Quick Defrag

[Hew Jazz]

Are there any programs out there that can defrag my hard drive quickly? Windows XP is just too slow.

 

[oog]

personally, i don't have a lot of experience with other defraggers. i let mine run in the background while i do other things with the computer, or i let it run at night. if you need to defragment a single file, there is a utility named contig at www.sysinternals.com that does things pretty quickly.

 

[KoolDrew]

PerfeckDisk? O&O?

 

[Hew Jazz]

Whats faster, PerfectDisk or Disk Keeper?

 

[KoolDrew]

I never liked Diskeeper as it does a terrible job at consolidating free space.

 

[Xyclone]

I heard the third party defrag apps aren't too different from the Windows XP one, correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[Nothinman]

Defragging in general is pretty pointless.

 

[jbritt1234]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
Defragging in general is pretty pointless.

:Q
Huh? You mind expanding on that a bit?

 

[Nothinman]

I did in one of the other defrag threads this week.

 

[jbritt1234]

How nice of you.

In my real-world experience I totaly put up a BS flag on Defragmenting not helping. I've got workstations that have been running for years and after defragmenting they WILL show a marked improvement on loading apps and on startup.

 

[NoToRiOuS1]

Originally posted by: jbritt1234
How nice of you.

In my real-world experience I totaly put up a BS flag on Defragmenting not helping. I've got workstations that have been running for years and after defragmenting they WILL show a marked improvement on loading apps and on startup.

agreed. and ive been using diskeeper myself and i have noticed improvements in loading levels in doom, farcry, hl2, etc.
i would highly reccomend diskeeper.
specially the new version, im a big fan of it.

 

[KoolDrew]

Originally posted by: jbritt1234

Originally posted by: Nothinman
Defragging in general is pretty pointless.

:Q
Huh? You mind expanding on that a bit?

The heads are hopping all over the disk anyway reading pieces of the data. It takes very high levels of fragmentation to really have an effect on real-world performance.

 

[jbritt1234]

Originally posted by: KoolDrew

Originally posted by: jbritt1234

Originally posted by: Nothinman
Defragging in general is pretty pointless.

:Q
Huh? You mind expanding on that a bit?

The heads are hopping all over the disk anyway reading pieces of the data. It takes very high levels of fragmentation to really have an effect on real-world performance.

Well, yes, that I agree with. However, if you NEVER defrag, your drive will eventually get to the point where it will make a difference.

So yes, defragging every day is a little over the top.

NEVER defraggin the whole life of the computer WILL make a difference in the speed.

 

[linjy2]

i been using the one that comes in my norton systemworks 2003. not sure if it makes anydifference between brands. should i upgraded to a better defrag prog?

 

[jbritt1234]

Originally posted by: linjy2
i been using the one that comes in my norton systemworks 2003. not sure if it makes anydifference between brands. should i upgraded to a better defrag prog?

IMHO it would be a waste of money to purchase another one.

 

[n7]

I use O & O pro, or Raxco Perfect Disk.

I'd say the best way to defrag fast is to do it regularly, as it keeps each time short.

 

[Hew Jazz]

What about Vopt XP?

 

[John]

Originally posted by: Xyclone
I heard the third party defrag apps aren't too different from the Windows XP one, correct me if I'm wrong.

Win 2K/XP use a lite version of Diskeeper. I've been using Diskeeper Pro v8 for a few years now and it works fine. The scheduling option is nice.

 

[Nothinman]

Well, yes, that I agree with. However, if you NEVER defrag, your drive will eventually get to the point where it will make a difference.

Only if you're using an OS that doesn't manage it's data properly. The /home filesystem on my home machine has 23% fragmentation and there is virtually no delay in loading anything from that drive.

And as I also mentioned in the other thread, defragging all of your files will usually cause an increase in load times because nearly all files are read in really small chunks. For instance, when you run a program the executable you ran is read by so are all of the supporting libraries it needs. But because loading all of them into memory fully would be a waste of memory only the immediately necessary parts are read. This is called demand paging. As the executable runs more of it and it's libraries are paged into memory. The same thing is true of most of the XP OS, this is why XP will intentionally fragment it's bootfiles to reduce seek times and speed up booting.

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
And as I also mentioned in the other thread, defragging all of your files will usually cause an increase in load times because nearly all files are read in really small chunks.

They weren't in small chunks before you defragged?

 

[Rottie]

I use Diskkeeper Pro 9.0 cuz it defrags really fast.

 

[Nothinman]

They weren't in small chunks before you defragged?

Probably not, especially with regards to executables and libraries. But my point was that making the files contiguous buys you nothing because no more than a handfull of kilobytes of the files, probably 100K at most, is read at a time.

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

They weren't in small chunks before you defragged?

Probably not, especially with regards to executables and libraries. But my point was that making the files contiguous buys you nothing because no more than a handfull of kilobytes of the files, probably 100K at most, is read at a time.

I still don't understand how this is decreasing performance. I don't defrag every day by any means, but usually once a month or so overnight, and I notice an improvement in how fast menus load, and other things that were really slow before feel just as fast as the rest of the system now.

 

[jbritt1234]

Until you can produce proven benchmarks to this point I continue to waive my almighty BS flag in the air.

 

[jbritt1234]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

They weren't in small chunks before you defragged?

Probably not, especially with regards to executables and libraries. But my point was that making the files contiguous buys you nothing because no more than a handfull of kilobytes of the files, probably 100K at most, is read at a time.

Until you can produce proven benchmarks to this point I continue to waive my almighty BS flag in the air.