Unbelievable defrag report

[Wassercrats]

Does this look right? Seems like it needs to be defragged, but it says no. Maybe I should buy defrag software (I only trust software that's sold in stores). Any recommendations?

http://www.polisource.com/PublicMisc/defrag-report.gif

[Andilinks]

With 6% free space I'd consider moving some items to an external disk or upgrading the hard drive.

But notice that even though the dialog box says "You do not..." you may still click "Defragment" and defrag anyway. Have you tried that? It appears not. The flaw may just be in the analysis and not the defrag function.

[Wassercrats]

I'll try defragging when I get a chance. I may have already tried it a few months ago, but I had bigger computer issues on my mind and don't remember. I noticed that I still have 17,000 small files that I can delete, so I'll do that first. They only take up less than 2gb on disk according to Windows Explorer, but who knows if that's reliable.

[Andilinks]

I find the defrag process seems to take forever so I like to start it at the end of the day. Then it is finished the next morning.

[Jeff]

Agree with Andi: if you're running over 90% full, grab a 500 GB drive for $110 internal or $150 external and free up some space on your primary drive; unless you're running a 15k drive or raid array, running over 75% full is slowing things down noticeably as you're using the slower areas of the drive.

[Randall]

running over 75% full is slowing things down noticeably as you're using the slower areas of the drive. Hmm, never thought of that. But how significant is it?

I start worrying when it gets to the point that Windows is running out of headroom for temp files and whatnot, somewhere around 1GB. That's when things really get bogged down.

Randall

[Jeff]

http://www.boatdesign.net/temp/hard-drive-full-slow.gif

I've used the rule of thumb that the slower regions of a drive are about 1/3 slower than the fastest regions on normal diameter drives. Now with light diskIO maybe it's not that noticeable...

[Wassercrats]

I'm not sure Jeff's chart proves his point, but USB drives have their own speed issues, so I'd get an internal hard drive if I needed more speed. I'm down to 89% full now and I have an 80gb USB drive that I can move some files to if I have to.

[Jeff]

I'm not sure Jeff's chart proves his point
At the beginning of the drive the drive is able to provide sustained read speeds of 60 MB/s, whereas at the end only ~35 MB/s. (the red is a 120 GB PATA IDE and the blue is a 200 GB SATA drive) What is the thinking to the contrary? (open question)

[Wassercrats]

I thought that each drive size listed at the bottom may be for a different drive, but I guess you're saying the speeds are all for the same sized drive with different amounts of data. If the chart shows speeds for different drives, then it doesn't necessarily show that my speed would increase if I decrease the data on my 40gb drive.

[Jeff]

The graph generated by http://www.simplisoftware.com/Public/index.php?request=HdTach "measures the sequential read speed at various points on the device" and the graph shows the test for two of my drives: the one in Red is a 120 Seagate and the one in Blue is a 200 Western Digital.

[Randall]

The graph generated by http://www.simplisoftware.com/Public/index.php?request=HdTach "measures the sequential read speed at various points on the device" and the graph shows the test for two of my drives: the one in Red is a 120 Seagate and the one in Blue is a 200 Western Digital. OK, now I understand it.

I have to suspect that I'm not very sensitive to differences of that sort. I can tell a slow laptop drive from a 7200rpm desktop drive in day-to-day usage, but in some cases I've got 7200rpm drives attached to ATA/33 controllers -- and I can't really say I notice the difference between those computers and this newer PC I've got. (One of the old machines is noticeably slower, but I don't think the hard drive is the bottleneck.)

But this talk about "slow" areas of the drive -- those would be even slower when the drive is heavily fragmented and 90% full, right? That I might notice. Maybe. :wink: I'm down to 89% full now and I have an 80gb USB drive that I can move some files to if I have to. Certainly wouldn't hurt if those files aren't the sort of thing you need every day. But a bigger internal drive would be the best way to go -- Windows and your Program Files probably take up almost half of the drive you've got.

USB 2.0 can be very fast when you've got a good pairing between the drive and your PC's USB controller. A bad combo can be excruciatingly slow.

Randall

[Wassercrats]

I've had my USB hard drive for about one year and today is the first time I see a Windows notice saying "HI-SPEED USB Device Attached To non-HI-SPEED Hub." I knew some of my USB ports might be high speed, but I was never able to determine which ones. Now, because of that notice, I think I discovered that I have one high and one low on both the front and back, and I plugged the drive in the fast one.

My webcab had been plugged in the rear high speed port, and I decided to plug it into the front high speed port so the rear one can be used for the hard drive and so I can easily unplug the webcam when I'm not using it (I never installed the switch I once mentioned.) Unfortunately, I have to select the proper Hz for my country and wait for installation to complete each time I plug it in. Not the plug & play I had in mind.

[Wassercrats]

I start worrying when it gets to the point that Windows is running out of headroom for temp files and whatnot, somewhere around 1GB.That's what I've heard, but I just tried defragging and Windows defragger says I need at least 15% free disk space and I only have 11% free. I need a defragger that will use my USB drive for temporary storage.

I just remembered that some let you defrag portions of the drive. I'll get one of those defraggers and defrag a little at a time.

[Andilinks]

Couldn't you just temporarily off-load some large files to the USB drive before you defrag? Or better still find some files that can permanently reside on the USB drive.

[Wassercrats]

I didn't think of temporarily off-loading. That's a good idea. The defraggers sold in stores require about 256 MB of RAM because they come with other tools, which I can't really spare. I don't think I'll get one.

[Jeff]

I'd definitely put my money toward a bigger and/or faster hard drive before defrag software.

[Wassercrats]

I haven't been keeping close track of this so I'm not sure, but I don't think that much of my hard drive is really full. When I started creating tens of thousands of small files, things filled up very quickly because NTFS doesn't handle small files efficiently, and my computer crashed several times. I did partial disk checks because the complete ones were never ending (but I did a complete one since then). When I started deleting the files, I don't think I saw enough space being freed up. The weird defrag report also indicates there's something wrong.

I want to look into how much of the hard drive is marked as damaged from the disk checks I've done and maybe I can find some disk repair software that's better than what comes with XP.

Or maybe I'll get a new hard drive.

[PaulKroll]

With 250 gigs at about $85, and 750 gigs at $220, is it worth a few hours of your time and some money on the software to bother with defragging just like, now?

If you're going to do it regularly, go get Diskeeper, and spend the coin on the bigger version, and run the thing often. Like, as your screensaver.

If you're brave, and get over the "only trust software I can buy at a store" you can try http://www.kessels.com/JkDefrag/ which I've used, but admittedly, not often (I tend to go buy bigger drives when I start to approach the end).

I've certainly had a commercial defragger, blow up a hard drive once, and that was bought at a store... it's been sold and its name has change, I think. (Fix-It utilities, IIRC)

[indica]

The windows defragger kept taking a century to defrag my drive which had gone completely fragged and red! It was a pain to free up space, etc etc. Am on Diskeeper now, with Invisitasking turned on. Keeps defragging when the system idle and adjusts according to priority of tasks runnin. Really cool.

[tknterry]

Ive also found the windows xp defragger to run very very slowly under windows. Thats why I only defrag in safe mode with command prompt, such as defrag c: -v -f It definitely does run faster in safe mode. I also have considered diskeeper but didnt want to pay for a defragger.