How often do you defrag?

[corkyg]

Originally posted by: eatmyshorts
Interesting responses!

Originally posted by: corkyg

Originally posted by: Harvey
I defrag my drive daily. More often if I make serious changes such as installing a new program.

Defragging often can cut the time it takes from hours to minutes, and it definitely cuts the chances of system errors.

Same here - it just takes a few minutes each night pefore shutting down, and it keeps things in goodshape. I have done this for the past 19 years, and it has become a routine. Maybe that's why I only have to do a clean install when I get a new system or mobo?

Especially the above. I'd like to know if you 'wore out' any hard disks during that time. I have heard too many people arguing that using defrag on a very regular basis wears out the hdd. I think the above and several other comments point out that that is probably not the case.

Funny also how everyone jumps from every 6 months or less to every day or so. Personally I swing more towards daily, because it seemed to sort out some blue screen errors -bsod- a couple of years ago and have been using it atleast weekly since. -Maybe d/l'ing over 3gig a week in large files makes a difference too?

Actually I have never worn out a hard drive or had one crash. Each system has three drives, and 2 of the 3 are connected - but only one is active. One is immediate reserve and the other is disconnected. These get cloned weekly and rotated.

I usually keep a drive about 3 years then upgrade and give the old one away - as far as I know they are still running.

 

[pack1]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
Most of my systems: never.

Same here. Occasionally I'll defrag a file or certain directory if something seems like it's running too slow, but it's rarely worth it.

Yep thats why I stopped doing it a long time ago.

 

[Harvey]

Originally posted by: eatmyshorts
I'd like to know if you 'wore out' any hard disks during that time. I have heard too many people arguing that using defrag on a very regular basis wears out the hdd. I think the above and several other comments point out that that is probably not the case.

I can't say for sure. I've had one drive go bad after a couple of years, but that doesn't prove anything.

Considering how much less time is actually spent defragging by doing it daily, I think it may actually reduce the wear on the drives. I know it helps system performance.

 

[Nothinman]

Considering how much less time is actually spent defragging by doing it daily, I think it may actually reduce the wear on the drives. I know it helps system performance.

There's no way it reduces wear on the drives, you're moving files around that you may never touch for days or months. And the performance benefits are sketchy at best, it sure seems to help in Windows but it could just be a placebo affect because I know there's virtually no benefit from it in Linux.

 

[Harvey]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
There's no way it reduces wear on the drives, you're moving files around that you may never touch for days or months.

I disagree. Unless you're using some power saving setting that powers down the drive when not in use, the drive is spinning all the time so there's no saving on motor wear, and the majority of the files that aren't fragmented don't have to be moved in the process. Simple math tells you that the total time spent reading and writing is far less if it takes only minutes to defrag every day, instead of hours every week or two.

And the performance benefits are sketchy at best, it sure seems to help in Windows but it could just be a placebo affect because I know there's virtually no benefit from it in Linux.

But over 90% of the world's desktops are running Windows, and the performance and stability improvements aren't just cosmetic.

Glad you're on Linux. Stopping the Borg from Redmond is a noble cause. I'd love to join you if I had all the apps I need under Linux, but until then, I'm going to keep my Windows machine running as lean, mean and clean as possible.

I'll also continue to Ghost my drive regularly to deal with those times when Windows behaves like Windows and takes a dump. :Q

 

[Nothinman]

I disagree. Unless you're using some power saving setting that powers down the drive when not in use, the drive is spinning all the time so there's no saving on motor wear, and the majority of the files that aren't fragmented don't have to be moved in the process. Simple math tells you that the total time spent reading and writing is far less if it takes only minutes to defrag every day, instead of hours every week or two.

Even if it's spinning all of the time the heads aren't constantly moving around for no reason. And I'm comparing wear and tear of defragging vs not defragging at all.

But over 90% of the world's desktops are running Windows, and the performance and stability improvements aren't just cosmetic.

In most cases they are cosmetic, 99% of file access is not sequential so having all of your files contiguous is largely irrelevant and can cause extra seeking compared to when the files were fragmented. Part of why XP boots so fast is because it purposefully fragments files after profiling the bootup process, this way the file fragments can be read in a single stream instead of seeking around through dozens of contiguous files.

