To Defrag Or Not That Is The Question ?

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I defrag with Disk Keeper regularly always have done but just seen on another forun (not computor related) that it does more harm than good for your drives.The person seems pretty well clued in regarding pc's but if i want real help i ask here.Over to you guys thanks for your time.
 
Frodo said:
I defrag with Disk Keeper regularly always have done but just seen on another forun (not computor related) that it does more harm than good for your drives.The person seems pretty well clued in regarding pc's but if i want real help i ask here.Over to you guys thanks for your time.

I'd say then that that person aint as clued up as they say they are then. Defragging is good....Think of yer HDD as a filling cabinet with a secratery, and a lazy one at that, she is good afetching things for you, but crap at putting them back where she found them, defragging does this for you. Unless you so called clued up forum friend was reffering to Disk keeper been crap. I can't answer that, my system does it for me when i'm not looking....
 
No Disk Keeper wasn't mentioned,i think it's a wonderful tool,i don't know the person but he said the drive arm swinging back and forward all the time causes problems,thanks for the reply this is the forum i take pc advice from you just can't beat it.
 
Frodo said:
No Disk Keeper wasn't mentioned,i think it's a wonderful tool,i don't know the person but he said the drive arm swinging back and forward all the time causes problems,thanks for the reply this is the forum i take pc advice from you just can't beat it.


LOL he clearly doesn't know what he is talking about then. That lil arm is on the go all the time.everytime you hit a key it moves...
 
Frodo said:
No Disk Keeper wasn't mentioned,i think it's a wonderful tool,i don't know the person but he said the drive arm swinging back and forward all the time causes problems,thanks for the reply this is the forum i take pc advice from you just can't beat it.

Ok, picture this.

First, let's establish that the biggest cause of wear and tear on a hard disk is the read head(s) moving backwards and forwards on the end of the arm(s). Agreed? Good.

During everyday use with a Windows Operating System for some reason it likes to break up one piece of software (and some other things as well, such as documents) and put different pieces of it all at different locations on your hard disk. I don't know why (I'm not that clued up, lol) but it does.

Next time you use that particular piece of software, the hard disk read head, instead of browsing around in one locale, will have to scoot hither and thither all over the show. This not only causes wear and tear on your hard disc mechanics but slows down the time it takes for the software in question to operate.

This is because it takes longer for the hard disc read head to zoom about and whisk to & fro from dozens of different locations, somewhat like a buckin' bronco wiv a bee sting up it's bum, than dociley staying in one location gently moving around.

When a disc is defragged most software programs and features thereof are put back in close proximity to each other, where they started life originally.

This obviously makes for less wear and tear on the hard disk (it also makes it operate considerably quieter) and should also make your software work faster.

So your learned friend is a nincompoop :)

There is an argument, however, that de-fragging itself is hard on wear for the disc mechanics, and this is true.

But it's one comparitively short burst of activity compared to a lifetime of everyday seeking and hard work.

And that's without considering the speed factor.

Pip pip! ;)
 
Generally defragging is good.... however
Don't do it on Solid State Disks.
SSD's have no moving parts so defragging just reduces their life.
The memory chips in SSDs have limited writes and so every defrag you is slowly killing it.
(SSDs generally have 100x less writes than mechanical drives)
 
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