read written? if it's a pretty old thing, chances are an updated has fixed it. if it's really new, i'm sure they were referring to what DBTelos said (2TB RAID arrays).
 
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Lord Evermore

Diamond Member
Oct 10, 1999
9,558
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76
However PerfectDisk does have a trial period, and an online version that has a free trial, so you could defrag it really well a few times for a month then just use the built in Windows version. PerfectDisk isn't terribly expensive either, and does things like moving the swap file and hybernation files to a good place on the partition (at the middle), and can do offline defragments to move system files. Most 3rd party defraggers can do that.
 
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HumbleFish

Senior member
Aug 20, 2001
390
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0
Hi All,

Thanks for the input... I guess I should have said that I'm running a dual boot system with Win98SE and Win2000Pro on it... And where I receive the info about the stock defrag system not being able to do the job is in the Maxter HDD owner manuel I received with my new 200GB HDD... It pretty much says what this page here says: http://www.hexff.com/w98_hd.php ... And I think it's mostly Win98SE that can't handle it so I guess Win2000 is ok?
 
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Lord Evermore

Diamond Member
Oct 10, 1999
9,558
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The defragmenter in Windows98 is a completely different program than that in Win2k and XP.

I think the difference they refer to between 137GB drives and being limited to 127GB is probably referring to the fact that 137 billion bytes (what manufacturers call a 137GB drive) is actually 128GB in binary. So you can partition the drive as 137 billion bytes and it will work fine, but if you partition it as 137GB in binary, it will be over the binary limit. As that page says, the defragmenter in Win98 is only 16 bit and so can only handle a 127GB binary partition.

Windows98 may also be limited to the 127GB/137GB physical drive size if you use the standard Microsoft IDE drivers, rather than installing the drivers from the chipset maker. Just partitioning it to smaller sizes won't matter, since this is in reference to the ability to actually read the drive addressing.
 
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dmxlite

Member
Jan 20, 2004
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If I remember correctly, I believe that Lord Evermore is right. The built in windows defraggers are limited in what they can defrag because the system (either the OS, or through the BIOS) is limited in which part of the drive it can address.

As for large drives, if there is a lot of content on it, I would avoid the built in defrag util because it is slow.

I don't know of any free utils, but I use Diskeeper (can't remember if it's 1 or 2 k's) and PerfectDisk.

If Norton Systemworks is bundled with your system (or you can get your hands on one), that also has a defrag util in it.
 
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HumbleFish

Senior member
Aug 20, 2001
390
0
0
Thanks Lord Evermore, dmxlite, and Everyone,

I guess I'll just use the Win2K defragger to do the job until I can find a freebe or come up with the money for one of the afore mentioned Defrag Progs.

Thanks again for the Help, and Love You,
HumbleFish
 
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ruffilb

Diamond Member
Feb 6, 2005
5,096
1
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Originally posted by: alimoalem
Originally posted by: dBTelos
Where did you read that? If it stated larger drives, maybe it was hinting at 2TB RAID arrays. I have a 320GB drive, on one partition and it can defrag it fine.
Click to expand...

that's what i was thinking. did whatever you read state what GB is "too much?" and when was the article/whatever you read written? if it's a pretty old thing, chances are an updated has fixed it. if it's really new, i'm sure they were referring to what DBTelos said (2TB RAID arrays).
Click to expand...

2x250 GB+1x300 GB drives here, no problem defragging with built in winXP.
 
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obeseotron

Golden Member
Oct 9, 1999
1,910
0
0
I use diskkeeper 10 and it works like a charm with my 600GB RAID volume, and my two 250GB drives too. I think they have an older version availble as freeware.
 
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Skott

Diamond Member
Oct 4, 2005
5,730
1
76
Is diskkeeper faster than the built in Win XP defragger? And if so, is it alot faster or just somewhat? In my next rig I plan to get a large drive so curious if there is something better on the market for defragging than Windows version. I havent used anything other than Windows built in defragger so I'm curious.
 
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Auric

Diamond Member
Oct 11, 1999
9,591
2
71
DK's very good, especially for automatic use but I prefer O&O for manual and choosing the specific method according the use of each volume rather than the proggy making compromises based on guesses (however informed by smart data analysis they may be).
 
Red Squirrel

Red Squirrel

No Lifer
May 24, 2003
69,974
13,474
126
www.anyf.ca
I use a program called contig, Its command line, and easy to schedule through task scheduler so it runs every 2,3 days overnight.
 
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aceO07

Diamond Member
Nov 6, 2000
4,491
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76
Originally posted by: RedSquirrel
I use a program called contig, Its command line, and easy to schedule through task scheduler so it runs every 2,3 days overnight.
Click to expand...

There's also a GUI for it too. Contig isn't a fancy looking program, command line, however it does seem to work better than the windows defrag.
 
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networkman

Lifer
Apr 23, 2000
10,436
1
0
Another fan of Diskeeper here. We use the 7.0 Server version at work on Windows 2000 servers and the 8.0 Server version on 2003 servers. In both cases, it's WAY faster than the built-in defrag program and is able to defrag multiple volumes at the same time. It can also be scheduled and set to do a boot-time defrag so that you can defrag the MFT and paging files if need be. :)

I use the workstation versions of 8.0 and 9.0 on my PCs at home and love 'em. No experience with 10 yet.
 
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