Best Defrag. Software

To avoid another XP vs 98 argument...BB, In XP, a user can control it, it's just done differently than in 98.
You'd be surprised what I've taken out of XP, and it stays that way too.
Your "overpriced, space hogging, piece of software. And one that winds up not doing any more than what I am right now with SE." comment is EXACTLY the same (type of) comment I heard when Win95 first came out, and then when Win98 first came out, and then when Win2K first came out, and again when WinME first came out, and will be the same when Longhorn comes out.
Nothing ever changes.
It works for you, we all know that. We also know you don't like XP. 'Nuff said.

PeteC, "too big ", no, I don't think there is such a thing, unless one decides to make the swap bigger than the partition it's on

Why would one download a 3rd party pagefile monitor, when XP has a great one built in? Discrepancy? For sure! Way too much discrepancy for me to put any trust in DougKnox's software.
If I use CloneCD, "on the fly" copying, pagefile use is negligable.
If I use Nero, disk compilation, pagefile use increases to keep track of the locations of the files I'm assuming, but Nero's cache is the same size (static, as set by ME!).
If I use EZCD5, my pagefile grows until I shutdown and restart the program. Shutting it down doesn't clear the swap, but restarting a new burn overwrites the old. Anyhow, I never use EZCD any more.

Christer, seems very similar. Photoshop's scratch file can go wherever you put it. I have had no problems running it on the same partition as pagefile/swap, however I do notice that pagefile use is negligable when using Photoshop.
PSP does use swap, and lots of it (depending on image complexity/size), so not all graphics apps are the same. Some use swap, some use their own scratch area.

 

Ah, gotcha...seems none too reliable though...

 

Just to try to track down what XP's Task Manager means by the words, "PF Usage ", I tried a couple things.

First, I set my min pagefile to 128 megs. PF Usage said 157 megs, even though actually going and checking the properties of the pagefile.sys showed that it had not grown above 128 megs. So, obviously it doesn't mean the same as "Pagefile in use ".

Starting a performance monitor in Perfmon.msc showed:

"(PDH-TSV 4.0) (Eastern Standard Time)(300) " "\\UNIVAC\Paging File(_Total)\% Usage "
"04/01/2003 19:53:21.991 " "36.02294921875 "
"04/01/2003 19:58:21.991 " "36.02294921875 "
"04/01/2003 20:03:21.991 " "36.0137939453125 "
"04/01/2003 20:08:21.991 " "44.4793701171875 "
"04/01/2003 20:13:21.991 " "43.8995361328125 "


and the Doug Knox thing, at about the same time:

Pagefile Physical Location: P:\pagefile.sys
Current Pagefile Usage: 28 MB
Session Peak Usage: 29 MB
Current Pagefile Size: 64 MB

Pagefile Physical Location: Q:\pagefile.sys
Current Pagefile Usage: 26 MB
Session Peak Usage: 27 MB
Current Pagefile Size: 64 MB

or approximately the same value for the amount of pagefile in use.

So, back to Task Manager----the PF Usage is always identical in value to the Total Commit Charge. So it appears that the PF Usage indicates more of a potential or "reserved" page file usage than an actual one. It really seems to be meaningless.

It would appear that the Doug Knox thing is considerably more accurate. Its value corresponds more nearly to that of SiSoft Sandra and Aida32, too.

PS. Currently, my PF Usage in Task Manager is 247 megs, but the 2 pagefiles are still 64 megs each, or 128 total.

 

When all is said and done, it is how well the system does or does not run that tells whether we have things set right or not.

If it runs well I must have it right.

If it is not behaving properly then I need to make adjustments.

The online Golf game that we just finished tells me VERY quickly if all is well or not. And right at the first hole too.

BillyBob

 

The "great one built in" that I referred to is Perfmon.msc
I admit, I haven't tried Doug's, no need to, as you've proven.
I never bother with the performance tab in task manager, it may be nice as a quick reference, but that's about it.

 

It appears that the PF Usage in Task Manager is misleading and useless. It seems to tell what amount of memory contents could be paged, but not what in fact is being paged at the moment. But even that is not accurate since it includes the kernel and mine is set never to page out the kernel.

Another method to check PF in use is to set a small pagefile and set no upper limit or a high one and see what size it grows to.

But reboot's observation still holds in most cases. If you are not limited on space, why not just let it have all it wants and leave it at that?

The only reason I even monitor this is that I am using 2 non-system partitions for paging and I want to be sure I make them large enough.

 

And if you're worried that the pagefile will get too large, don't forget that by default it's dynamic. If you start to fill up the hard drive, the pagefile will resize itself to accommodate.
You can keep filling up the hard drive, until you notice the system at a crawl because there is no more room for the pagefile, unless you still have "low disk notification" turned on, in which case that stupid popup will bug you until you delete a bunch of stuff, long before the drive becomes full, and the pagefile shrunk beyond acceptable limits.

