From: Monica on
I'm still using XP SP3 and will till I HAVE to reformat or it's time to buy
a new computer. But, I have noticed that my hdd is never as fragmented as I
think it's going to be and I can't detect any noticeable difference in
system performance like I used to.
Thanks
"Christopher Muto" <muto(a)worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
news:x6GdnfRYtO5_AOTWnZ2dnUVZ_uKdnZ2d(a)speakeasy.net...
> Monica wrote:
>> I've always used Window's defrag program. This is adequate or can
>> I/Should I be using something better?
>> A newsletter I got today mentioned a program called UltraDefrag. It's
>> free so maybe it's worth what it costs <g>
>> What would you guys suggest?
>> Thanks,
>> Monica
>
> windows 7 and vista have disk defragmentation built in and schedualed to
> run weekly by default. you can also perform manual scans or change the
> schedual under start-allprograms-acessories-systemtools-diskdefragmenter.
> but disk defragmentation is really a throw back to when disks were both
> slow and small. not much performance gained is achieved from the process
> on modern disks in regular workstation setting.


From: William R. Walsh on
Hi!

> I just tried MyDefrag and it not only wouldn't complete the process
> but messed up a program or two.  I uninstalled it.

You very probably have a deeper, more sinister problem lurking --
either you have high level filesystem corruption in the areas where
those programs are living, or you have a disk with bad spots that
haven't been mapped out/can't be mapped out because they can't be
fully read.

Make a backup before you take corrective action, if that's what you
plan to do. Perhaps make a backup and test your hard drive anyway.

> Actually many say now that Defrags aren't necessary due to
> the inherit speed of the drives today vs. years ago.

Speed of the drives and data density have both improved, and to a
certain extent, that has improved the amount of time it takes for the
drive to find and start retrieving data. If you've got a file that's
broken up in many pieces, however, and the drive has to stop
transferring data to seek over to the next piece of the file, you lose
some time there. (Not much time--maybe nanoseconds at most--although
it can add up.)

Buffering techniques have also improved to the point where if a drive
has to stop writing, something else can pick up the slack for a while.
(This is important if you're capturing data in real time and cannot
stop...as you might be if you were capturing video or multi-track
audio. People who do those things defragment their drives mainly to
have gobs of free space stacked up together so the drive won't have to
pause for seeking purposes once writing starts.)

That used to be a big deal, it was possible to buy so-called "A/V"
drives that wouldn't do thermal recalibration in the middle of a long
running write operation, amongst other things.

Microsoft said back in the days of NT4 that NTFS would not need
defragmentation. So far as I know, Executive Software provided some
interesting statistics that suggested NTFS actually fragmented quite
badly. How biased these were I don't know. Executive Software (today
known as Diskeeper Corporation) has always made a lot of noise that
suggests fragmentation will end up robbing your house while you sleep.

The developer of JK/MyDefrag says that Microsoft provided a
defragmentation API (in other words, a set of functions and tools for
use by defragmentation software) in Windows NT, 2000 and XP. I'm not
sure the bit about NT is correct; Microsoft was very adamant at the
time that NTFS did not suffer problems from fragmentation.

I don't know if it's actually a Microsoft designed API or not. When a
disk defragmenter first showed up in Windows NT family products, it
was a licensed, stripped down version of Executive's Diskeeper.

It's always possible that the defragmentation APIs are just "move this
file here, move that file there" commands and the actual strategy is
left to whatever defragmentation utility you use. I haven't
investigated it that closely.

For most people, defragmentation probably isn't a big deal. The world
won't end if you don't, but given the nature of personal computers to
do a wide variety of things, it wouldn't hurt to do it periodically so
your computer is performing at its best.

Windows has allegedly shipped with some sort of optiimzation scheme
for program launch acceleration since the days of Windows 98 and its
"WinAlign" tool. Office 2000 even got in on the game, with a post-
installation "file optimizer" that claimed it would run any time
Office files needed to be optimized. I've never seen it happen more
than the one time after installation, and some of the O2K
installations I have are quite old.

If you want to defragment your hard disk, set up a utility to do so on
a schedule, at a time when you won't be using your computer for
anything.

William
From: Ben Myers on
On 2/15/2010 1:21 PM, Monica wrote:
> I've always used Window's defrag program. This is adequate or can I/Should
> I be using something better?
> A newsletter I got today mentioned a program called UltraDefrag. It's free
> so maybe it's worth what it costs<g>
> What would you guys suggest?
> Thanks,
> Monica
>
>
Defraggler is worth much, much more than it costs, and it is free. It
comes from the same group that authored CCleaner, a first-rate system
cleanup utility.

UltraDefrag looks like it is worth a try. I think I will... Ben Myers
From: Ben Myers on
On 2/15/2010 2:17 PM, Christopher Muto wrote:
> Monica wrote:
>> I've always used Window's defrag program. This is adequate or can
>> I/Should I be using something better?
>> A newsletter I got today mentioned a program called UltraDefrag. It's
>> free so maybe it's worth what it costs <g>
>> What would you guys suggest?
>> Thanks,
>> Monica
>>
>
> windows 7 and vista have disk defragmentation built in and schedualed to
> run weekly by default. you can also perform manual scans or change the
> schedual under start-allprograms-acessories-systemtools-diskdefragmenter.
> but disk defragmentation is really a throw back to when disks were both
> slow and small. not much performance gained is achieved from the process
> on modern disks in regular workstation setting.

