What does 'Defragment your PC' mean?

Post all your general non-film related PC and Mac stuff here.

Moderators: Admin, Moderator Team

Post Reply
TommyPollock
Senior Member
Senior Member
Posts: 100
Joined: Sun Jul 27, 2003 8:30 pm

Post by TommyPollock »

What does 'Defragment your PC' mean?
Matt
Webmaster
Webmaster
Posts: 627
Joined: Tue May 14, 2002 10:28 am
Location: Bristol, England
Contact:

Post by Matt »

When files get deleted on your hard drive it leaves behind lots of blank spaces. When you save new files the blank spaces are used up but this may mean files are split into lots of chunks. The more file operations you do the more your files are split up. This reduces performance.

Defragmenting moves all the chunks of data around your hard drive so that files have all their data next to each other.

It is worth defragmenting your hard drives every so often. What operating system are you using ?
Grant
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 2982
Joined: Tue Dec 03, 2002 3:24 am
Location: Ballarat, Victoria, Australia
Contact:

Post by Grant »

It will certainly speed up file access and the performance of your OS
The Honourable Grant Meredith - CEO Sick Individual Productions
http://www.sickindividual.com
Profile : http://www.innersense.com.au/mif/meredith.html
foxwood
Forum Veteran
Forum Veteran
Posts: 2446
Joined: Fri Jul 04, 2003 8:20 pm
Location: Vrigina Commonwelth University
Contact:

Post by foxwood »

i would defrag every time you delete anything big, like a few games, or lots of raw footage.
Grant
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 2982
Joined: Tue Dec 03, 2002 3:24 am
Location: Ballarat, Victoria, Australia
Contact:

Post by Grant »

Ohh i, especially dealing with a lot of file changes and deletions would recommend once a month and scandisk every week.
The Honourable Grant Meredith - CEO Sick Individual Productions
http://www.sickindividual.com
Profile : http://www.innersense.com.au/mif/meredith.html
foxwood
Forum Veteran
Forum Veteran
Posts: 2446
Joined: Fri Jul 04, 2003 8:20 pm
Location: Vrigina Commonwelth University
Contact:

Post by foxwood »

Ya the more the better, thats when slight paranoia, and general mantenance pay off.
Lorenzo_amateur_prods
Senior Member
Senior Member
Posts: 137
Joined: Sun Jun 15, 2003 11:55 am
Location: Netherlands
Contact:

Post by Lorenzo_amateur_prods »

lol my imac does it automatically :D to all u pc users
stickmurder30
Member
Member
Posts: 98
Joined: Mon Jul 14, 2003 6:38 pm
Location: Quebec City, Canada
Contact:

Post by stickmurder30 »

i'm happy for you Lorenzo, i prefer my old pc , ms windows xp os , even if i have to defragment it manually .....
foxwood
Forum Veteran
Forum Veteran
Posts: 2446
Joined: Fri Jul 04, 2003 8:20 pm
Location: Vrigina Commonwelth University
Contact:

Post by foxwood »

So what, That takes system resorces.
Grant
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 2982
Joined: Tue Dec 03, 2002 3:24 am
Location: Ballarat, Victoria, Australia
Contact:

Post by Grant »

You can set XP to automatically scandisk and defrag at given times can't you Mushiman?

I am sure so
The Honourable Grant Meredith - CEO Sick Individual Productions
http://www.sickindividual.com
Profile : http://www.innersense.com.au/mif/meredith.html
foxwood
Forum Veteran
Forum Veteran
Posts: 2446
Joined: Fri Jul 04, 2003 8:20 pm
Location: Vrigina Commonwelth University
Contact:

Post by foxwood »

Ya you can do that. How I don't know, but it is posable.
Grant
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 2982
Joined: Tue Dec 03, 2002 3:24 am
Location: Ballarat, Victoria, Australia
Contact:

Post by Grant »

It would be under "Scheduled Tasks" somewhere
The Honourable Grant Meredith - CEO Sick Individual Productions
http://www.sickindividual.com
Profile : http://www.innersense.com.au/mif/meredith.html
TommyPollock
Senior Member
Senior Member
Posts: 100
Joined: Sun Jul 27, 2003 8:30 pm

Post by TommyPollock »

I have XP. How to I defragment?
foxwood
Forum Veteran
Forum Veteran
Posts: 2446
Joined: Fri Jul 04, 2003 8:20 pm
Location: Vrigina Commonwelth University
Contact:

Post by foxwood »

Start, Programs, accessories, system tool, then disk defrag.
El Brenty
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 2030
Joined: Fri Jul 18, 2003 8:37 pm
Location: Esher, Surrey, Land Of Hope And Glory
Contact:

Post by El Brenty »

It helps to defregment the drive say once a fortnight, depending on how much useage your PC gets. Leave it defragmenting overnight, say on a Sunday, so you don't have to worry about it.

