Maintenance- defrag?

[6er]

What are the regular maintenance tasks you do to keep your system running at its best? Is defragmentation one of them, how often do you defragment?

[Jamo]

every week i - virus scan, ad aware and defrag, this keeps my system tip top :) highly recommended to anyone since the whole thing only takes about an hour at most

[Ugly n Grey]

I set mine to automatically do that every night when I am not using it... MS scheduler works wonders...

[Frisch]

A defrag a day - makes the files speed a way

Serious, Its like when you have to clean your room, if you only do it when it's totally chaos, it takes more time, but if you clean up after your self every time you have done something, it's like, well i might as well take this with me out as i'm on my way, it takes a split sec.

Do it after an install or an uninstall, and before you shut the cumputer down.

[KoolDrew]

Defragging is only necessary in extreme cases.

[Ugly n Grey]

Defragging is only necessary in extreme cases.

I believe you have been misinformed. Defragmenting is an asset.

This explanation is as good as any


"Adding and deleting files from your hard disk is a common task. Unfortunately, this process is not always done very efficiently. For example, when you delete a bunch of little files and add a new large file, the file may get broken up into mulitple sections on the hard disk. The computer will still read the newly added file as a single valid file, but the drive will have to scan multiple parts of the disk to read it. Because hard disk seek time is one of the most significant bottlenecks in a computer's performance, this can drag down your computer's speed quite a bit."

Another explanation

"Windows allocates disk space using clusters, which are groups of disk sectors (the smallest unit of disk storage.) Cluster size is constant across a drive but varies from drive to drive depending primarily on the size of the disk. You can exercise some control over cluster size under Windows NT and up when you format a drive.

When Windows allocates clusters for storing a file, it tries to do so in contiguous fashion, with all clusters of a file inhabiting adjacent clusters. This provides the best performance by reducing disk-head movement for both read and write operations. As files are modified, deleted, and added, the amount of available contiguous space on the disk decreases. If a file changes in size, it's typically not possible for the operating system to allocate additional adjacent clusters to the file. The result is that files become fragmented across the disk, with the operating system allocating clusters as best it can to the file, often in non-contiguous blocks.

Defragmenting a disk relocates files back into contiguous clusters. Because the heads have to move less to read and write files, performance improves, sometimes significantly. Fragmentation can also reduce drive capacity, although sector size has a much more pronounced effect on capacity than fragmentation.

There are two ways to defragment a disk: format the disk and rewrite all of the files to it or use a defragmentation utility. The former isn't a good solution as it requires you to back up your system, format the drive, and restore the dataócertainly time-consuming and sometimes a dicey proposition. "

Jim Boyce is a consultant, who has authored or co-authored 45 books on a range of computer topics from programming to Windows 2000 system administration. He frequently contributes to several technical Web sites and publications. He also is a partner in the Internet development firm Minnesota WebWorks

[Frisch]

Defragging is only necessary in extreme cases.

Instead of just confusing the poor guy, you could at least argue for your point.

[KoolDrew]

I believe you have been misinformed. Defragmenting is an asset.

I'm sorry, but you are the one that has been misinformed. Both of those explanations you posted assume everything is from one end to the other. This is not the case. Fragmentation matters far less then defrag vendors and many people want you to believe because the heads are hopping all over the disk anyway, paging in a bit of one file here, a bit of another there. So when they get back to the first file again it really doesn't matter if they can go back to a place contiguous with the first chunk; they have to move the heads again either way.

XP's "image prefecth" feature modifies this "pure demand paging" model, and pretty much renders defraggers unnecessary and (if they're unaware of prefetch) even harmful as far as code files are concerned.

Fragmentation will only make a difference in performance if the files you frequently access are heavily fragmented. Have you even checked the "split IO" counts in perfmon? The "split IO" count is the number of IOs that had to be "split" - performed as two or more IOs to the disk - due to either fragmentation or buffer size issues. They are almost always due to fragmentation. You need to evaluate this alongside the total IO count to the drive. A value of 9 means that in the last collection interval there was an average of 9 additional IOs per second due to fragmentation. That isn't much, and if the drive is doing 40 or 100 IOs per second anyway, it REALLY isn't much. See?

[Ugly n Grey]

That isn't much, and if the drive is doing 40 or 100 IOs per second anyway, it REALLY isn't much. See?

Thanks for stating your thoughts, I like this post much better than the first.

I understand your point. However I think most of us are beyond using only small file sizes in this day and age. What person who comes to this forum just surfs the net once in a while? Is a light computer user?

Crimminy, I have one of the fastests arrays money can buy and defragmenting the thrice be damned windows FS does make a difference on loading those files into main memory. A difference I notice, because I hate waiting. Writing them off to another disc is no big deal, there are other bottlenecks there, nothing I can do about that.

Does it HAVE to be done? No, agreed. Can it increase performance? Yes. Can it hurt your PC? Yes. the power might go off in the middle of a file move. Should I do this every once in a while? *I* think so. Is it free? Yes. Is it recommended by MS? Call them and ask.

Will my computer work if I do not defragment the file system. Of course it will.

Ugly

[KoolDrew]

What person who comes to this forum just surfs the net once in a while? Is a light computer user?

I don't consider myself a light computer user and defragging is pretty unnecessary for me. The point I am trying to make is that fragmentation matters far less then everybody wants you to think. You see tons of sites saying if there is any fragmentation it would hamper performance and everything. My system restore files may be extremely fragmented, but since they are not used do you think that makes any difference?

Even when it comes to the pagefile you see tons of sites claiming fragmentation of it will severely hamper performance. Only if it is extremely fragmented will it hurt performance in any way. This is because pagefile read and writes are never larger then 64KB - Pages are 4K, but the modified page writer does aggregate them and write them out in "clusters" of up to 64KB each - and with IOs to many other files they are almost never in sequential 64KB chunks. This is why seek time is everything in HD performance and also why moving the pagefile to the outer-most cylinders on the drive will not help performance.

