when to defrag?

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kline

How long should I leave it before defragging my hard drive under XP Home
SP2? I had thought that it should be done about once a month or so, but
when I open the Disk Defragmenter program and run "analyse" it says that a
defrag is not necessary.

It must be about three months or so since I last defragged. The only slow
down in performance I've noticed lately is that clearing the IE6 History
takes longer that it used to...

I'm wary of just defragmenting for the sake of it as I've also read that
doing this too often can have an adverse affect on stability - can any one
confirm this?

Regards

Kline
 
If a slight slowdown in performance of a function you only occasionally use,
don't worry about it - make it a very occasional event.
Defragging DOES place a lot of stress on the mechanics of your HDD.
Electrons don't wear out, but mechanical parts do :-)
 
kline said:
How long should I leave it before defragging my hard drive under XP
Home SP2?
Click to expand...

Depends on your usage. A volume that rarely experiences change does not need
to be defragged very often, if at all.

Personally I like to check fragmentation after doing heavy system
maintenance, like adding or removing large applications, or installing major
updates. If I then see a lot of red, I defrag. If not, I don't.
I had thought that it should be done about once a month or
so, but when I open the Disk Defragmenter program and run "analyse"
it says that a defrag is not necessary.
Click to expand...

Then it probably is not necessary.
It must be about three months or so since I last defragged. The only
slow down in performance I've noticed lately is that clearing the IE6
History takes longer that it used to...
Click to expand...

This sounds like normal behaviour on a system that has all user files on the
system volume, is frequently used for web surfing, and does not get a lot of
programs installed and/or removed to/from the system volume.

If you are very concerned about the time to clear IE history (why?) defrag.
If not, don't.
I'm wary of just defragmenting for the sake of it as I've also read
that doing this too often can have an adverse affect on stability -
can any one confirm this?
Click to expand...

Well, a defrag does a pretty rough deassembly and reassembly of your file
system. It usually is not a problem, but _if_ something goes wrong during
the defrag process (this can be anything from a power outage to a bug in the
defrag software) you better start praying that you do not lose anything
vital. The chance of something like this actually happening is slim, and it
never happened once to me, but it is possible. And the more often you
defrag, the higher the risk you have of eventually running into problems.

Second there is the issue of physical strain on your hard drives. If a large
file is fragmented your read/write heads will have to do a lot of work to
actually read it. So if you access this file often it is logical that
defragmenting it once will reduce overall workload on your disk, since the
file now can be accessed in a single clean sweep. However, if a file is not
likely to be accessed there is no such gain, and thus a defrag will only be
a waste of work and time, and will in itself cause unnecessary work on your
hard drive. So frequent defrags just for the sake of having a neat recycle
bin and IE cache will probably reduce the overall lifetime of your hard
drive, not to mention be a waste of your precious time.
 
A good addition to my reply.
I agree totally & reckon the combines replies cover the query completely.
 
kline said:
How long should I leave it before defragging my hard drive under XP
Home SP2? I had thought that it should be done about once a month or
so, but when I open the Disk Defragmenter program and run "analyse"
it says that a defrag is not necessary.

It must be about three months or so since I last defragged. The only
slow down in performance I've noticed lately is that clearing the IE6
History takes longer that it used to...

I'm wary of just defragmenting for the sake of it as I've also read
that doing this too often can have an adverse affect on stability -
can any one confirm this?

Regards

Kline
Click to expand...

Depends on usage and file system. It is not as important on an NTFS system.
I use NTFS and I defragment every year or two. I don't notice any
performance improvement.

--
Frank Saunders, MS-MVP, IE/OE
Please respond in Newsgroup only. Do not send email
http://www.fjsmjs.com
Protect your PC
http://www.microsoft.com./athome/security/protect/default.aspx
 
In
kline said:
How long should I leave it before defragging my hard drive
under XP
Home SP2? I had thought that it should be done about once a
month or
so, but when I open the Disk Defragmenter program and run
"analyse"
it says that a defrag is not necessary.
Click to expand...