One thing to watch for - You should close as many programs running int he background as possible. If you don't, you'll find that the PC just keeps on re-starting the defragmenting process all over again, because it's detected that the drive contents have changed.

The last time I defragmented took me over 30 hours, but that was a LOT of jumbled around data it was having to sort.
Moderating behind the bushes!
Raptor
Forum Veteran
Forum Veteran
Posts: 1027
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2003 5:47 am
Location: Altoona, PA, USA

Post by Raptor »

Originally posted by CamClub
It helps to defregment the drive say once a fortnight, depending on how much useage your PC gets. Leave it defragmenting overnight, say on a Sunday, so you don't have to worry about it.

One thing to watch for - You should close as many programs running int he background as possible. If you don't, you'll find that the PC just keeps on re-starting the defragmenting process all over again, because it's detected that the drive contents have changed.

The last time I defragmented took me over 30 hours, but that was a LOT of jumbled around data it was having to sort.
Windows built-in defrag is effective but slow, Look for DiskKeeper from Executive software. It will not only handle NTFS and FAT drives rather quickly ( 40 GB badly fragged in under 1 hour ) but can also be used to defrag the NTFS Master File Table on bootup, which can take a while but will give tremendous performance increases.
The UNDERGROUND
[url]http://theundergroundtv.com[/url]
Music television for unsigned bands
El Brenty
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 2030
Joined: Fri Jul 18, 2003 8:37 pm
Location: Esher, Surrey, Land Of Hope And Glory
Contact:

Post by El Brenty »

Cheers for the tip - Will give it a try!
Moderating behind the bushes!
film fanatic
Posting Freak
Posting Freak
Posts: 476
Joined: Fri Jul 18, 2003 5:42 pm
Location: New Brighton, Liverpool, England
Contact:

Post by film fanatic »

I schedule defragment to run every day at 3:00 am!
El Brenty
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 2030
Joined: Fri Jul 18, 2003 8:37 pm
Location: Esher, Surrey, Land Of Hope And Glory
Contact:

Post by El Brenty »

I tried disk-keeper and it rocks!

I don't think it defragments as precisely as Windows defragementer, it seems to shuffle clusters of files around rather than individual segments, but even doing that, it keeps things in the right place, and yep, worked for me - I recommend it!

You can download a fully working trial copy for evaluation, and if you like it, you can buy it to use after the evaluation period.

You can also set it to run in the background while your're working on the PC, although I wouldn't recommend this doing anything much else from web-surfing, or running simple programs like word processors and the like.

A nice feature I saw, you can set it to run whenever your screen-saver kicks in - I.e. if you're away from the computer for a moment, like getting a soda, or a kebab, then it'll kick in, defragmenting without you knowing! Nice one!

I tried some other software out, and here's the transcripts from a couple of emails I sent to their technical support department because of a problem I was having with insufficient memory when runnign their software:

To them:


In a message dated 02/10/03 16:18:59 GMT Daylight Time, support@abexo.com writes:


Brent,

Thank you for contacting us.

Please refer to the online FAQ at http://www.abexo.com/defrag.htm
regarding insufficient memory problem.

Do not hesitate to contact us again, should you have other questions.

Best regards, ABEXO Support


I wrote back:

Hi,

Thanks for your reply, but it doesn't solve the problem of the "insufficient memory to defragment"!

This is what I've tried so far:

- Windows was already managing the swap file in Virtual memory, so I tried it with and without the windows preference setting - No joy.
- Adding an additional 30GB drive
- The additional drive defragments ok.
- I changed the virtual memory settings pointed at the additional drive, and I still get the insufficient memory message.
- The additional drive used to be the boot drive before it was replaced with the RAID-0 240GB drive - I booted up the PC with the 30GB drive, and tried to defragment the 240GB drive - Same error occured, and again, the 30GB drive would defragment.

The problems seem to be your software.

Any more suggestions would be welcome before I start having to trawl the internet for alternatives.

Brent Stevens



They then replied with this outrageous statement:


In a message dated 03/10/03 12:50:48 GMT Daylight Time, support@abexo.com writes:


Brent,

you will need to format your hard disk and reinstall Windows.

Best regards, ABEXO Support


So I replied back:


You've gotta be kidding! In order to complete this, would mean backing up around 45GB onto CDs, and then performing a re-install of windows, and a plethora of utilities and other software that I use daily - The whole process would take at least 4 days.

Fortunately, I found some other software that quite happily defragments the hard drive, thanks for your help anyway.

Brent



Crazy huh! And they never bothered replying back to say how sorry they were for having sucky soiftware!
Moderating behind the bushes!
Post Reply