Glad you're on Linux. Stopping the Borg from Redmond is a noble cause.

I'm not trying to stop the Borg, I'm simply using what makes my life simpler.

 

[spyordie007]

In most cases they are cosmetic, 99% of file access is not sequential so having all of your files contiguous is largely irrelevant and can cause extra seeking compared to when the files were fragmented. Part of why XP boots so fast is because it purposefully fragments files after profiling the bootup process, this way the file fragments can be read in a single stream instead of seeking around through dozens of contiguous files.

Agreed. Also XP does more than just idle defragmentation of the boot files.

There really isnt a need to do regular defrags under Win XP or Linux. There are some things that you can do that will do large amounts of sequential access (i.e. video editing); however the files would have to be heavily fragmented before running a defrag would give a signifigant performance boost. Most of the time performance gains due to defragmenting a NTFS volume is minimal-at-best.

it sure seems to help in Windows but it could just be a placebo affect

There are a lot of people who got used to the need for defragging regularily under Windows 9x so I think they have the impression that it also is a big deal under XP. However this is really not the case. Those who claim XP requires regular manual defragmentations for reasons of stablity, etc. are really just spreading FUD.

For *most* users of XP there really isnt a need for regular defragmentation.

 

[Steve]

I do it maybe once a month if I remember. I just use the Windows defragger, but in Safe Mode.

 

[thegorx]

for my windows partition these days I just back it up to a ghost image
verify it then restore it
the rest of the drives I just mostly move the files from drive to drive
defragmenters IMO have gotton pretty lame

 

[xcript]

Under linux, never.

/: fragmentation factor 0.59%
/home: fragmentation factor 5.10%

Under Windows, maybe once a year (if that).

 

[KoolDrew]

In Windows XP fragmentation means very little.

 

[Glib]

Originally posted by: Harvey
Norton's defrag is cool. It puts the swapfile at the head of the disk as one contiguous file so it doesn't get fragmented, and other files don't fragment around it.

Ooooo, I gotta check into that ;-)
I defrag weekly (give or take, but if I didn't play WoW so much I'd probably only do it monthly. Defrags on my 80g drive were ridiculously long until I partitioned 50g into drive E. Still, it's a noticeable change in speed when I'm too lazy to reinstall. When I was in tech support, a majority of my co-workers would religiously wipe and load every 6 months because of Windows' bloatware tendencies.

 

[Nothinman]

Norton's defrag is cool. It puts the swapfile at the head of the disk as one contiguous file so it doesn't get fragmented, and other files don't fragment around it.

That's counter-productive. The biggest performance killer with regard to disks is seek time, if you move the pagefile to the front of the disk while all of the files are in the middle you cause extra seeks every time the pagefile must be accessed. Ideally you want the pagefile in the middle of your filesystem because you want to keep the read heads in the same general area so that seek time is minimized.

 

[daniel49]

probably 3-4 times a year depending on how fragmented it gets

 

[daniel49]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

I disagree. Unless you're using some power saving setting that powers down the drive when not in use, the drive is spinning all the time so there's no saving on motor wear, and the majority of the files that aren't fragmented don't have to be moved in the process. Simple math tells you that the total time spent reading and writing is far less if it takes only minutes to defrag every day, instead of hours every week or two.

Even if it's spinning all of the time the heads aren't constantly moving around for no reason. And I'm comparing wear and tear of defragging vs not defragging at all.

But over 90% of the world's desktops are running Windows, and the performance and stability improvements aren't just cosmetic.

In most cases they are cosmetic, 99% of file access is not sequential so having all of your files contiguous is largely irrelevant and can cause extra seeking compared to when the files were fragmented. Part of why XP boots so fast is because it purposefully fragments files after profiling the bootup process, this way the file fragments can be read in a single stream instead of seeking around through dozens of contiguous files.

Glad you're on Linux. Stopping the Borg from Redmond is a noble cause.

I'm not trying to stop the Borg, I'm simply using what makes my life simpler.

resistance is futile.

 

[imported_BikeDude]

Originally posted by: Harvey
But over 90% of the world's desktops are running Windows, and the performance and stability improvements aren't just cosmetic.