The performance gain from using a defragmenter varies widely with each
system and each user. I have to disagree that a defragger does not
improve performance.

The Windows file system always flogs wildly about and creates many, many
fragmented files. My favorite example is what happens to email inbox,
sentbox, etc. with any one of Outlook, Outlook Express, Thunderbird or
Eudora. Whenever one sends or receives mail with these packages, the
"boxes" get fragmented. if not defragmented, they reach a certain state
where the system overall runs just fine, but email is a true slug.
Defrag the mailboxes and suddenly email performance is restored back to
its original. Another example I have encountered lately is that
Avid/DigiDesign recommend a two-drive system for music recording, and
that one should not record onto the system disk. Why? Fragmentation of
a recorded file affects playback of the music. Fragmentation could even
have an impact on recording, which is time-sensitive. I could cite
other examples, but these are the two that come to mind. Suffice it to
say that if a hard disk becomes highly fragmented, performance of
something or other can really suck... Ben Myers
From: Ben Myers on
On 2/15/2010 4:17 PM, William R. Walsh wrote:
> Hi!
>
>> I just tried MyDefrag and it not only wouldn't complete the process
>> but messed up a program or two. I uninstalled it.
>
> You very probably have a deeper, more sinister problem lurking --
> either you have high level filesystem corruption in the areas where
> those programs are living, or you have a disk with bad spots that
> haven't been mapped out/can't be mapped out because they can't be
> fully read.
>
> Make a backup before you take corrective action, if that's what you
> plan to do. Perhaps make a backup and test your hard drive anyway.
>
>> Actually many say now that Defrags aren't necessary due to
>> the inherit speed of the drives today vs. years ago.
>
> Speed of the drives and data density have both improved, and to a
> certain extent, that has improved the amount of time it takes for the
> drive to find and start retrieving data. If you've got a file that's
> broken up in many pieces, however, and the drive has to stop
> transferring data to seek over to the next piece of the file, you lose
> some time there. (Not much time--maybe nanoseconds at most--although
> it can add up.)
>
> Buffering techniques have also improved to the point where if a drive
> has to stop writing, something else can pick up the slack for a while.
> (This is important if you're capturing data in real time and cannot
> stop...as you might be if you were capturing video or multi-track
> audio. People who do those things defragment their drives mainly to
> have gobs of free space stacked up together so the drive won't have to
> pause for seeking purposes once writing starts.)
>
> That used to be a big deal, it was possible to buy so-called "A/V"
> drives that wouldn't do thermal recalibration in the middle of a long
> running write operation, amongst other things.
>
> Microsoft said back in the days of NT4 that NTFS would not need
> defragmentation. So far as I know, Executive Software provided some
> interesting statistics that suggested NTFS actually fragmented quite
> badly. How biased these were I don't know. Executive Software (today
> known as Diskeeper Corporation) has always made a lot of noise that
> suggests fragmentation will end up robbing your house while you sleep.
>
> The developer of JK/MyDefrag says that Microsoft provided a
> defragmentation API (in other words, a set of functions and tools for
> use by defragmentation software) in Windows NT, 2000 and XP. I'm not
> sure the bit about NT is correct; Microsoft was very adamant at the
> time that NTFS did not suffer problems from fragmentation.
>
> I don't know if it's actually a Microsoft designed API or not. When a
> disk defragmenter first showed up in Windows NT family products, it
> was a licensed, stripped down version of Executive's Diskeeper.
>
> It's always possible that the defragmentation APIs are just "move this
> file here, move that file there" commands and the actual strategy is
> left to whatever defragmentation utility you use. I haven't
> investigated it that closely.
>
> For most people, defragmentation probably isn't a big deal. The world
> won't end if you don't, but given the nature of personal computers to
> do a wide variety of things, it wouldn't hurt to do it periodically so
> your computer is performing at its best.
>
> Windows has allegedly shipped with some sort of optiimzation scheme
> for program launch acceleration since the days of Windows 98 and its
> "WinAlign" tool. Office 2000 even got in on the game, with a post-
> installation "file optimizer" that claimed it would run any time
> Office files needed to be optimized. I've never seen it happen more
> than the one time after installation, and some of the O2K
> installations I have are quite old.
>
> If you want to defragment your hard disk, set up a utility to do so on
> a schedule, at a time when you won't be using your computer for
> anything.
>
> William

Given the proliferation of defraggers, there MUST be a Microsoft defrag
API buried somewhere deep in the Windows software development kit, else
it would be impossibly difficult to write one of these tools.

Executive Software is right on the money with its analysis of file
fragmentation with NTFS. Just install and run Defraggler, do the
analysis and look at the list of fragmented files in your system.

Personally, I do not go nuts with defraggers, but they do have their
use, with system performance improvements as a result. Mileage of
performance improvements varies... Ben Myers