Have had the PC now for a couple of years, just wondering if it needs defragging? Not got many documents on there -mainly photos?

According to this post (http://www.sheffieldforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=312314#16) (by a supposed sysadmin:rolleyes:) defragging is pointless (though many other experienced users disagree).

Personally, I run a defrag once per week (though I do quite a lot of coding on this box, which results in quite severe fragmentation as I am testing SW).

Just run it when you feel like:thumbsup:

very much pointless, especially for the amount of effort required for any (if any that is) benefits you get

If your going to defrag it though do it atleast twice. You can repeatedly do it until it'll complete a defrag in a matter of minutes.

Defragging depends on how often you move data around and how full your HD is. If you've had it for two years.. give it a defrag anyway.. but if you don't move data around much, 2 years is about as often as you need to.

Personally I *should* be defragging at least once a month because of the amount of data that moves around and how full the disks are.. but I just can't be arsed for my home machine.

I'm afraid i'm one of the "defragging doesn't do much" camp.

Obviously if things are really bad then there'll be a noticeable performance improvement once you've defragged, but otherwise it won't do much - so don't expect miracles.



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id like to backtrack slightly and aggree with dave, regular defragging will give a very small amount of improvent if you move lots of files or are always deleting old ones and starting new! but i still stand by that the amount of effort well out weighs the any benefits!

are you experiencing slow data access? or are you just wondering if you should defrag for teh sake of it?

I think defragging speeds up my PC quite a bit, I defrag once or twice a month normally.

id like to backtrack slightly and aggree with dave, regular defragging will give a very small amount of improvent if you move lots of files or are always deleting old ones and starting new! but i still stand by that the amount of effort well out weighs the any benefits!

are you experiencing slow data access? or are you just wondering if you should defrag for teh sake of it?


No - im just wondering if i should defrag for the sake of it as i know most of my mates do it quite regular.

but i still stand by that the amount of effort well out weighs the any benefits!


There is no effort required. :suspect:

Won't do any harm to run it and see what it reports about your disk.
Most tools will analyse the disk first and then you can decide if it needs doing or not.
Personally I defrag every couple of months or so simply because not a lot changes on the PC so it does not need doing more often.
Other than that, I'm in the 'defrag is a good idea' camp.

Be warned that if you have a large disk it can take some time if it's getting full, and especially if it's badly fragmented.

ok - will try it tonight :)

how long does it take? its not a Huge disc- just an entry level Dell model.

ok - will try it tonight :)

how long does it take? its not a Huge disc- just an entry level Dell model.

The worst HD I defragged took 27 hours.:o

What software are you using to defragg?

The worst thing for drive fragmentation is using BitTorrent, by design it downloads files in none-sequential blocks. If you download a lot of bit torrent files you can end up with hundreds of gigs of fragmented data.

The best way to avoid this (and also to save some wear on your main hard drive) is to use a second smaller old drive as a scrap drive for bit torrent downloads. Once you copy a file off the drive it will be stored as sequential data on your main drive (and it doesn't matter when the second drive becomes fragmented).

Most clients will also give you the option of pre-allocating disk space for files, this does cause a slight delay (depending on the size of the file) before downloading commences but will stop fragmentation. If you're downloading to a single hard drive on your main PC then it's definitely worth ticking this option.

I have to say though; I'm also of the opinion that defraging is overrated. Back in the days when hard drive space was at a premium and operating systems were constantly writing/reading to a swap file it was useful. Now that PCs are often sold with 750gb/1tb hard drives and 2/4gb of memory it's relatively rare for a computer to be constantly accessing (swapping) a full/fragmented hard drive.

A fragmented file may add milliseconds on to load times for applications or opening a document but for the average user it's not going to make a noticeable difference on modern hardware. It may be worth doing once in a blue moon but anything approaching daily/weekly is overkill.

The worst HD I defragged took 27 hours.:o

great ceasers ghost! :wow:

I have to say though; I'm also of the opinion that defraging is overrated. Back in the days when hard drive space was at a premium and operating systems were constantly writing/reading to a swap file it was useful. Now that PCs are often sold with 750gb/1tb hard drives and 2/4gb of memory it's relatively rare for a computer to be constantly accessing (swapping) a full/fragmented hard drive.
I have 10TB+ of HD space, mostly pretty full.

A fragmented file may add milliseconds on to load times for applications or opening a document but for the average user it's not going to make a noticeable difference on modern hardware. It may be worth doing once in a blue moon but anything approaching daily/weekly is overkill.
I've noticed big differences. But I always fill my hard drives as fast as I buy them and am moving data around a lot, so defragging can be a big benefit. Not sure why people are so against it. It's not as though it takes any effort on the users part.:confused:
And the defrag often, simply means it takes less time to do so.