 

What you be the effects if one were to take a brand new HD for XP Pro and partitoned it so that one partition was say 5gig. And keep that just for the page file ?

It worked well in 95 and 98.

I ran 98 that way for a long time with a HD of 500 meg on the 2nd controller and just the swap file on it. No problems at all.

I had to do way with it due to the fact that the old HD did tend to slow things down when I got the newer 40gig 7200 HD.

BillyBob

 

Funny that you should mention that.
I partition my own drives similar.
C is 1 gig, for swap and boot files only.
XP is on D, 98 is on E, Linux on F, and it goes from there (I have C through N on this computer, spread over 3 drives, plus R for CD-ROM, W for CDRW and V for DVD).
Because of the amount of system RAM, the swap doesn't get used all that much, but there still must be one for XP to run properly.
On my other system, swap, temp, and temp internet are on a 1 gig ramdrive ( 3 gig in the system) running XP. This is truly speedy, because even if the swap needs to get used, it's in RAM already. I know some say this is self defeating because windows will use RAM first, but even with 3 gig, I have yet to see a version of Windows that really uses all the system ram to it's full potential.
Third system has a 256meg swap on C, remainder for Win98.
The fastest portion of a drive is the boot sector, so if you can get the swap nearest that (in C) you don't need a fixed min/max, then you have no worries about fragmentation. Let Windows handle it's size dynamically, just put it on C.

 

I guess I'll throw my two cents in, also. To me, defraging is probably the most blown out of proportion topic I read about, especially for the vast majority of 'average' users. Sure, fragmentation (file and space) likely do erode overall performance but unless you're running a server or handle some very intensive computing (and you are maybe using 'older' generation hardware), I suspect the user will never notice or appreciate the difference. A large data file that has 125 fragments will take about a second longer to fully access with todays hard drive access speeds. The recommended 'weekly' defrags are questionable to me.

That said (whew, now off the soapbox), my favorite 'defrag' program is Norton Ghost 2002! I do my routine operating partition backup to another partition and 'ghost' that backup partition back to the original. Wallah! I get both a full backup and a full (file, space, pagefile, etc) defrag in one setting. It takes about half hour to do both ghosts on my 16 gigs of data/programs. Works for Win2K and XP.

Have fun
TopDog

 

Good grief. I can defrag drives C thru H which contain about 25-30 gig of data in less than 10 minutes in 98 SE using ME defrag. ( I will check this out to make sure I am not way off here )

About the only time they get defraged is when I either add or remove software.

Of course my swap file is set to a min if 400meg on the E: drive so I do not have to worry about that.

The C: is only 3.5gig but only half used so that does not create big problem either. About 45 sec it is done.

I have run with Taskmonitor loaded and not loaded. And I see no difference whatsoever in speed. Other than the time it takes to defrag. TM loaded deffinetly takes MUCH longer.

BillyBob

 

I'm Lost now

Hi

I have just this minute got the extra RAM in my laptop - now have 512MB.

I came back to read just what to do with the pagefile size now & I am

I had mine set to constant when I had 256MB. Now that I have 512MB I don't know what to make the minimum. The 1.5 x RAM seems to be the big debate. Please help I am both lost &

Is 768MB reasonable - Apologies but I thought I understood until now ! Help .........

 

miniB

Suggestion.

Experiment and find a setup that works best for YOU and YOUR machine

BillyBob

 

Hi

Just what I am doing ....... The best thing is the added RAM - really does make the difference. Pleased that this was advised on this forum. I took the advice and am lots happier.

Now to continue the PF experimenting ........

 

2 questions?

I have 1G of ram--what should my minimum & max settings be

2nd- how do I go about setting the Pagefile--I know I've been there bebore but my dementia is kicking in and I can't remember how to go back.

Thank you,
Paul

 

Answer to one Question

Hi

Sorry I can't be of help regarding the size for PF - only know that if you have 1GB you will rarely need to access PF ( think so ! )
I have 512MB - am testing just now but am keeping the figures at constant as it stops all the re-sizing etc.

To access you PF settings - My Computer - View System Inforamtion - then Advanced tab - then Performance Click on Settings - this will show you what it is set at. Click on Change & you will find the list of options there. You can custom or let windows decide.

I am checking the task Manager settings just to see how many times my PF is being accessed etc I seem ok at the moment. After reading everything I really do think it is the matter of how you use your computer. Scanning will use lots of RAM but with 1GB I don't think you will notice.
My main priority was to stop defragmentation. I have noticed things a lot better now that I have more RAM. Going to get more for my desktop PC now too.

Hope this helps your memory ( it happens to me also )

 

Thanks miniB
My settings are 1536 min & 3072 max--so it looks like I fall into the parameters of what everyone was talking about & the computer is running fantastic so I think I will keep my big mits off of it.
It was nice to find somemore information though--this is a GREAT board, I learn something new from it every day
Paul

 

Hi

I fully agree about the forum - I have learnt so much here too. It is all to easy to stay here all day ...... pleased to have helped someone else this time .......