Disk Defragmenter
Sep 25, 2008 | 10:21 am
#1
Original Poster
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: San Francisco
Programs: AA 3mm Plat
Posts: 10,068
Disk Defragmenter
The Disk Keeper Lite that came with my pre-installed Windows XP Pro gave up the ghost recently. The "fix" option offered in control panel when remove or change this software is selected has not helped. My memory is that this occurred very shortly after installing a set of patches from Microsoft for XP.
There is no other de-fragger installed as a part of Windows.
In any case, can someone recommend a good - preferably inexpensive - disk defragger?
Thanks in advance!
There is no other de-fragger installed as a part of Windows.
In any case, can someone recommend a good - preferably inexpensive - disk defragger?
Thanks in advance!
Sep 25, 2008 | 10:24 am
#2
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: May 2002
Location: Pittsburgh
Programs: MR LT Titanium, AA LT PLT, UA SLV, Avis PreferredPlus, HH Gold, Hertz PC, National Executive, etc.
Posts: 31,692
jkdefrag is free, open source, etc and seems to work very well for me.
http://www.kessels.com/Jkdefrag/
http://www.kessels.com/Jkdefrag/
Sep 25, 2008 | 10:30 am
#3
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Aylesbury, UK
Posts: 180
Sep 25, 2008 | 10:38 am
#4
Join Date: Jul 2008
Posts: 73
Use the Windows defragger.
Don't waste money or time on defragging.
I've never seen the need to defrag more than annually. Defrag software is one step above "registry cleaners" when it comes to modern-day snake oil.
Don't waste money or time on defragging.
I've never seen the need to defrag more than annually. Defrag software is one step above "registry cleaners" when it comes to modern-day snake oil.
Sep 25, 2008 | 11:39 am
#6
Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Lower Merion Township, PA, (an inner-ring suburb to the Socialist Workers City/State of Philadelphia, PA)
Posts: 597
jkdefrag is free, open source, etc and seems to work very well for me.
http://www.kessels.com/Jkdefrag/
http://www.kessels.com/Jkdefrag/
I disagree with the 'never seen the need to defrag more than annually' statement. Especially on a laptop where you're running out of HD space, defrag your swap file and hibernate file (see jkdefrag notes) and you'll notice a difference.
Sep 25, 2008 | 9:45 pm
#7
Join Date: Jul 2008
Posts: 73
In this situation you shouldn't be defragging. You should be hard drive shopping or clearing out unneeded files.
Sep 25, 2008 | 10:44 pm
#8
Join Date: Jan 2005
Programs: Dirt
Posts: 949
The more frequently you defrag the shorter it takes. So my advice has been run the defrag task on a schedule. Third party defraggers may have better heuristics that allows it to finish in less time than Window's built-in defragger, but if they are scheduled to run at middle of night, it has negligible impact on your productivity.
Vista's defragger runs weekly by default, so you should not need to tweak anything. XP's defragger is not scheduled to run automatically, but it's simple enough to create a scheduled task for it.
Vista's defragger runs weekly by default, so you should not need to tweak anything. XP's defragger is not scheduled to run automatically, but it's simple enough to create a scheduled task for it.
Sep 26, 2008 | 9:07 pm
#10
A FlyerTalk Posting Legend
Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: PSM
Posts: 69,232
The more frequently you defrag the shorter it takes. So my advice has been run the defrag task on a schedule. Third party defraggers may have better heuristics that allows it to finish in less time than Window's built-in defragger, but if they are scheduled to run at middle of night, it has negligible impact on your productivity.
Vista's defragger runs weekly by default, so you should not need to tweak anything. XP's defragger is not scheduled to run automatically, but it's simple enough to create a scheduled task for it.
Vista's defragger runs weekly by default, so you should not need to tweak anything. XP's defragger is not scheduled to run automatically, but it's simple enough to create a scheduled task for it.
It will also have a negligible impact on your productivity if you just skip it. Unless your HD is very full and you are frequently moving large amounts of data on and off the drive the fragmentation isn't really a problem at all.
Sep 26, 2008 | 9:14 pm
#11
Join Date: Jun 2004
Location: The People's Republik of MSN
Programs: Hilton Diamond. Anti-Apostheid Platinum, PWP CentCom
Posts: 4,768
I ran a defrag and found that that one file was the most fragmented on the disk (about 300 fragments, IIRC). Defragging it made the autosave time negligible.
Sep 26, 2008 | 10:01 pm
#12
Original Poster
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: San Francisco
Programs: AA 3mm Plat
Posts: 10,068
Thanks all for the discussion and the links.
I do move a lot of data on and off my computer HD and several external drives as well. Sound files of lectures, videos of hour long demonstrations, and other educational videos that I have ripped or downloaded.
I downloaded the jkdefrag and have run it once. Much to my surprise it just went through all 4 or 5 drives that were attached to my laptop at one go.
So far, so good!
I do move a lot of data on and off my computer HD and several external drives as well. Sound files of lectures, videos of hour long demonstrations, and other educational videos that I have ripped or downloaded.
I downloaded the jkdefrag and have run it once. Much to my surprise it just went through all 4 or 5 drives that were attached to my laptop at one go.
So far, so good!
Sep 28, 2008 | 7:11 pm
#13
Join Date: Mar 2005
Posts: 201
Use the Windows defragger.
Don't waste money or time on defragging.
I've never seen the need to defrag more than annually. Defrag software is one step above "registry cleaners" when it comes to modern-day snake oil.
Don't waste money or time on defragging.
I've never seen the need to defrag more than annually. Defrag software is one step above "registry cleaners" when it comes to modern-day snake oil.
Sep 28, 2008 | 8:31 pm
#14
Join Date: Jan 2005
Programs: Dirt
Posts: 949
bdjohns1's anecdote is a good example on how defrag improves the performance and productivity. While modern SATA2 drives have some performance enhancing features like NCQ, it is still takes many orders of magnitude longer than reading contiguous sectors.
Windows defrag will not run if there is less than 15% space free, but it can be overridden. It will also skip files over 64MB large, this can be overridden as well. Run defrag.exe -? and it will tell you all the options.
Sep 28, 2008 | 9:20 pm
#15
Suspended
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: ORD / DUB / LHR
Programs: UA 1K MM; BA Silver; Marriott Plat
Posts: 8,240
It depends...if a key file you're using regularly gets very fragmented, it can have an impact. A couple of months ago, I had a ~30MB Excel sheet that I was spending a lot of time with. Every time it would autosave, Excel was non-responsive for 20-30 seconds. Seriously annoying when you're "in the zone".
I ran a defrag and found that that one file was the most fragmented on the disk (about 300 fragments, IIRC). Defragging it made the autosave time negligible.
I ran a defrag and found that that one file was the most fragmented on the disk (about 300 fragments, IIRC). Defragging it made the autosave time negligible.