This is one of those many questions where there's no simple
single answer that's right for everyone. You should defrag when
your drive is fragmented enough to adversely impact your
performance. How often that is depends on your usage patterns,
and since everyone's usage patterns are
different, the answer is different for each of us.

Here's my recommendation: arbitraily pick some period, say
monthly, and defrag on that schedule a few times in a row.
Following these defrags, do you generally sense an improvement in
speed? If so, defrag more frequently. If not, defrag less
frequently.

Repeat that procedure a few times, and you should settle into a
defrag frequency that works well for you.
 
kline said:
How long should I leave it before defragging my hard drive under XP Home
SP2? I had thought that it should be done about once a month or so, but
when I open the Disk Defragmenter program and run "analyse" it says that a
defrag is not necessary.

It must be about three months or so since I last defragged. The only slow
down in performance I've noticed lately is that clearing the IE6 History
takes longer that it used to...
Click to expand...

The 'need' as seen by the defrag program is a bad guide. Go ahead and
do it. Once a month is a reasonable frequency; though I tend to do it
when I have just done some serious modifications
 
kline said:
How long should I leave it before defragging my hard drive under XP Home
SP2? I had thought that it should be done about once a month or so, but
when I open the Disk Defragmenter program and run "analyse" it says that a
defrag is not necessary.

It must be about three months or so since I last defragged. The only slow
down in performance I've noticed lately is that clearing the IE6 History
takes longer that it used to...

I'm wary of just defragmenting for the sake of it as I've also read that
doing this too often can have an adverse affect on stability - can any one
confirm this?
Click to expand...

----------------------------

For example, I just broke down and defragged a disk that I've been using
for 23 months now and which doesn't have much empty space on it. I was
having unrelated trouble and someone suggested that I try it. Basically
I never do it since it never seemed to help me any under Win98 even.

Anyhow, before running defrag on XP I did a clean reboot and timed some
typical operations -- opening a browser, opening a huge Excel data file,
Word, etc. Then I defragged and reran the measurements. Zero, zip,
zilch improvement.

I would personally never defrag if XP says it isn't necessary -- and
maybe not even if it did!

YMMV....

Bill
 
Thanks to everyone for the very informative replies.

I think I'll go with the general consensus and *not* defrag unless it
becomes absolutley neccessary.

Regards

Kline
 
That is a bad decision. Disc surfaces are magnetic. Over time a bit on the
surface diminishes with time and stray and residual magnetism. By defragging
you are in effect rewriting many many areas of the hard drive which in effect
will re-energize each bit. Have you ever tried playing a magnetic tape such as
a VCR tape (magnetic also) that is a few years old?
Any knowledge of physics?
 
Unknown said:
That is a bad decision. Disc surfaces are magnetic. Over time a bit on the
surface diminishes with time and stray and residual magnetism. By
defragging you are in effect rewriting many many areas of the hard drive
which in effect will re-energize each bit. Have you ever tried playing a
magnetic tape such as a VCR tape (magnetic also) that is a few years old?
Any knowledge of physics?
Click to expand...

Wasn't aware of that...and I'll readily admit that my knowledge of physics
is very poor! But, when you say "over time" how long are you talking
about? I'm not saying I won't ever defrag, but as long as the defrag
program says it's not neccesary I'll hold back.

Regards

Kline
 
Unknown said:
That is a bad decision. Disc surfaces are magnetic. Over time a bit
on the surface diminishes with time and stray and residual magnetism.
By defragging you are in effect rewriting many many areas of the hard
drive which in effect will re-energize each bit.
Click to expand...

I have never heard of this being a problem for hard drives. And even if this
is the case, defragmentation is hardly a good solution to the problem.
Defragmentation mainly rewrites files that are fragmented. Static files get
defragged at most once, and after that they are never touched no matter how
often you defrag. If remagnetizing a hard drive really is such an issue this
should be solved with software that simply reads every single sector and
puts it right back.

When you say "over time", how much time do you reckon is too long before
sectors starts losing data? A month? A year? Ten years?
 
