Windows 7 defrag v defraggler

[Merlin5]

Mate of mine who also posts here reckons windows 7 defrag isn't good enough for these reasons, and I'd be interested in your opinions. My understanding from reading threads on here is that the general consensus is that windows 7 defrag works very well.

He says windows 7 defrag puts halves of files together but leaves them scattered around the hard drive.

He says defraggler makes everything more neat and tidy by moving everything to the beginning of the drive.

He says windows 7 defrag doesn't take as long to do therefore it's not as thorough.

Any of this valid?

 

[Sin_Chase]

Windows defrag is known for not being all that good.

 

[Merlin5]

Windows defrag is known for not being all that good.

Really? Not according to several threads I've read in here.

 

[Valentino]

Windows 7 defrag is perfectly fine. Installing crap for no reason is one of the reasons why defrags have to be done.

 

[Destination]

Moving all files to the start of a disk will slow the disc down if its multiple platters also.
For general usage, then windows 7 defrag is perfectly fine, it also runs in the background during quiet times for the PC, rearranging thinsg automatically.
Your friend will lose more productivity running his secondary complementary product and wasting time doing that than actually using his PC to get something done.

 

[Crowort]

I believe the algorithm used by the windows 7 defrag only moves files if the move will in fact make the disk read any faster. From the tiny bit of reading I have done speed is mostly effected by small files being fragmented so defragging can be done pretty fast because only small amounts of data 'need' to be moved.

How true that is I don't know. I don't happen to know anyone that has any real knowledge of these things. Only what I've read online.

 

[GrantJ]

By default the win 7 defragger (like Vista's) defrags only fragments larger than 64 MB IIRC. That's why it can still leave a fragments behind. As for the speed, it was rather slow the few times I tried it.

Defraggler has its own set of drawbacks: does not defrag system files and does not play well with restore points. Not sure if these issues have been fixed in recent releases as I haven't tried it for a while.

 

[Broken Hope]

By default the win 7 defragger (like Vista's) defrags only fragments larger than 64 MB IIRC. That's why it can still leave a fragments behind. As for the speed, it was rather slow the few times I tried it.

Defraggler has its own set of drawbacks: does not defrag system files and does not play well with restore points. Not sure if these issues have been fixed in recent releases as I haven't tried it for a while.

The Windows defragger only defrags fragments that are smaller than 64MB, since through testing they found no performance increase defragging files bigger than 64MB.

 

[smogsy]

also Windows Defrag, reads windows files to workout whats best to put at the start of the disk even if its away from parts of an un-used file

 

[FallshirmjAEger]

I just let windows do it every month. So I defrag on average 15 times a year and so far, windows has yet to slow to a crawl.

Defragging everything just thrashes the disk for little to no gains.

 

[Azuse05]

Defraggeler does have one big advantage, but it's entirely dependant on the drives you use. It can shift large isos/movies etc to the end of the drive, which windows wont do. If, like me you're only using a single drive where the read drops from ~150MB at the beginning to 50MB then moving those large files that don't need latency can prove advantageous but tbh, the built in defrag combined with superfetch make both those things redundant unless you have a lot of large files and games installed on the same disk. Another option is real-time defragging while idle,which does have some uses (smart defrag does this), but really only for older drive. WD have been shipping drives with 64MB cache for a while and ssd never need defragged.

For most people there's no reason to bother with anything else really. If you turn your pc off at night then you would have to manually run the defrag every so often but windows 7 just works out of the box. There are people who're running the same install from the beta days as well now as then.

 

[[Olly]]

Never had any problems with the built in defragging tool, I just let it do it's thing automagically.

 

[Bill R TechSpec]

Mate of mine who also posts here reckons windows 7 defrag isn't good enough for these reasons, and I'd be interested in your opinions. My understanding from reading threads on here is that the general consensus is that windows 7 defrag works very well.

He says windows 7 defrag puts halves of files together but leaves them scattered around the hard drive.

He says defraggler makes everything more neat and tidy by moving everything to the beginning of the drive.

He says windows 7 defrag doesn't take as long to do therefore it's not as thorough.

Any of this valid?

I've never heard of Disk Defragmenter doing what your mate says, and I have not used Defraggler, but since it is made by the same company that produces CCleaner, I'm sure it works fine.

I too have seen many posts saying that W7 Disk Defragmenter is perfectly fine as well.

Personally, I think that it is a matter of what type of user you are.

If you do a lot of downloading, saving, editing, creating documents, spredasheets, deleting them, etc. you probably need to be a bit more agressive with the defrag. If you use the PC once or twice a week to check email, the built-in would do just fine.

IMO, the built-in is like Paint or Note Pad. They are fine utinlities in their own right, but they are meant for casual use (I would pity the graphic designer who used Paint or the journalist who used Note Pad for work).

Same wtih the Disk Defragmenter -- OK for casual use, but for heavier use, go with a good third party defrag program.

Here is a Top 10 Reviews side-by-side of the best defrag programs around:

http://disk-defragmenter-software-review.toptenreviews.com/

Check it out and get a free trial of the ones that seem best to you so you can see how they perform on your system.
..

 

[Azuse05]

That's amusing, you're recommending disk keeper first. You do of course realise that the defrag built into windows is a disk keeper program, right?

 

[CaptainCrash]

IMO, the built-in is like Paint or Note Pad. They are fine utinlities in their own right, but they are meant for casual use (I would pity the graphic designer who used Paint or the journalist who used Note Pad for work).

Same wtih the Disk Defragmenter -- OK for casual use, but for heavier use, go with a good third party defrag program.

Why? Do you have hard data that proves third-party defraggers will make your system run faster? (theorising about the supposed merits of various weird and wonderful file placement schemes doesn't count)

Here is a Top 10 Reviews side-by-side of the best defrag programs around:

http://disk-defragmenter-software-review.toptenreviews.com/

Check it out and get a free trial of the ones that seem best to you so you can see how they perform on your system.
..

And as usual, the assessment criteria for these defragger "reviews" is based on how they perform when they're carrying out their task, completely ignoring the far more relevant question of whether they actually do anything useful (ie make the system they're installed on run faster than using the built-in alternative).

Complete waste of time IMO, certainly not worth paying anything for.

 

[CaptainCrash]

That's amusing, you're recommending disk keeper first. You do of course realise that the defrag built into windows is a disk keeper program, right?

Actually, it isn't - XP used a cut-down version of DisKeeper, but Vista and later use completely different code developed in-house by MS, with no involvement from the Scientology loonies.