Topic: Defragmentation, how often?

[mindfrost82]

I really don't defrag much anymore.  With Vista and 7, you can schedule it to run when your computer is idle, which is great.  XP didn't have this feature without 3rd party software.

It all depends on how much downloading/deleting/changing you do of files.  If you just browse the net without downloading much, then you probably don't need to do it too often.  I would set CCleaner up to clean at startup though.

[kingprawn]

if you are using raid-0 is defrag still needed?

[havocknox]

I have been fixing computers for many years, since the larger hard drives have came out the reason for defrag has gone away.  In the olden days you would have to defrag you computer quite often because of the small storage space.  I have not defraged a computer in 3 years and the performance is still as good as it was the day I installed all the software.  If you want to know how much I use of my computer, the only time my computer reboots is after a windows update.  It hasn't been powered off (unless i was in the process of moving to a new home or upgrading parts) in almost a year.  So I have to agree with Samker on this, defrag only if you are seeing a slow down.

[wudz3]

yeah and use some deframenter apps like raxco.

[manual2100]

i would suggest not to use the windows defragmentation tool.. try a commercial one

[Pez]

Way defrag. I use Diskeeper the full version and not the light version that is built in in Windows.
When you use Diskeeper ther is auto defragmenting at scheduel and analyse basis and you can also defraging in boot time to get locked files. Now it also bouilt in defrag gard thet helping to not get a defragmeted volyme. The only thing you need to thing about is to keep some free space on disks so it´s posible to defrag but that you need to do any way. Recomendet free space to get a goor deframentation is about 20% free space on a disk.

A good idéa is to also set a undefragmented paginfile on the system with a fix size of atleast  memory + 12MB I recomend for 4GB RAM a pagingfile of 4100 MB.

Do a boot time defrag at montly basis with Diskeeper with 20% free space on disk and and erace and recreate after a boot without the pagingfile the pagingfile so you get also the pagingfile defragmeted inside. That help you to get a good prestanda on an system.

A way to free up space on a old disk can bee to check if you have systemrestore turn on that disk. If you have had a stabile system an you know you don't need to go back to a restore point before current data you can turn off the systemrestore to erace old restore points and after that turn it om again to hav the future ability to use new restore point. On old system this can free upp GB of disk. Byt you shuld bee aware that you have non possible to gett a erlier restore point then when you got a point just after you recreate the new restorepoint.

[Pez]

Info about Diskeeper.

http://scforum.info/index.php/topic,4641.0.html

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