Defragmenter software : performance vs faster wearing

[slyphnier]

hey everyone

i have been reading that people saying diskeeper is good
as it will run automatically defrag hdd everytime there is fragmentation, and other good stuff

i have been trying many defragmenter in past year, like perfect disk, auslogic diskdefrag and others (i forgot if i ever tried diskeeper or not before though)
but usually i am back using windows defragmenter, because i only use once a month or once a week when i do many downloads,
well i personally thought that defragmenting hdd once in a while indeed good for performance and reduce faster wearing ...
but to often deframenting hdd logically will faster wearing hdd right?

but i want to hear more info or opinion regarding this, especially diskeeper user

i know diskeeper working with zero-footprint that no impact to system performance, and it seems it also didn't making faster wearing out due to their automatic defragmention system

but i wonder if hdd with diskeeper have better lifetime ?
as what i know diskeeper intend to maximise system performance rather than hdd wearing
so i really want to know how diskeeper impact to hdd lifetime

i am also know that many factor that wearing out hdd rather than a defragmenter
anyway i hope you can share your informations or opinion

thanks in advance

 

[rwpritchett]

If you are running Windows 7, it automatically defrags in the background when your computer is idle so there isn't a real need for third party defrag software anymore. I wouldn't worry about wearing out your drives. You'll replace the drives or computer before that becomes an issue.

If you are using XP, then defraggler is a decent defrag utility. I don't have any personal experience with diskkeeper.

 

[sidewinderdt]

Yeah, it's highly unlikely that defrag will run down your drive prematurely*. Since reading a contiguous file takes less work than a fragmented file, it's not going to increase wear and tear on the HDD.

As for DK, it defrags only when it's required, so no worries about 'overdoing' the defrag. Besides, the latest versions prevents a lot of the fragmentation anyway, so less defragging required.

* Unless your using a consumer grade HDD in heavy server-like load conditions 24x7, I don't think any normal usage within rated temperature/humidity/dust/vibration/power parameters can damage a modern HDD. Ofcourse, there is always a chance that it had a defect when it left the factory, but that's a manufacturing QC problem.

 

[slyphnier]

Best answer selected by slyphnier.

 

[Jbuck4DK]

I work in the Tech Support section of Diskeeper Corporation so I wanted to take a moment to reply. Actually, frequent defragmentation should not wear out a drive as in cases where there is nothing to clean up, nothing should be done to move things around on the volume. Despite that, the resources dedicated to performing a defragmentation when it's not necessary are certainly wasted. In the case of the Windows 7 defragmenter, by default it's set to run only on Wednesday at 1am. Defragmenting only once a week, may not be sufficient though. It's almost certainly not sufficient in the case of very active machines.

Our website contains several whitepapers on the life cycle of machines that are defragmented versus those that aren't. In fact a recent blog post included information about a study done along with Windows IT Pro on that particular subject: http://www.diskeeper.com/blog/?tag=/hardware+life

In any event, I do feel the act of defragmenting can be a waste in certain cases if it's not done properly or with the right objective in mind. For example, many individuals and other defragmenters mays shoot for achieving 0 fragments. This is all fine and good but if resources are dedicated to addressing all file fragments and the result does not return any marked speed to the machine, this could be considered a waste. Diskeeper's focus is specifically on increasing performance by way of defragmentation and other optimization without also expending needless resources to accomplish the task.

I hope that information helps.