defrag a waste of time?

[Jeffk]

someone told me today that there's no point defragging modern HDDs as they're so fast anyway that it doesn't make any difference to the access times.

I'm not sure about this, myself............any thoughts on this anyone?

 

[Xander]

Would you rather be able to drive your sports car at 150 kph or 155 kph?

If someone says that defragging makes no difference, they've no idea what they're talking about. Just because a drive is fast doesn't mean it won't be faster by not having to jump around the drive getting all the bits. It might only be a fraction of a second each time but that adds up over the course of hours and days.

Plus, and more importantly, by reducing the number of disk accesses, you increase the lifespan of the drive.

 

[Slaters Kustum Machines]

Faster than ten years ago sure, but so what? If it's mechanical defrag it. If it's an SSD leave it alone they are flash based and don't suffer from files being disorganized because the random read speed is very high. This is not true for a typical "spinner" type drive as the read head has to physically go to where the data is and the more organized the easier it is to find and read therefore works faster and more efficiently.

 

[MobileTechie]

A really badly fragmented drive is noticeably quicker after defragging. No need to do it weekly or anything.

 

[seedubya]

A really badly fragmented drive is noticeably quicker after defragging. No need to do it weekly or anything.

Once or twice a year is fine. More on high traffic drives - lots of file creation/deletion. Very noticeable improvement on these types of drives.

 

[Jeffk]

yeh,...

....that's pretty much what I thought too - I just wondered what other people's thoughts on it were.

thanks, guys

 

[DanF]

Of course it helps. It's like having all your papers all over your room. It's faster to find your files after re-arranging them in order... no matter how fast you can be to find them.

 

[NETWizz]

I think most modern versions of Windows schedule this automatically.

That said, I have 2000+ computers my department is responsible for at work. We don't defrag any of them. We have had users call us and ask to which we answered, "If you want to defrag it, go ahead... That's fine."

 

[commodore64]

I've heard "techs" say defragging does nothing before. I just laugh, maybe not with Vista and 7 since its scheduled, but I've seen old XP installs that were way faster after a defrag.

 

[parker.casey]

I do the quick defrag on Defraggler. I also make a point to defragment specific files. Any ISO file, or video file, or audio file. Those files suffer from being fragmented moreso than any other kinds of files.

 

[Xander]

I've heard "techs" say defragging does nothing before. I just laugh, maybe not with Vista and 7 since its scheduled, but I've seen old XP installs that were way faster after a defrag.

But that's just further proof that regular defragging helps.

 

[gikstar]

I agree with defragging a mechanical drive, that being said, I don't let a computer go off my workbench and to the customer unless I've run Defraggler first.

For myself, I defrag but I also reinstall my O/S on a new boot drive in my own computer each year. Definitely makes a difference.

 

[TechLoopPC]

I defrag almost every client's machine (use defraggler) if they feel slow at all, especially if it's running XP. They are noticeably faster, especially on the computers with 30,000 family photos.

 

[Haastility]

New client with a dated server, while we wait for the new one to be built and arrive I ran a simple defrag on the two drives over the weekend and its already much faster.

 

[NETWizz]

I personally don't do it because it is VERY time consuming.

Sure anything newer than XP & Server 2003 does it on its own, but it is not worth it in my opinion.

Yeah, it helps, but it is minute.

 

[Styxbound]

If you use Auslogic it takes little time at all if done regularly. And if a drive is badly fragmented there's a tremendous speed hit. Worse yet badly fragmented drives are much more prone to developing errors. From what I've seen for myself I can scarcely imagine anyone not doing it.

 

[Jeffk]

the vast majority....

......seem to think defragging is worthwhile, me included, so what makes some people think it isn't? What's their rationale, other than thinking that modern HDDs are so fast that defrag won't make any difference, or is that it? @NETWizz (you're the only one here, so far, that's not been in favour of defrag)?

Also, what do people think of defraggler vs windows defrag?

 

[sassenach]

Win 7 defrag is pretty good, XP and earlier is rubbish.

I was trying out a couple of free defraggers over the weeken and as lots of people rave about Defraggler I tried it on a machine and it locked up. Having to do a warm reboot during a defrag did not fill me with confidence.

I redid the defrag with Auslogic and it completed with no problems and it is quick as well.

 

[MobileTechie]

In some commercial environments it can have little effect.

Last place I worked we imaged all the machines and all data was held on the server. So there wasn't much to get fragmented on workstations and they were reimaged whenever anything slightly tricky went wrong with them.

In that case there is little to be gained.

 

[gunslinger]

I've heard "techs" say defragging does nothing before. I just laugh, maybe not with Vista and 7 since its scheduled, but I've seen old XP installs that were way faster after a defrag.

Agreed. Also with a Vista and Win7 machine if you move large files regularly. "Techs" who wont do a manual defrag as part of a cleanup/speedup are just being lazy.