How Often Should I Defrag? - Comments Page 1

In your article you mention that Windows defragger will "tell" you when the HD needs to be defragged. In my experience, when Windows defrag tells you it is time, it is past when you should have run a defrag. When windows wants to run a defrag, the HD is a mess and it seems to take an hour or more. I usually defrag (using Defraggler and it is free) on a periodic basis instead rather than going by a percentage. Defraggler also tells you how many files are fragmented and how many fragments, so you can make a decision.

This is a utility that amazed me when I first learned about in 1994. Since, I have helped many people improve the performance of their computers by running just this one program. I have recently learned that defragging the registry makes significant improvement to the system also.

I use and recommend the free "ULTRADEFRAG
An Open Source Defragmenter" [ ultradefrag.sourceforge.net/ ]. A boot-time defragger, it runs on startup, and thus is able to defrag system files which would be locked when accessed by other defrag programs. It takes about a minute to analyse and defrag my laptop, and when finished, always reports that after defragging, I have a grand total of one fragmented file on my hard drive, consisting of two "fragments"--obviously a large file where two fragments cause no problems.

I'v read a number of articles on defraging this
appears to be one of the clearest and most easily understandable ones for non techies. Thanks

Bob, a question: As far as I know, there are lots and lots of defragging programs for windows... but I've never seen a defragger for Mac or Linux... Is it even necesary to think about defragging Mac or Linux filesystems?

you don`t have this problem with linux

I can't see the date when this article was written. Please put the date on your articles. Sometimes I am finding that I am reading an already old article. How old is this? "Why?" you ask. Because, "More importantly, flash memory can be read and written to only so many times before it wears out." is basically true, but modern SSDs, even flash based memory, will generally out last hard disks by a large margin. What you mention was true about 5 years ago (back in 2007). But stated against later SSDs that statement is now FUD. MTBFs on SSDs has shot through the roof. They are now into decades.

I just wanted to say thanks for your easy to understand article of defragging. It is something I don't normally even consider doing, but your description of pros and cons was certainly helpful to me. Thanks

The answer to the question is a resounding: It depends. It really depends on how often you access documents, how often you download files, how often you install new programs. On a practical side, run the analyzer on whatever defrag program you have about once a week. If it says that your hard drive is too fragmented, then defrag the drive. Otherwise, check again in a week. Every day is certainly overkill.

One thing that you have to remember is that every hard drive has a mean time between breakdown (MTBB). That really isn't months and years, but is how many times it spins. The more often you defrag, the more use your hard drive gets.

Hi Bob,
Thanks for your excellent article.You pretty well covered all of it.My own settings for defrag are very close to what you describe.Lots of activity on the system ,defragging is done more frequently ,more like bi-weekly.
One thing I should mention though:Windows 7 doesn't auto defrag SSDs -actually ,defrag for SSDs is automatically disabled, BUT, if people run a SSD with Vista,they should disable defrag for that drive.
Vista doesn't have the detection mechanism in place for SSDs ,unlike Win7.Not sure how much damage it would do ,but it could theoretically shorten the lifespan of the SSD.

Do Mac's need to be "Defragged" also? If they do what application do you suggest.
Thank you,
Sharon

I use a 3rd party defrag program, it's Defraggler from the fine people of Crap-cleaner.
It's totally free and has the option of a full defrag or a quick one.
I find that using the quick option works best (And it's really fast) There is also the option to turn off the computer after the defrag, very handy indeed.

Dear Bob , I use Piriform Defraggler . I was defragging very frequently , to prevent computer slowdown . Maybe , that's not a good thing . I think that "check disk drive for errors" maybe can prevent an emergency Windows shutdown . I also defrag the freespace . Thank you . John

These days, I do a partial defrag of selected files and folders daily. These are files and folders that usually see a lot of writing and re-writing activity daily. But as far as running a general defragmenter to defrag the entire drive, that I do relatively infrequently.

This applies to my Win XP Pro Sp3 main disk and my most active secondary and external drives.

My new rule of thumb, regarding should a file or folder be a candidate for regular defrag: If I plan to access it more than two or three times in a few days, or use it on a regular or daily basis, then it is a good candidate to add to my list of selected folders to defrag. If it is data that I plan to access irregularly, then I just let it be.

My thinking is that for most of the data on my drives, it really makes no sense to do a full defrag regularly, because that amounts to a lot of disk activity, shuffling the data around to no great benefit. (IMO)

REMEMBER:

One must N-E-V-E-R De-Fragment a Solid State Drive (SSD) - - EVER!!!

Analysis for fragmentation per your instuction is a waste of time. Just running almost any defragmenter takes less than half the time of the analysis.
Incidentally, the fastest defragmenter is Disk Speedup by Glarysoft. Don't be fooled by the app name, it is a defragmenter.

I do not understand why people do not use an application to do this defrag for them. I use since years an application which does all this defrag for me, it is called "Diskeeper 2011" I know it cost money, but you do not have to worry anymore.
Paul

the article is very much helpful & informative for a layman like me who have been wondering all along if it is advisable to defrag quite often ; i have Norton Utilities which takes care of this job now ; though i used to work with my pc for more than 5 hrs a day i, having read this piece , shall hereafter defrag my hard drives-- both inbuilt & external --[Seagate 1 tb ] once a month .

I guess I've been defragging too much -- about once a day, using the Pirform application "Degfraggler" on the "quick defrag" setting. My computer is fairly new, a 1 terabyte HD, and my thinking was that constant defragging would keep the system clear.

Having read your article, I'll defrag less frequently.

HI Bob! Am I right to understand that defragging too often could be bad for my PC? Then, here is my question: Is it worst ro degrag let's say once a day than having a realtime defragger like the IOBit Smast Defragger running permantly. Thanks.