As for other maintenence things, I think the most important is to make sure your system is free of any malware. That could severely hurt performance and leads to complications, frustration etc.

[Disposibleteen]

I might have to put my vote in with Kooldrew on this one, below is an image of my C drive being anylized by window's defragmentor. It reccommends defragmentation but i see no difference in performance.

http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/4536/fragmentedcdrive6fg.th.jpg (http://img137.imageshack.us/my.php?image=fragmentedcdrive6fg.jpg)

[Ugly n Grey]

I admit I'm biased, the average copy size I do for a database file is 4-6 Gigabytes, average video I edit is 100 gigs of raw... comprressing it to 9 . Fragmentation hurts...a lot sometimes... in fact, sometimes I copy the file out to the SAN and back just so it won't be so pooched..it's faster than defragging it...

[Disposibleteen]

Yea the largest files i ever deal with are high res photos (700mb tops) and of course games. I can see why it would make a difference in your situation but most users wont see a terrible amount of difference.

[KoolDrew]

...but most users wont see a terrible amount of difference.

Exactly.

[6er]

every week i - virus scan, ad aware and defrag, this keeps my system tip top :) highly recommended to anyone since the whole thing only takes about an hour at most
I personally defragment once in a week too..and yes it doesnt take too long i guess because we keep the drive defragmented. I must say though that i started defragging regularly as it helped me speed up my boot. I guess there cant be a consensus on 'how often', it would depend on the individual user. Maybe after a disk cleanup, it would be wise to defragment? Especially as Ugly and Grey mentioned, if the file sizes are huge?
Noone mentioned disk cleanup??

Besides this Adaware, SPybot Search and Destroy and also virus scans.

Thanks everyone for you replies :)

[nn_step]

Fresh reinstall of everything every other month..

[Mr. Tinker]

I set mine to automatically do that every night when I am not using it... MS scheduler works wonders...
I'm having trouble getting MS scheduler to run defrag every night. I have small fleet of Avid machines (self-built, not official) that I want to turn on, run defrag on two drives, then turn off every night.

How?

Edit: answered my own question.

Download this script and program (http://www.adamsanders.net/files/DefragShutDown.zip), unzip to a folder, and make a scheduled taks. If you like to shut down your computer at night, make sure you set Windows to auto login (I use TweakXP) and have the BIOS boot the computer at a specified time, about a minute before the scheduled task.

[Serra]

While defragging is important, it's also important to note that you shouldn't really do it more often than you need to. Some users will need to do it every night, others maybe once a week. Myself, I only play text-based games and run firefox as a web browser (when i'm not benching anyway, but that's a different story), and so I don't really need to do it more than once a month. Defragging your hard drive too often does put it through unnecessary cycles, and that's not going to make it live any longer.

[KoolDrew]

Some users will need to do it every night, others maybe once a week.

The majority does not need to. You are part of this majority as playing text-based games and browsing the web is not going to create many fragmented files. You are defragging too much. You can even check the "split IO" counter I talked about above and see how much fragmentation really does not hurt performance.

[Serra]

Though I do *mainly* play things like text based games, I also use a few very hard drive intensive applications often enough to warrant once a week use... I also said 'once a week' because if you're going through these forums, you're generally more of a power user than most people. Still, I agree... once a week can even be too much for 95% of the computer using population.

[eldorado]

A defrag a day - makes the files speed a way

Serious, Its like when you have to clean your room, if you only do it when it's totally chaos, it takes more time, but if you clean up after your self every time you have done something, it's like, well i might as well take this with me out as i'm on my way, it takes a split sec.

Do it after an install or an uninstall, and before you shut the cumputer down.

Thats what i follow too:) I've set a third party tool to defrag every night, hardly takes any time. I use my system pretty heavily i agree, but i think even otherwise, temporary files created during browsing, so many updates,patches etc that we keep downloading, if spending a little time everyday can make things run smoother, why not?

[Serra]

Have you even checked the "split IO" counts in perfmon? The "split IO" count is the number of IOs that had to be "split" - performed as two or more IOs to the disk - due to either fragmentation or buffer size issues. They are almost always due to fragmentation. You need to evaluate this alongside the total IO count to the drive. A value of 9 means that in the last collection interval there was an average of 9 additional IOs per second due to fragmentation. That isn't much, and if the drive is doing 40 or 100 IOs per second anyway, it REALLY isn't much. See?

Just wondering, but is that value of 9 that you gave indicative of a drive that reportedly needs defragging (ie. your own, or a screenshot you saw on the web)? I ask because it seems to me that if you are using the 9 additional IOs per second as your common number here, I argue that 9/40 and even 9/100 is a lot... that's ~10-25% more work that your computer is doing than it would need to then, right?

Like I said though, I don't know where you got your information or what context it came from (or even if you just pulled some numbers out of the air). If you would please post some of that, possibly with a screenshot of perfmons results on your computer next to a window showing the current look of your hard drive it would be much appreciated. Oh, and maybe let us know the specs of your HDD too. I'll try to do the same, I have a pretty awful looking HDD at the moment... so to keep it on an even playing field I'll download perfmon and post my results before and after a defrag.

Oh, and you would want files to be at the beginning of a drive, not the end, to speed up read/write time.

Serra

[boshuter]

...but most users wont see a terrible amount of difference. Exactly.

Most users don't frequent Xtreme Systems either. Your opinions are usually correct for the everyday user and a 24/7 system.... but it's plain you don't overclock or benchmark. When you are trying for that last few points in some benchmark and everything is running on the edge anyway...... don't think a defrag will hurt :)