André Gulliksen said:
When you say "over time", how much time do you reckon is too long before
sectors starts losing data? A month? A year? Ten years?
Click to expand...

The guy is way off base. He's confusing analog recording with digital.
Analog does degrade over time and with use.

Anyhow, I believe the magnetic data on your hard drive will last longer
than the drive's bearings will. Or the data will get wiped out by heads
dinging the surface, crashing, etc. Unless you do something bizarre like
store your hard drive in an oven at several hundred degrees it's not
going to lose it's magnetic storage just from sitting quietly. There
are lots more serious reliabliity problems in a hard drive to worry
about than the basic physics of recording.

(Understanding in some detail the problems of flying a head so close
over the disk would make your hair stand on end and never trust a drive
again -- I do lots of backups.)

Bill
 
"Bill Martin -- (Remove NOSPAM from address)"
The guy is way off base. He's confusing analog recording with
digital. Analog does degrade over time and with use.

Anyhow, I believe the magnetic data on your hard drive will last
longer than the drive's bearings will. Or the data will get wiped
out by heads dinging the surface, crashing, etc. Unless you do
something bizarre like store your hard drive in an oven at several
hundred degrees it's not going to lose it's magnetic storage just
from sitting quietly. There are lots more serious reliabliity
problems in a hard drive to worry about than the basic physics of
recording.
(Understanding in some detail the problems of flying a head so close
over the disk would make your hair stand on end and never trust a
drive again -- I do lots of backups.)

Bill
Click to expand...

Digital magnetic recording also degrades over time. However, defragging
won't really help that. Back in DOS days I had a program that would read
and rewrite every sector on a floppy, but I never tried that on a hard
drive.

--
Frank Saunders, MS-MVP, IE/OE
Please respond in Newsgroup only. Do not send email
http://www.fjsmjs.com
Protect your PC
http://www.microsoft.com./athome/security/protect/default.aspx
 
kline said:
How long should I leave it before def ragging my hard drive under XP Home
SP2? I had thought that it should be done about once a month or so, but
when I open the Disk Fragment program and run "analyse" it says that a
defrag is not necessary.

It must be about three months or so since I last defragged. The only slow
down in performance I've noticed lately is that clearing the IE6 History
takes longer that it used to...

I'm wary of just defragmenting for the sake of it as I've also read that
doing this too often can have an adverse affect on stability - can any one
confirm this?

Regards

Kline
Click to expand...

I am new to this and am not sure if I am "talking " in correct place If
anyone wants to give me directions please do so.

My problem with defrag

Often when defrag is in process we are told that a disk part cannot be
defraged but next time computer is started this will happen.

Each and everytime I start my computer I am told " Check file sys on D The
type of file is NTFS Volume label is D Backup One of the disks need to be
checked" and so on.
A full check is now done and all ok. The entire disk has been checked and is
healthy.
I have tried running De frag in safe mode on d but am told that chkdsk is
scheduled to run on D please run CHKDSK-I do after which we go back to where
we started,in other words catch 22.
I am running Win Home with s/p2 There are no other problems.
Armour
 
kline said:
I'm wary of just defragmenting for the sake of it as I've also read that
doing this too often can have an adverse affect on stability - can any one
confirm this?
Click to expand...
----------------------

IMHO, you never really need to defrag other than when you install large
software packages. When you open Word for example it takes awhile so
you'd like the Word software itself optimized on the disk. The data
files you create with Word though are typically tiny compared to the
software itself so if the data files are scattered a bit it doesn't make
much practical difference to your wait time.

When you decide you are going to defrag, first measure the time it takes
the computer to do various things you normally do. Open a Word file.
Go to a web site, etc. THEN defrag and measure them again. Unless you
see a measurable improvement you've just spun your wheels uselessly
doing the defrag.

Last time I did one I hadn't done it for two years. I still measured no
improvement in system response times.

If you do a lot of video editing or something you may want to defrag
more often.

YMMV... Good luck.

Bill
 
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