POLL: How often do you defrag your HDD?

[JellyBaby]

Once a month or as the doctor recommends. Some partitions more than others (I rarely defrag the partition where data seldom changes).

 

[Claw57]

Once a week.

 

[AMB]

Once every two weeks

 

[MulLa]

Whenever I can remember to do it ^^ But works out to be once every month or so.

 

[Dan]

I defrag the C partition 2x/week. Once/week for the rest of the drive.

 

[Regalk]

Once every 2-3 days since I move a lot of files thru my box on a daily basis to other computers on the NW.

 

[Taz4158]

Once a week. Takes about 8 minutes with Norton on my 30 gig.

 

[hopefloats]

Every 2-3 weeks or so... and I do it in safe mode because it's faster.

 

[pac1085]

I used to do it several times a day when I was running WinME...now im running 2000 Pro, so I only do it about once a week...

 

[Renob]

I use speed disk every 3-4 days........

 

[rootaxs]

used to do it every weekend. tried going without it for a whole year and haven't experienced any difference (then again i really don't get a highly fragmented disk state). i just do it when needed nowadays.

 

[RC5Bri]

I typically do it 3-4 times a week with Diskeeper Workstation. It normally takes less than 5 minutes per defrag. IMHO, Diskeeper is just about the best defragger. I have installed it on all win9x, and win2k machines that I run.

 

[Wuming]

the windows defragmenter is too slow and keeps restarting for no reason. my bigger partitions takes more than one overnight to defrag. that's why i defrag only when i feel there is a need to now.

any better defrag proggies around?

 

[Subversal]

Once or twice a month tops. Geez its been 2 weeks since I last defragged and only 91% is fragmented. Don't know about my other machines though...

 

[HappyFace]

I defrag around 1 time a month. The Windows utilities take wayyyy too long.

Edit: where's the poll!?

 

[chuckieland]

usually once a month
or after add or deleted large files ie. divx movies
and also do it before i burning alot of data off from my HD to CDs

 

[A2KLAU]

I degrag my hard drive once a week for the sake of it! I leave my computers on 24/7 anyway and so I set somethings to run automatically! So while I am at school away from the computer it defrags.

SKY.

 

[Drifter]

>twice a month

 

[themadmonk]

every 2 weeks.

 

[billandopus]

wuming, among some of the better defrag programs are GoldenBow Systems VoptME, Norton Speedisk, O&O Defrag ...

 

[johnlog]

Shawnmos,

If you have not defragged your hard drive in 6 months then you must have one very slow hard drive accesses. Your HD heads must be moving erratically all over your hard drive trying to find all the parts to a file or program.

I can see it would be a good idea to start the defrag program just before bed time and let it run all night.

if you are using the Windows defrag utility it is very slow running compared to the Norton Utilities Defrag program.

JL :Q

 

[johnlog]

DAZ,

>>>I usually do it once a month. But a word of warning, if you have not done it in two months or more, dont bother, it will actually slow your system down. <<<

What that will do is slow down how long your defrag program will take to reorganize your hard drive. Defragging certainly will not slow down running your programs. Just the opposite. Your programs will start and run faster. you will see much less hard drive activity when running and accessing programs and files.

I suppose also those who do not defrag also do not run any programs like Norton's DiskDoctor to check for hard drive errors. One of our club members got a call from a computer user that he could no longer access programs. When my friend checked out the hard drive with DiskDoctor it found litterally hundreds of hard drive and file errors. What a mess!

After running DiskDoctor several times he finally got all those errors cleaned up. Problem was so many files that were corrupted belonged to programs so to get those programs to run again they had to reinstall them.

Keeping your hard drive healthy is a must do thing not a second thought type of thing to do later.

JL

 

[LXi]

Once or twice a month, depending on if I remember to do it or not.

 

[johnlog]

Wuming,

You definitely are in need of the Norton System Works 2001 program. Its defrag program never quits on my computers.

I gave up on using Windows defragmentor program as being to slow and like you say once in a while on a long defrag it will plain stop. But its stopping could be it found an error on your hard drive and could not continue defragging.

Norton DiskDoctor before it defrags allways runs a DiskDoctor check first to make sure there are no hard drive errors or problems. If it finds a problem then it asks you to run the full DiskDoctor program first then defrag after.

I am surprises so many depend on Windows defrag and ScanDisk utilities. They are OK programs but by far not the best.


JL :Q

 

[maap]

I've got an IBM 45gig and twin 13.6gig Fujitsu's in raid 0. I defrag once a month.