Can't Defrag

Long ago and far away when disks were smaller and slower, when 1Gb of system RAM was a lot, and when Windows itself took forever to start and was not "self-optimizing" for the user, moving critical system files to the beginning of the disk made sense. But not today.

Today's hard disks have much faster seek and access times than older disks. Today's hard disks typically come with 32, 64, or even 128Mb of buffer space, compared to 2 or maybe 8Mb on older disks. And today's computers typically have 4Gb or more RAM, plus today's memory managers used on today's motherboards are much smarter and faster too. All these facts work together to vastly improve disk performance.

Windows 7 and even more so with Windows 8, Windows learns how you, the user, use your computer. It learns (via the fetch routines) what programs and applications you routinely open. These might include your browser, your email program, your word processor, temperature monitor, security programs, etc. And then Windows uses Windows Defrag to move portions of those program and application files (as well as some critical Windows files) to the beginning of the disk to improve the performance (load times primarily) of YOUR computing session. This is something no 3rd party defragger does - and in order for them to do that, they would have to have some application running full time, consuming more RAM and CPU cycles. Windows fetch routines are already running.

Setting aside the Windows defragging optimization advantages, as I noted before, any performance advantage 3rd party programs (like Auslogics) provide is quickly negated, starting AS SOON AS you start using your computer again. This is because 1000s of temporary Internet files are dumped on the disk, Windows Update modifies files, security programs download new signature/definition files, users create or edit user files. Not to mention, Windows and apps regularly open files which creates many temporary files on the disk. All these actions contribute to fragmentation and that is why having gobs of free disk space is critical for optimal performance.

Bottom line: with lots of RAM and today's fast and huge hard drives, Windows will utilize RAM, data on the disk, and a properly sized Page File to manipulate the data for better performance than simply stacking "system" files to the fastest part of the disk.

 

Do any of these third-party defraggers disable Windows (7 & 8) own built-in defragger? Seems like I remember Diskeeper disabling XP's defragger at one time.

 

XP's defragger was on-demand only, it was not enabled by default so not sure why Diskeeper would (or could) disable it.

As for Windows 7 and 8, you only need to disable the "scheduled" defragging - not the defragger itself - but again, you will NOT get better performance using a 3rd party defragger. You might get a slightly more efficient defragging of the file segments, but that will NOT result in better computer performance. Again, any disk access performance advantage is quickly equalized once computer use begins.

 

Wow that was a good bit of info! BILL

 

After installing Diskeeper, the program took over the defragger chores in XP. In other words, if you went to system tools and clicked on XP's defragger, it would activate Diskeeper instead. The program did a heck of a job in much less time.

 

That was the legacy, obsolete, and needs-to-go-away, XP. You should not compare XP to W7 or W8. What was true with XP is likely not true with the modern versions of Windows.

The defraggers in W7 and W8 are quite different and more importantly, the way W7 and W8 (and their prefetch routines) interact with the native defragging tools to "optimize" the program files on "your" disks based on "your" computing habits sets the native Windows defraggers head-and-shoulders above "any" 3rd party defragging product - regardless how good, fast, or efficient they may be at defragging.

Bottom line - if you want to "DEGRADE" the performance of your Windows 7 or Windows 8 computer (most significantly the boot and file load times), disable Windows scheduled defragging (if not done so already) and use a 3rd party defragger.

 

Thanks. As much as I like Diskeeper lite, it will not work on Windows 7 or 8. I'll stop using Auslogics for a while and see how my computer's performance fares.

 

Diskeeper Lite is long out of production and you are right, does not support W7 or W8. It has been replaced with Diskeeper Home. But for $30, I see that as a rip-off even if that license allows it to be installed on 3 systems.

Plus, it makes some pretty wild claims I just don't buy. For example, it says it

 

I'm bumping an old thread here.

I stopped using 3rd party defraggers on Windows 7, and I think my boot times have improved as a result.

 

As expected.

Do note that boot and load times are not important to some because boot and load times are not true performance "indicators" of how your system will run once Windows has completed booting, and your apps have loaded. But, typically, humans are impatient creatures. When we sit down and power up, we don't want to wait 3 or 4 minutes, or even longer, before we can start working, as was common with XP.

A side note: It is important to also understand that every defragging program uses different algorithms to determine how drives and files will be defragged and arranged on the disk. Using two defrag programs serves no purpose. You don't get a "better" or "more efficient" defrag of your drives by using two different defraggers. The 2nd defragger simply, and totally undoes whatever the 1st defragger did by totally rearranging the files its own way.

This results in the 2nd defragger spending an inordinate amount of time "undoing" then "re-doing ". But more importantly, it results in unnecessary "thrashing of the hard drives ", increasing wear and tear - with no tangible benefits in return.

My advice, uninstall Auslogics. It is just wasting disk space.

 

HI, I like to analyze my disks with BOTH programs.

 

Windows 7, with new hardware, has been very fast for the most part, but boot times began to lag over time even though I kept a tight watch on startup items and services via CCleaner and WinPatrol. It was then that I would reach for a third-party defragger.

I'll continue to use Windows own defragging tool for now.

 

Understand that running CCleaner can definitely, and significant increase boot times - or at least the first boot after running CCleaner (or any similar cleaner, including Windows Disk Cleaner) - depending on the options set in the cleaning program.

Some files cannot be deleted while the OS is running so the cleaner programs will "tag" those files to be deleted during the next boot up. This can add many seconds to the boot process as the cleanup program completes the cleanup process.

Also (especially on hard drives) the cleanup programs often cleans (clears) the various "fetch" databases. This forces Windows to re-learn your computing habits and that can take a few computing "sessions ".

Finally, other variables can affect boot times. For example, security programs may, or may not go out and look for updates. Since most computer connect to a network and often the Internet during boot, the current network speed and ISP bandwidth, which can vary throughout the day, can affect boot times.

Yes, fragmentation can too - but again, all you need is a basic defragger to deal with that, and Windows Defragger is a fine "basic" defragger (and defrags weekly by default - on hard drives, anyway).