Must Defrag Computer Daily!?!?!

  • Thread starter Thread starter Chris Spurgin
  • Start date Start date
C

Chris Spurgin

A computer on our network has a performance problem that we rectify by
defragging the machine daily. During the day, the computer gets
progressively slower and displays noticible lag. We do a defrag
analysis every morning, and every morning there are an extremely high
amount of fragmented files, requiring defragmentation in order to
enhance performance. WHY?!?!

Win 2k
Norton SystemWorks (running on all other machines on network, no
problem)
Pentium 4 1.5GHz
126 MB RAM
20 Gb Hard Drive

Thanks.
 
"Chris Spurgin" > wrote
A computer on our network has a performance problem that we rectify by
defragging the machine daily. During the day, the computer gets
progressively slower and displays noticible lag. We do a defrag
analysis every morning, and every morning there are an extremely high
amount of fragmented files, requiring defragmentation in order to
enhance performance. WHY?!?!

Win 2k
Norton SystemWorks (running on all other machines on network, no
problem)
Pentium 4 1.5GHz
126 MB RAM
20 Gb Hard Drive

Thanks.
Click to expand...

126 MB of RAM isn't very much.

Cody
 
Chris said:
A computer on our network has a performance problem that we rectify by
defragging the machine daily. During the day, the computer gets
progressively slower and displays noticible lag. We do a defrag
analysis every morning, and every morning there are an extremely high
amount of fragmented files, requiring defragmentation in order to
enhance performance. WHY?!?!

Win 2k
Norton SystemWorks (running on all other machines on network, no
problem)
Pentium 4 1.5GHz
126 MB RAM
20 Gb Hard Drive

Thanks.
Click to expand...

Get a real defragger:

PerfectDisk - www.raxco.com
DiskKeeper - www.execsoft.com

hth
 
126 MB of RAM isn't very much.

Cody
Click to expand...
You're correct, but the shortage of memory shouldn't affect the
overall rate of fragmentation. Perhaps the paging file might fragment
more, but it still doesn't explain why the computer lags after only a
day.

Vaughn McMillan
Executive Software
 
A computer on our network has a performance problem that we rectify by
defragging the machine daily. During the day, the computer gets
progressively slower and displays noticible lag. We do a defrag
analysis every morning, and every morning there are an extremely high
amount of fragmented files, requiring defragmentation in order to
enhance performance. WHY?!?!

Win 2k
Norton SystemWorks (running on all other machines on network, no
problem)
Pentium 4 1.5GHz
126 MB RAM
20 Gb Hard Drive

Thanks.
Click to expand...

What types of things are you running on this machine? That may provide
a hint as to what's causing it to become so badly fragmented. Also, as
another poster mentioned, you're a bit on the low ide of the cale
RAM-wise. Although it shouldn't affect the fragmentation directly,
adding mempry should help the performance in general anyway.

Hope this helps -

Vaughn McMillan
Executive Software
 
My guess is that someone "upgraded" the file system from FAT32 to NTFS which
resulted in 512 byte clusters.
 
Colon said:
My guess is that someone "upgraded" the file system from FAT32 to NTFS which
resulted in 512 byte clusters.
Click to expand...

True...and a highly fragmented MFT, which the built in defragger can't
defrag.
 
Hi!


Let's see, who is the software company that developed the built in
defragmenter for Windows 2000?

None other than Executive Software, maker of Diskeeper.

William
Click to expand...
Now, William, you know better than that. MS licensed their basic
technology, cut it back to minimal functionality, and is now (and has been
for a couple of years, I believe) fully responsible for maintaining and
extending it.

The fact that it is a "lighweight" version of Diskkepper is irrelevant to
the capabilities of the real Diskeeper. Both DK and PerfectDisk are good
defraggers, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. I use both.
 
My guess is that someone "upgraded" the file system from FAT32 to NTFS which
resulted in 512 byte clusters.
Click to expand...

That alone should not account for such a rapid and dramatic slowdown.
 
True...and a highly fragmented MFT, which the built in defragger can't
defrag.
Click to expand...

Now were getting somewhere. get DK or PD -- they both do boot-time defrags,
but PD is better here (IMHO).
 
Hi Jay,

Why in the world do you need both? I ask this out of ignorance rather
disagreement.

Thanks in advance.
Dan Schaffer
DK and PerfectDisk are good defraggers, each with its own strengths and
Click to expand...
weaknesses. I use both.
 
And just why not?

Have you personally seen and used an NTFS based computer with 512 byte
clusters? They're painfully slow AND exhibit EXACTLY the symptoms the OP
described.

Surely you're more intelligent than your response would indicate. I'm
thinking you didn't entirely "read" my response and just jumped on the
"FAT32 to NTFS upgrade" and thought to yourself "Yeah, that'd have some
small impact on file system performance, but not enough to make a real
difference." and failed to notice the reference to 512 byte clusters.

On such a system, toward the end of the day, the O/S could be issuing up to
130 hard disk seek/read requests just to retrieve a 65KB jpeg.
 
IIRC someone posted the results awhile back on their particular system
the conversion from FAT32 to NTFS resulted in up to 20% reduction in
performance. On the other hand a clean install was within 1-2 % or
virtually unnoticeable.
 
Hi Bill,

Many thanks. Your reading makes a lot more sense than mine!
Good luck, Dan


I use both too, but not on the same computer. Perhaps that was what was
meant. I haven't used PerfectDisk as long as Diskeeper, and don't have any
clear preference.

--

Bill James
Microsoft MVP - Shell/User

Win9x VBScript Utilities » www.billsway.com/vbspage/
Windows Tweaks & Tips » www.billsway.com/notes_public/
 
Stop jumping to conclusions. I've used both cluster sizes, and while there
is a performance difference, it is not of the magnitude reported n the
earlier post, and it doesn't degrade within a day's use. At least not in my
experience.
 
Actually, I do use them both on the same computer, although one should do so
with some caution and common sense. DK is very useful for cleaning up
instances where PD actually increases the amount of fragmentation. And PD
is useful for consolidating freespace that DK leaves highly fragmented.

Neither defragger is perfect (no pun intended) and they both exhibit anal
characteristics on occasion. Having the two of them gives me the best of
both worlds.
 
Try keeping your page file static. By default it is dynamic.

----- Chris Spurgin wrote: -----

A computer on our network has a performance problem that we rectify by
defragging the machine daily. During the day, the computer gets
progressively slower and displays noticible lag. We do a defrag
analysis every morning, and every morning there are an extremely high
amount of fragmented files, requiring defragmentation in order to
enhance performance. WHY?!?!

Win 2k
Norton SystemWorks (running on all other machines on network, no
problem)
Pentium 4 1.5GHz
126 MB RAM
20 Gb Hard Drive

Thanks.
 
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