I'm sorry, but *stability* improvements from defragging?

Pardon me for asking, but that is a pretty hefty claim! Do you have anything to back up your claim? Performance problems stemming from a heavily fragmented pagefile on a memory starved system -- I can buy that, but *stability* problems?

 

[Nothinman]

resistance is futile.

Not really. I'm not a PC gamer so there's nothing that can be done in Windows that I can't do in Linux and in most cases the Linux equivalent will be simpler and more flexible.

 

[spyordie007]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

Norton's defrag is cool. It puts the swapfile at the head of the disk as one contiguous file so it doesn't get fragmented, and other files don't fragment around it.

That's counter-productive. The biggest performance killer with regard to disks is seek time, if you move the pagefile to the front of the disk while all of the files are in the middle you cause extra seeks every time the pagefile must be accessed. Ideally you want the pagefile in the middle of your filesystem because you want to keep the read heads in the same general area so that seek time is minimized.

And of course it would be even better to just buy more RAM so that you didnt need to make frequent trips to the paging file.... :roll:

I'm sorry, but *stability* improvements from defragging?

Pardon me for asking, but that is a pretty hefty claim! Do you have anything to back up your claim? Performance problems stemming from a heavily fragmented pagefile on a memory starved system -- I can buy that, but *stability* problems?

Defragging shouldnt effect stability at all, anyone who states this is just spreading FUD.

 

[Nothinman]

And of course it would be even better to just buy more RAM so that you didnt need to make frequent trips to the paging file....

And then people still see the "PF Usage" counter in taskmgr and cry because Windows isn't using all of their memory.

 

[fluxquantum]

Originally posted by: Harvey
I defrag my drive daily. More often if I make serious changes such as installing a new program.

Defragging often can cut the time it takes from hours to minutes, and it definitely cuts the chances of system errors.

same here. i use perfectdisk 7.

 

[eatmyshorts]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

Considering how much less time is actually spent defragging by doing it daily, I think it may actually reduce the wear on the drives. I know it helps system performance.

There's no way it reduces wear on the drives, you're moving files around that you may never touch for days or months. And the performance benefits are sketchy at best, it sure seems to help in Windows but it could just be a placebo affect because I know there's virtually no benefit from it in Linux.

Linux doesn't really get fragmented, so yes, there is not really a point in defragmenting it and you would also not notice a change. NTFS of course is different from the old FAT32, win98 systems, where I thought it was ESSENTIAL to defrag extremely frequently. -Although I still notice better performance now on XP when I do it once a week.


Anyway, what program is the best to use for defrag? Windows defrag surely not...

 

[Nothinman]

Linux doesn't really get fragmented, so yes, there is not really a point in defragmenting it

Sure it does, it's just that Linux is smart and the fragmentation has very little affect on performance in day to day use.

My /home partition on my home machine:

xfs_db -c frag -r /dev/sdb2
actual 38342, ideal 29246, fragmentation factor 23.72%

NTFS of course is different from the old FAT32, win98 systems, where I thought it was ESSENTIAL to defrag extremely frequently. -Although I still notice better performance now on XP when I do it once a week.

NTFS is better than FAT at avoid fragmentation, but it's still not very good at all. I would assume that MS never took any time to tune that aspect because they need to keep people with a reason to buy DiskKeeper.

Anyway, what program is the best to use for defrag? Windows defrag surely not...

The only bad thing about it is that you can't schedule it from the UI, it doesn't have all of the features of O&O and even the full commercial DiskKeeper but most of them are pointless anyway and if you're smart you can still schedule defrags with the included tool via Windows own scheduler.

 

[Griffinhart]

My Primary PC get's defragged about once a month. Usually the same day I create a new image of it for back up purposes.

My Media Center get's defragged twice a week.

 

[sourceninja]

Hell, I've been running linux for years and I dont think I've ever defraged after I switched to reiser. I dont even know how to defrag reiser LOL.

As for the wife's PC. I have her defrag her machine once every 6 months, its a scheduled task.

 

[Crescent13]

once a week, and if I install any programs, then I will defrag after the install.