Routinely defragment?

[frase]

never do waste of time. Best if needed is to do a full HD integerty check - chkdsk does the job well (with parameters as per required)
Fragmented files on an older system, probably yes. On newer systems I wouldnt even bother. As others have stated I use Auslogics if really needed.

[Cambridge PC Support]

on-site, start a defrag off before I leave

off-site, yes I run a defrag

['putertutor]

It depends on the machine, honestly. On a Vista or above, I don't even consider it. On a pre XP machine.... actually I don't remember the last pre XP machine I worked on, but if I was working on one, I probably would, after everything else was done. XP is a 50/50, I'll check the fragmentation and if it's significant, I'll run a defrag.

This thread led me to check my own laptop, a win7 unit at least 3 years old. I've never even thought of defragging it, and I tend to add/delete/move stuff around a lot on my computers. So I checked and it was all of 2% fragmented, so no, on a win7 machine I don't even think about defragging.

[tf76]

'putertutor, is defrag set to auto on your pc?

[iisjman07]

I do, I know in the later windows operating systems it's automatically done but it never seems to be very effective (maybe that's just vista). It also seems to take forever. I use Auslogics Disk Defrag from a flash drive (portable!) and it's soooo much quicker than the built in one; I usually leave it when I go to bed and tick the 'shutdown on completion' button (even though it only takes about 20-30mins)