Never defrag?

[gunslinger]

I have been listening to a few different podcasts lately (podnutz , Mike tech and Computer America ) and there seems to be an odd trend among computer techies these days , no defragmenting.

I have been working on computers for a long time and working with them for over 20 years and its always been common knowledge that a good defrag about once a month was a good way to keep your computer running smoothly.

These days some techs are actually saying they never defrag, and that it really does nothing to speed up the computer.

When ever I have seen a badly fragmented HDD and then run a good defrag program on it I have always seen a boost in speed, ranging from just a little faster, to wow its running faster than new.

What do you guys think about this new trend.

 

[seedubya]

I'd have been strongly of the same opinion as you Gunslinger. I have JKDefrag with the GUI on my systems which runs a defrag once a week and shuts down afterwards. I'd like to see a study done....

 

[Simmy]

Defragging can make a huge difference and I usually install IOBit Defrag which runs automatically during the screensaver/idle moments.

It will be irrelevant in a few years time though when everyone is using solid state drives

 

[koonter]

i always figured that defragging made it easier for the OS to access files logically.

i seem to remember diskeeper showing you in milliseconds how much faster the files could be accessed in a "before and after" graph.

i think that because defragging is so time extensive and the average client starts polluting his computers so fast that the defrag is all for naught. i personally only run it on older machines where it has a direct effect on system performance, but i havnt really noticed a difference on newer machines

 

[bmetman]

There is a thought that fragmentation does not affect NTFS file systems as much as it affects FAT file systems. Not sure if it is true since I have not seen any evidence or conducted any tests myself. Just thought I'd pass it along and see what everyone else thinks.

 

[NYJimbo]

I remember a time when defragging was a ritual we all performed almost weekly for years.

Since going to Windows XP and now Vista I cannot remember the last time I defragged any of my machines. I sometimes do it on customers machine when trying to hunt down weird system problems but other than that I honestly think I have stopped defragging everything.

 

[nonchalant]

I dont think defragging with XP or Vista makes as much noticeable difference as it used to with '98 but I still do it once/week. In fact I have mine auto scheduled to run in the early hours of the morning. Defragging makes sense.

 

[MHCG]

I'm pretty sure Vista automatically defrags when the computer is not being used.

 

[NYJimbo]

I'm pretty sure Vista automatically defrags when the computer is not being used.

Actually I went digging into this machine and found that it now runs on it's own at 4am every Sunday.

The task scheduler in Vista is amazing compared to XP.

 

[gunslinger]

The task scheduler in Vista is amazing compared to XP.

Too bad pretty much everything else about it sucks.

 

[cleanwithit]

Here is my opinion. It should only be done once every six months, just to keep everything organized. My A+ teacher, about six months ago, we were having this discussion. He says, if you defrag alot, it will kill the drive over time because it's accessing alot more. You want it to access less.

It was kinda of weird but after that, I went to a friends house, and he was defraging, He says he defrags every other day. I told him what I learned. He said, "Naw, I will be alright". Two weeks later, his drive fails. lol coincidence? I don't know, but it makes since.

 

[14049752]

My A+ teacher, about six months ago, we were having this discussion. He says, if you defrag alot, it will kill the drive over time because it's accessing alot more. You want it to access less.

That's a logical assumption, but there's not really much truth in it. By that assumption, it's dangerous to load games, boot up your system, scan for viruses or do pretty much ANY hard drive function. Your friend's situation was a coincidence (though defragging every other day is just obsessive and a waste of time). Don't believe me, do your own research. Here's some reading.
Link 1 Link 2 Link 3

My opinion on defrag is that "it depends". If you install and uninstall lots of software, move lots of files around, or anything like that your files become fragmented after time. If you install a system, use it as is for web browsing or whatever, you're not making many changes and your drive stays fairly static so it has no way to become fragmented much.
Performance wise, again it depends on how badly the drive is fragmented. I've seen cases where defrag made a HUGE different, and cases where it didn't make any noticable difference at all.

 

[nonchalant]

I defrag my drive daily as I like the drive optimised for gaming. If I didnt game once a week/month I think would be sufficient.

 

[gunslinger]

I move around lots of files, sometimes 20-30 gigs or more in a day. I defrag about once a week. I notice a drop off in performance after about two weeks if I don't defrag. I leave my computer on pretty much 24-7 unless I need to restart for my antivirus to update.

The best ones I have seen are Diskeeper, JkDefrag , and defraggler.

I'm starting to group the people who say they never defrag into the same group that say the don't run antivirus software.

 

[Jory]

I don't run anti-virus software, and I very rarely defrag. I'm more likely to reinstall windows before I ever decide to defrag. Sometimes after I reinstall I'll defrag my data drive, but most of the stuff on the drive is just an archive that doesn't move around.

I see no point in keeping an anti-virus running on my personal system. It's not going to protect me from any threats that I'm vulnerable to. If I'm doing something sketchy then I'll just open a virtual machine. If for some reason I suspect I'm infected I can use a boot disk and scan that way.

I'll defrag my customers machines. In those cases though there is a good possibility they've had it for two years and never done any basic maintenance on it, or they defrag religiously and will think I missed something important if I don't do it. The perception is still there that it should be done so I do it. The reality is you're probably not going to notice a few milliseconds here and there. Anything more than once every 6 months or so you're probably wasting your time. Of course there is always the exception to the rule.

 

[hawks5999]

For years, I've used the defrag script by doug knox:
http://www.dougknox.com/utility/scripts_desc/defrag_all.htm

to do a scheduled defrag every day. I modify the script so as not to open the text report. This is for XP. I don't do it on Vista.

As to this over using the hard drive and causing premature drive failure - I'd add "bullocks" to that as well. When run every day, defrag takes roughly 1-10 seconds as it only has to optimize for changes made that day. That's roughly the same amount of disk access as your computer uses when loading the screensaver.

 

[abe]

True point. hawks5999 but for that same reason it dosnt pay to do it every day, your not gaining anything by defraging daily unless you shift around a lot of stuff.

 

[seedubya]

Are you not gaining "never having to defrag for longer than 1 minute"?

 

[hawks5999]

True point. hawks5999 but for that same reason it dosnt pay to do it every day, your not gaining anything by defraging daily unless you shift around a lot of stuff.

you are sort of losing me here... if done every day then your hard drive is never fragmented, performance is never impacted by a fragmented disk.

It sort of sounds like you are saying that running a resident anti-virus doesn't pay because if it's always running you'll never get infected by a virus.

 

[gunslinger]

Good point Hawks. I don't understand the logic these guys use either.

Running a good AV programs in the background will use some system resources, but not much. I have Kaspersky running and its using about 35 mb of RAM. I'm running 4 gigs so the performance loss is not even an issue.

While its true that 99% of the time its doing nothing, its that 1% of the time I really need it. Its too late once I'm infected.

As for defragging indexing the drive shortening its life. I point to Vista. When I was running Vista It indexed my HDD 24-7, the drive almost never stopped. A defrag would last at most 10 mins.