The worst HD I defragged took 27 hours.:o

What software are you using to defragg?

Isn't there one on windows xp that i can use?

*can anyone tell im a fragging novice* :hihi:

Ive heard Savannah talking about defragging. What exactly does it mean, and how do you know your PC needs it ?

Isn't there one on windows xp that i can use?

*can anyone tell im a fragging novice* :hihi:

Yes there is, and it's fine for a basic defrag.
However, all it will do is defrag any fragmented files - it does not re-arrange free space to fill in the gaps, so new file writes could just as easily end up fragmented again.

Some of the other tools mentioned can reorganise free space, or even rearrange the files on your disk to allow for various optimisations. For example, by accessed date, so most used files are on the most easily reached/faster part of the disk.

Ive heard Savannah talking about defragging. What exactly does it mean, and how do you know your PC needs it ?

Your disk drive is formatted into clusters - think of them like pigeon holes in an old fashion mail room - and each cluster has an address and a set size.

When the OS writes a file to disk the disk hardware slots it into these clusters. If the file is small, then the whole cluster is taken up with that file (why disk usage does not always match the size of the data stored - lots of wastage!).

If the file is larger than the cluster size it gets split up and stored in multiple clusters. Ideally these are all adjacent to each other so they can be read back from disk most efficiently.

However, the disk may only have free clusters that are spread all over the place.

Thus, when the file is being read off the disk the drive head has to leap all over the place to retrieve it. Which is slower and less efficient.

Defragging simply identifies these files and moves them to somewhere on the disk where all the parts of a file are in adjacent clusters.

Theres probably more to it than that, but thats the basic idea.

If you hear your disk making more disk noise than usual, or it seems sluggish, then it's one thing that might make it better.

Your disk drive is formatted into clusters - think of them like pigeon holes in an old fashion mail room - and each cluster has an address and a set size.

When the OS writes a file to disk the disk hardware slots it into these clusters. If the file is small, then the whole cluster is taken up with that file (why disk usage does not always match the size of the data stored - lots of wastage!).

If the file is larger than the cluster size it gets split up and stored in multiple clusters. Ideally these are all adjacent to each other so they can be read back from disk most efficiently.

However, the disk may only have free clusters that are spread all over the place.

Thus, when the file is being read off the disk the drive head has to leap all over the place to retrieve it. Which is slower and less efficient.

Defragging simply identifies these files and moves them to somewhere on the disk where all the parts of a file are in adjacent clusters.

Theres probably more to it than that, but thats the basic idea.

If you hear your disk making more disk noise than usual, or it seems sluggish, then it's one thing that might make it better.

Must Bookmark this post. Thanks

Isn't there one on windows xp that i can use?


There is one built into XP, it is a scaled down version of Diskeeper.

It isn't the best, download Auslogics Disk Defrag (http://www.majorgeeks.com/Auslogics_Disk_Defrag_d5266.html)

great ceasers ghost! :wow:


It was an ill-treated laptop from a friend of mine. The laptop hadn't had no tender loving care for nearly three years!! :o
If I had known it was going to take more than a day to defrag I would have reinstalled XP. :D

How long should a full 80gb hard drive take?

A FULL drive cannot be defragmented.

The time needed for any defrag process depends on a large number of factors, primarily being the level of fragmentation and the read/write access speeds for the drive.

The only real way to answer your question is - find out for yourself - but you shouldn't really be looking at more than 12 hours, and typically I would expect about an hour - but all experiences differ.

Try Ashampoo magical defrag - runs in the background when your HDD isn't busy (like when posting on the forum). Keeps your HDD defragmented all the time.

http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/downloads/2171394/ashampoo-magical-defrag

Your disk drive is formatted into clusters - think of them like pigeon holes in an old fashion mail room - and each cluster has an address and a set size.

When the OS writes a file to disk the disk hardware slots it into these clusters. If the file is small, then the whole cluster is taken up with that file (why disk usage does not always match the size of the data stored - lots of wastage!).

If the file is larger than the cluster size it gets split up and stored in multiple clusters. Ideally these are all adjacent to each other so they can be read back from disk most efficiently.

However, the disk may only have free clusters that are spread all over the place.

Thus, when the file is being read off the disk the drive head has to leap all over the place to retrieve it. Which is slower and less efficient.

Defragging simply identifies these files and moves them to somewhere on the disk where all the parts of a file are in adjacent clusters.

Theres probably more to it than that, but thats the basic idea.

If you hear your disk making more disk noise than usual, or it seems sluggish, then it's one thing that might make it better.Nicely explained for those not clued up on Hard Drives.:thumbsup:

A FULL drive cannot be defragmented.
Copy some of the Data off and then you'll be able to Defrag. The more space available the quicker it is to do.