Defragging / Defraggler

Duff-Man · 28 Sep 2009 at 04:07

Okay, quick question regarding using defraggler on vista 64.

Has anyone else found that it takes an excessive amount of time to run? I have a WD black 1Tb which is just under 50% full. Analysing it showed 34% fragmentation, so I ran defraggler. Defraggler sprinted to 61% finished in under two hours. I then left it alone for a further 14hrs, and it had only got to 66% :confused:

Fragmentation had only been reduced to 31% (from 34% originally). I have sleep-mode any any other power saving devices disabled, so it was working that entire time.

Anyway, I thought I would run the windows defragger to do the majority of the job, since that tool is pretty fast. So I defrag in windows and check again in defraggler... Now I have 54% fragmentation :confused:

Is there any reason why running windows defrag has left my drive MORE fragmented than it was originally? And is there any reason why defraggler would be so slow? At the rate it was going it would take at least week of constant work to defrag the drive...

Cheers.

xman01 · 28 Sep 2009 at 04:58

use diskeeper or ontrack

AbsenceJam · 28 Sep 2009 at 05:54

They all try different methods and such, if you have little space and lots of fragmentation it takes a while.

http://www.emro.nl/freeware/ is the fastest and most efficient.

Ritsugamesh · 28 Sep 2009 at 06:58

I'd recommend MyDefrag personally, I'm actually defragging my HDD as I type with said program.

Any of the above programs also seem decent; can't say I've tried them though.

boxman2000 · 28 Sep 2009 at 08:29

I've always preferred Diskkeeper, especially for it's multi-drive defrag facility (run up to 4 drives at once).

AbsenceJam · 28 Sep 2009 at 08:30

Ritsugamesh said:
I'd recommend MyDefrag personally, I'm actually defragging my HDD as I type with said program.

Any of the above programs also seem decent; can't say I've tried them though.

MyDefrag is the JKDefrag successor, won't be as good until the custom GUI comes out IMO.

BeeP · 28 Sep 2009 at 08:56

I run 0&0 on my drives, its pretty fast & seems to do a good job. I've seen a good few on here say it's good so I bought a copy, from trying defraggler for a few days before I think 0&0 is a mile better so far.

niko · 28 Sep 2009 at 17:33

im using JKDefrag with the gui
on xp and win 7
works for me

dave_beast · 28 Sep 2009 at 17:47

Defraggler works ok for me, get's right down to 0% fragmentation

ChileanLlama · 28 Sep 2009 at 19:54

Duff-Man said:
Anyway, I thought I would run the windows defragger to do the majority of the job, since that tool is pretty fast. So I defrag in windows and check again in defraggler... Now I have 54% fragmentation

Is there any reason why running windows defrag has left my drive MORE fragmented than it was originally? And is there any reason why defraggler would be so slow? At the rate it was going it would take at least week of constant work to defrag the drive...

Cheers.

Yes, the 2 programs probably use different algorithms to organise your data. The two are effectively fighting one another and organising them their way each time.

Best bet is to use 1 defragger and stick with it.

I use Perfectdisk, which I prefer to O&O (only because it had lousy 64bit support in the early days lol) and Diskeeper which is a royal pain for activation when you reinstall regularly.

GrantJ · 28 Sep 2009 at 20:03

Duff-Man said:
Is there any reason why running windows defrag has left my drive MORE fragmented than it was originally? .

Just a wild guess here, but (a) could the page file have expanded non-contiguously, during the defrag operation (for any reason), and caused the increase in fragmentation. The page file cannot be defragmented 'online' either. (b) creation of new system restore points or log files in a fragmented state during or just after the defrag?

Like i said, merely my guesses.

As for defragger, I like Diskeeper the best...use 2009 pro on XP currently, and ran it on Vista when I had it earlier. I really like DK's features and most of all, the automatic defrag mode.

Duff-Man · 29 Sep 2009 at 03:54

Thanks guys...

I'll try a few of the other defraggers. I was just surprised with the defraggler performance though, as it's always been good to me in XP. JkDefrag looks good, although I guess it's a case of "try it and see" with these things.

GrantJ, I guess it's possible that it's due to the page file... I don't know though, as I have 500Gb of stuff and after running windows defrag defraggler saw the drive as 54% fragmented. I doubt the page file would be larger than a few Gb.

Audigex · 29 Sep 2009 at 04:12

Defraggler is usually good - occasionally (as with most defragmenters) they'll hit a stumbling block and take a lot longer to finish a run - usually they'll be back to normal on the next go, it's just a bad combination of file location and number of fragments that disagrees with the algorithm.

Try running another program for a couple of passes, then going back, and you'll usually find it's better.

photoshop · 29 Sep 2009 at 13:23

niko said:
im using JKDefrag with the gui
on xp and win 7
works for me

+1

Clawz114 · 7 Oct 2009 at 10:04

Duff-Man said:
Okay, quick question regarding using defraggler on vista 64.

Has anyone else found that it takes an excessive amount of time to run? I have a WD black 1Tb which is just under 50% full. Analysing it showed 34% fragmentation, so I ran defraggler. Defraggler sprinted to 61% finished in under two hours. I then left it alone for a further 14hrs, and it had only got to 66% Fragmentation had only been reduced to 31% (from 34% originally). I have sleep-mode any any other power saving devices disabled, so it was working that entire time.

Anyway, I thought I would run the windows defragger to do the majority of the job, since that tool is pretty fast. So I defrag in windows and check again in defraggler... Now I have 54% fragmentation

Is there any reason why running windows defrag has left my drive MORE fragmented than it was originally? And is there any reason why defraggler would be so slow? At the rate it was going it would take at least week of constant work to defrag the drive...

Cheers.

Open Defraggler.

Click Analyze.

Wait for it to Analyze, and then click on the "file list" tab just above the "Drive Status" section.

Check the little box on the top left of the list of all the files (so that they all get highlighted)

Press "Defrag Checked" at the bottom.

You should find it will race through up to around 3/4 of your fragmented files in under 1 minute. This option just moves the fragmented files, instead of moving non-fragmented files a tiny bit closer together before moving the fragmented files.

When i did the above method on my desktop i was having the exact same problem, mine was at 48% and after 24 hours it was at 43%. I did the Defrag checked method, and it went from 43% to 5% in under 1 minute! I did a normal defrag after that which took about 20 mins and its now on 3%!