Windows Vista Good ol Defrag

Hi Steve Jones,
Try it in Safe Mode and see what happens and providing all goes much faster, try it in normal mode and I'll be suprised if it takes the same amount of time...Once upon a time, things like screen savers were a contributing factor...So if you have one set up, try setting it to none first and run the defrag again...

 

Okay, sounds like you have it under control...Thanks for posting back...As a little word of caution, plan the defrag's sooner than scheduled and hopefully you will see the difference...I'm sure you don't need to be reminded of that...

 

Also, Steve, the smaller your free space gets under 50%, the slower your defrag will go....

 

Hi Steve,
After the initial "Vista" defrag I expect it would have arranged the data/files on the drive the way it "likes" it and future defrags will be a lot quicker.

Maybe as an example, Norton Systemworks arranges the data differently to how Windows does it. If you ran NSW and Windows defrag one after the other you could be there forever because they arrange the data differently (front, middle and back of the drive).

Matt

 

Windows Vista defrag is set up to automatically defrag on wednesday if memory serves me correctly at 1am. This is a nice feature so I dont have to fool with it since I got my laptop.

 

Background automatic defragmentation is indeed cool, and I use a third party auto defragger. I find it much more convenient and efficient than remembering to defrag three drives manually or to schedule for odd hours when my pc might or might not be busy. Automatic defrag handles everthing for me and drives are low on fragmentation most of the time.

 

Matt, how are ya? I've used the third party app called Diskeeper for about a decade now. Since version 2007, it can be set to run in the background and ONLY use idle resources to defrag automatically using their so-called InvisiTasking technology.

The Pro Premier version also has a feature called I-FAAST, which supposedly will arrange your files in a way (over time I presume) that will cause them to start up faster. Now I'm using Diskeeper 2008, and continue to be happy with its performance.

 

Hi C-D,
You just made me think of something. If you go to Start and type in sheduler then open Task Scheduler, you might find Task Scheduler is automatically scheduling defrags. I have never changed settings in Task Scheduler and it says that it completed a defrag yesterday and one is scheduled each Wednesday at 1.00AM.

If you are using a third-party defragmentation program, you may want to check that Windows defrag is not listed in Task Scheduler, otherwise as we were saying, the data may be getting shuffled around all over the drive according to which program thinks is "best ".

BTW, on my system, in the last 24 hours, Task Scheduler has had 37 programs to run, none set by me. I don't mind that these run in the background. I see one is "System Sound" and is run at "logon of any user ", so it includes all the menial tasks. You might want to check through the list though. I have just found 2 tasks that are about to get the chop

Matt

 

IIRC, and you may need to double check this, Diskeeper supersedes the windows default defragger, and takes over all it's duties. Windows defragger will not run when Diskeeper is installed on the system, so no fear of conflicts.

PS: Diskeeper is a good defragmenter in my experience; it's fast and stable. If i am not wrong, the underlying code for the XP defragger was licensed from diskeeper by microsoft.

 

If you ever want to check the fragmentation of a drive, go to the Command Prompt and type "defrag X: -a" without the quotes, where X: is the drive you want to check, and it will give you a report. I'm not sure whether Vista uses the same engine, but I've found that running defrag from the Command Prompt is fairly quick, even on a heavily fragmented drive.

 

diskeeper

I have used Diskeeper for years now and have totally satisfied with the results. I have mine set to run when the screen saver comes on and it usually completes defragging in several minutes or less. It also does an
I-FASST defrag every Sat. when I'm away from the machine and it's possible to do a Boot Time defrag as well.

 

mattman, what's up! Well, Diskeeper will actually replace the Windows defragger, and it can be configured to death, including scheduled defragmentations. However, it's sort of "always-on ", as I said with InvisiTasking, so whenever the computer is idle, it'll always defrag in the background. I've used it for the last 7-8 years, and have never had any problems. I was a little skeptical about this always-on setting, but it shuts up when it needs to, so you won't find it slowing down your system when you're using it. At the same time, it doesn't waste idle time when it sees unused resources. If you prefer manual or scheduled defrags, you can also disable InvisiTasking.

 

Hi C-D,

My system is not very "dynamic ".

One thing I am rapturous about is that my system seems to hibernate (that is, shutdown, no power, no fans, etc), but when I push the power button, it is back where I left it when the monitor warms up. I like it so much, I would not want any programs to stop it from that "sleep" [and some programs do stop it]. I would like avoid anything "mucking up" that "sleep ". I am a little (quite a bit?) enviro conscious and it seems to be an excellent power saving mechanism.

I certainly don't mind Windows version of defrag, I suppose MS like it I have investigated Diskeeper, and if I tended to "fragment" my drive more than I do, I think I would use it. A "Windows" defrag once a week is probably fine for my system (and I watch the HDD LED like a hawk ).

My system is very smoooth. The HDD does not seem to cause any lag (although, disk access, is an area to watch because it is not as fast as "direct ", like RAM). It seems to keep pace with the tasks I set it.

HDD tasks can be time consuming, that's when you need the HDD defraged. I don't have many HDD tasks and the Windows setup is working well for me.

I don't use disk intensive programs or "change" the data much. A defrag once a week is fine for me (I just hope it doesn't upset the "sleep ", although I know it does ).

Matt

 

Hey Matt,

Good to hear that you're on of the very few people who cares about the environment. I'm speaking by U.S. standards. Europe, and especially Germany, has extremely harsh laws(!) for recycling. They distinguish even between the color of the glass. It makes sense for a, comparatively speaking, tiny country, which is very densely populated.

And yes, if you don't constantly do what some people do (myself, for example. lol), which is experiment a lot, move files, re-partition the hard drive, download tons of GB, deleting tons of GB, etc. Although, with hard drives being as large as they are these days, defragging with something like Diskeeper is not necessary anymore. Many people, such as the many light users, who simply don't even fill up so much as only a quarter of their respective hard drives, the Windows defragger is totally sufficient, like you said. The more RAM the better applies here as well, so that the hard drive doesn't constantly need to run for virtual RAM.