Re: Defrag program

On 2/15/2010 2:17 PM, Christopher Muto wrote:
Monica wrote:
I've always used Window's defrag program. This is adequate or can
I/Should I be using something better?
A newsletter I got today mentioned a program called UltraDefrag. It's
free so maybe it's worth what it costs <g>
What would you guys suggest?
Thanks,
Monica


windows 7 and vista have disk defragmentation built in and schedualed to
run weekly by default. you can also perform manual scans or change the
schedual under start-allprograms-acessories-systemtools-diskdefragmenter.
but disk defragmentation is really a throw back to when disks were both
slow and small. not much performance gained is achieved from the process
on modern disks in regular workstation setting.

The performance gain from using a defragmenter varies widely with each system and each user. I have to disagree that a defragger does not improve performance.

The Windows file system always flogs wildly about and creates many, many fragmented files. My favorite example is what happens to email inbox, sentbox, etc. with any one of Outlook, Outlook Express, Thunderbird or Eudora. Whenever one sends or receives mail with these packages, the "boxes" get fragmented. if not defragmented, they reach a certain state where the system overall runs just fine, but email is a true slug. Defrag the mailboxes and suddenly email performance is restored back to its original. Another example I have encountered lately is that Avid/DigiDesign recommend a two-drive system for music recording, and that one should not record onto the system disk. Why? Fragmentation of a recorded file affects playback of the music. Fragmentation could even have an impact on recording, which is time-sensitive. I could cite other examples, but these are the two that come to mind. Suffice it to say that if a hard disk becomes highly fragmented, performance of something or other can really suck... Ben Myers
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