Defrag program....does it matter?

[Adcadet]

hey all -
does it really matter what program I use to defrag? I used to religiously use Norton's Speed Disk, but now I wonder if it's worth the hassle of installing it. IIRC, Norton's claim to fame was (other than the pretty moving diagram it drew) that it put frequently accessed files at the front of the drive.

Comments for the young and the restless?

Adcadet

 

[blakerwry]

i used to use diskeeper 7 (the 1st version) and previous diskeeper versions becasue it was faster than windows 2k/XP defrag and let me defrag multiple drives simultaneously.


But lately I've just used the built in XP defragger because I think it does a better overall job and is probably less prone to causing problems.

Since win98 windows has been able to put frequently accessed files at the beginning of the disk... nothing new here...

 

[Mercutio]

Ghost, then restore.

It works very well, thank you.

 

[timwhit]

I use speedisk because of its ability to defragment volumes with nonstandard cluster sizes. On drives that have many large files I use 32KB clusters and speedisk has no problem defragging this, but the Win2k defragger won't do it at all.

 

[Tannin]

XCOPY d:\*.* e:\temp\*.* /e/s
FORMAT d: /FS:JFS (or HPFS, whatever)
XCOPY e:\temp\*.* d:\*.* /e/s

Simple. Primitive. Practical. Effective.

But on X15s, you really don't have to bother too often. Generally, I upgrade the hard drive more often than I need to defrag. Sometimes I get bored and do it anyway.

 

[Buck]

PerfectDisk 6.0 works well. They have a demo version that lasts for 30 days. You can then uninstall through Windows and then reinstall for another 30 days.

 

[EdwardK]

PerfectDisk 6.0 works well. They have a demo version that lasts for 30 days. You can then uninstall through Windows and then reinstall for another 30 days.

Buck, you sneaky boy you! :lol:

I use O&O Defrag which has several options on how the user can defragment the hard drive(s). Please correct me if I'm wrong here, but isn't the Win2K and WinXP Defrag program a pared-down version of DisKeeper? I seem to read many moons ago that Microsoft licensed a simple version of DisKeeper for Win2K and WinXP.

Cheers,
Edward

 

[SteveC]

Please correct me if I'm wrong here, but isn't the Win2K and WinXP Defrag program a pared-down version of DisKeeper? I seem to read many moons ago that Microsoft licensed a simple version of DisKeeper for Win2K and WinXP.

Yes, it is. It suits my needs just fine.

 

[Buck]

Buck, you sneaky boy you! :lol:

I have my moments. Usually, I rely on the built in defragger for 2000 and XP. However, when things are really bad, then I'll install PerfectDisk to straighten things back out, then uninstall and go back to the built in model. Windows defragger in 2000 and XP is especially bad when the system has been upgrade. For example, I upgrade a workstation from NT 4.0 to 2000 Professional, and the fragmentation was horrible. After several attempts at defragging, I could see it wasn't going get very good. System and non-system files were just scattered all over the drive. PerfectDisk took care of that mess.

 

[zx]

Speed disk takes a very long time to defrag. However, other defrag utilities like Diskeeper and O&O are not very effective when drives are almost full (20% or less free space). Speed disk is much better at this. It's also much better with compressed NTFS files.

 

[Fushigi]

Approaching 2 years later...

What products would be considered the frontrunners for defragging now? Still O&O and PerfectDisk? Merc's Ghost backup & restore process?

My spare work laptop has a 40GB 4200RPM Hitachi HD and it's slower than molassis at the north pole in January. With under 25GB in use it's been defragging using the XP built-in defragger for over 2 hours and is only about 1/3rd done.

Besides just a defrag, I'd like some organization options that'd let me lump the most frequently used files together. The laptop is used to run apps, not to edit documents, so the contents don't change that frequently. I've also several GB of apps that are rarely used but have to be kept available.

The other option is to punt & upgrade the HD. Dell sells a 5400RPM 40GB drive that's supported in this model laptop for about $90.

 

[Buck]

I still prefer Perfect Disk.

 

[Groltz]

I use VoptXP

 

[Bozo]

I use O&O. I lets you select how your hard drive is defragged.
Space, Name, Date Modified, and Access.

Bozo :mrgrn:

 

[Corvair]

How about DisKeeper?


http://www.executive.com/defrag/defrag.asp

 

[sechs]

If you care, PerfectDisk.... else, just stick with the utility that comes with Windows.

 

[Jake the Dog]

How about DisKeeper?


http://www.executive.com/defrag/defrag.asp

I have been using DK 9.0 for 7-odd months on five PC's, two of which do a lot of disk work with many files that range from <1KB to 5GB is size and total over 200GB. Since installing DK, those five PC's have maintained disk performance better than they ever have in the past. Enabling DK to analyse the Windows performance counters and occasionaly letting it change any recommended MFT sizes allows it to work best. As with O&O, it has four defrag methods which you can also assign to different degfrag tasks (schedules 1 & 2, manual). There's quite a few other options that can be configured for best use.

If you'd like, I can send you the help file if you wish to read more about it's features in detail. It may help you decide to pass on it or indeed purchase it, the latter which I happily recommend.

Cheers

 

[Onomatopoeic]

...If you'd like, I can send you the help file if you wish to read more about it's features in detail. It may help you decide to pass on it or indeed purchase it, the latter which I happily recommend.

Thanks, but I already own (Executive Software's) Diskeeper.

I bought it along with Executive Software's UnDelete last year at a local CompUSA, during a spell of weakness when I originally went to just buy the UnDelete product.

I don't have any opinion either way about Diskeeper other than it is generally faster and a bit smarter than the bundled Windows defragmentation utility.

 

[Fushigi]

I trial-wared PerfectDisk, thought it was mostly just OK. I then tried Diskeeper 9 Pro and felt it was the better product, or at least it seemed to produce better results. So I purchased it for my main workstation this past week. At this time I've no plans on purchasing a separate defragger for my wife's PC or any of the others I have.

Really, software companies, especially utility vendors, need SOHO packs of 3-5 licenses where the 1st license is full price and the subsequent ones are 50-70% off. With easy bump-ups to add licenses as necessary. Barring coming out with free versions, that's the only way I'd ever deploy their solutions to all of the machines in my house.

 

[Mercutio]

At this point I'm almost convinced that all software utilities that aren't ghost or adaware are snake-oil. I see sooooo much stuff that either doesn't seem to make a difference, or actively obstructs the way a computer should function, that I'm instantly wary of everything.