When would you defrag a HDD that will take days or even a week!?

[CostaP]

Some time last year I used defraggler to test my HDD. 'Fragmentation' was at 20% and so I let it defrag, there was hardly any progress after about a day or 2. Aaaaannd then my PC automatically restarted itself due to some automatic updates (which I had no idea about) so I could not be bothered to defrag it again from the beginning.

I tested it again today and its at 18%. Now I have a feeling its going to take many days to defrag it again, and I need to use my PC to do Uni work so I cant just leave my PC to defrag for a week wihtout using it. So what would you do? I have a feeling it will take a very long time, so when would you defrag if you were in my position? Bearing in mind, I have my PC 5 feet away from my bed, so leaving it on overnight would be a pain, and having to pause and resume it when I finish my work, will make it take even longer!

Thanks

 

[alexoiu]

What's the hdd size and how much empty space on it?

 

[CostaP]

What's the hdd size and how much empty space on it?

Sorry, I thought I posted the image by clicking the 'picture' option and adding the link. Guess it did not post for some reason. Here is the imgur link http://imgur.com/a/3IhpW

 

[alexoiu]

No problem. Option: shrink the current volume in disk management, make a second partition, move all files not related to applications and OS on it and the problem is pretty much solved.

 

[The Paladin]

pfft drop defraggler, the slowest defragger on earth , goto piriform.com and get disk defrag Free, set it to analyse and optimize, a 20% defrag drive will take about 2-3 hours, runs it check box "shut down when defrag completed, turn off monitor and go to bed.

 

[ledhead11]

A few things that can cause this:

1. As alexoiu asked, size and empty space. If this is a 4-8tb running on SATA II with most of the drive full that would explain it. Even a smaller drive thats mostly(80-90%) full can take a while.

2. What kind of port is this on and what does the drive support. USB2.0 can be really slow for such things especially if your mobo has slow chipsets. SATA II can be better but still not optimal. USB 3.0 can be pretty fast even on a slower MOBO/CPU. SATA III is the most common optimal internal port. I'm just assuming that it doesn't support USB3.1/Thunderbolt.

3. If the drive is overheating it will throttle. Regardless of speed it will slow to a crawl.

4. If the drive is old, it may encounter errors and that can also add to overheating issues thus slowing it down.

If this thing is full or mostly full then try to get it down to 50% and try defrag it again. If you do this by backing files up to another drive and get errors its likely this thing is on its way out. If that's the case then backup what you can while you can. If any of those problems do exist you may want to consider putting a fan by the PC/drive while you try to either defrag or backup. Sometimes getting the temps a little lower can help, but remember if that helps then the drive is likely dying.

If it turns out the drive supports faster ports than what its on and you have them, use them.

I've seen old HHD's on SATA II in the 2TB range with 70% full, 30% fragmented take 3-4 hours. Old EIDE(80 Pin w/ DMA) take similar times for under 500GB. Most USB3.0 SATA III usually are under an hour and sometimes 10-20 minutes.

Edit: Saw your other post after I typed this. Piri should help. I'd also recommend CCleaner just before. If there's a bunch of junk getting rid of it will help before you take this up again. If there is a bunch of junk it might take some time to delete also. Once you get all this done and over just try to do it about once every couple of weeks to a month if you don't want to leave on or schedule and the process will go down to taking minutes instead of hours/days.

 

[reedo_43]

+ 1 to above but drives DO NOT throttle.

 

[CostaP]

Sorry for the late reply guys, I was really busy with my work the past few days so have not been able to reply to you and also say thanks for the information.

alexoiu: So are you saying to make 2 parts of my harddrive? I did some quick research. Where you say, 1 section/half of the harddrive space is for the main files of my pc, and the other half with files that are not important or related to the O.S? What sort of non-important files would they be? And what does seperating the important-to-non-important do? Do you defrag each half, so its quicker?

The Paladin: Yes, I have disk defrag from piriform at the moment! But how would I 'set it to optimize'? I see analyse, as I did that to show how much it needed defragging (as seen in image), but I cant find optimize. You say 20% will take 2-3 hours ,last time it said 20% for my HDD and at 2% progress, there was a day remaining. So I dont have any hope that it will take a few hours to defrag completely :/

ledhead11: These are my ports (if it helps)> http://imgur.com/a/LrYsF . Do I still need to backup everything that is on my harddrive? Or was that just recommended before you saw my posted image? I guess it is not a bad idea to back up everything right?

Thanks for the help again guys. Should I actually backup my harddrive before I defrag or wont it matter? Its only getting rid of the big spaces/gaps in between my files, and not deleting anything i guess!

I will feel more comfortable if I can spare 3-4 days, and defrag it without using my PC at all. Instead of defraging at night, pausing during the day when I do work, resume again etc, until its done, as I have a feeling it will more than a day!

Cheers!,

Costa

Edit: This is what the defragging progress looked like last time I did it. There is not much to this, but it might show how much it has progressed from 1% http://imgur.com/a/PrR4k

 

[alexoiu]

"alexoiu: So are you saying to make 2 parts of my harddrive? I did some quick research. Where you say, 1 section/half of the harddrive space is for the main files of my pc, and the other half with files that are not important or related to the O.S? What sort of non-important files would they be? And what does seperating the important-to-non-important do? Do you defrag each half, so its quicker?"

You can move pictures, documents, videos to the second part. The fragmentation is usually related to these files, as you save and delete them afterwards.
After moving the files, most probably there will be no need for defrag.

 

[The Paladin]

sorry mate I misspoke earlier I meant go to auslogics and get that disk defrag free https://www.auslogics.com/en/software/disk-defrag/
the pull down menu has "optimize"

 

[CostaP]

sorry mate I misspoke earlier I meant go to auslogics and get that disk defrag free https://www.auslogics.com/en/software/disk-defrag/
the pull down menu has "optimize"

So to download this defragging software instead of the current piriform defraggler I have?

 

[ledhead11]

Couldn't really tell which port you're using.

You do have at least one USB 3.0 port

Is this an external drive? If it is and it has blue on the inside of the USB jack then the drive is USB 3.0. If the jack is black than its likely 2.0. If 3.0 then make sure its plugged into the port that also has blue.

F.Y.I Blue ports/jacks are usually 3.0 while black are 2.0.

If this drive is internal then it gets really hard to say. Some companies use white/gray/blue for SATA III while most(but not all) use black for SATA II. There are no absolutes on this one. You really need to check your MOBO docs. Don't want to open another can of worms but you might even want to check your BIOS to make sure that your ports are running at optimal speeds.

 

[CostaP]

Couldn't really tell which port you're using.

You do have at least one USB 3.0 port

Is this an external drive? If it is and it has blue on the inside of the USB jack then the drive is USB 3.0. If the jack is black than its likely 2.0. If 3.0 then make sure its plugged into the port that also has blue.

F.Y.I Blue ports/jacks are usually 3.0 while black are 2.0.

If this drive is internal then it gets really hard to say. Some companies use white/gray/blue for SATA III while most(but not all) use black for SATA II. There are no absolutes on this one. You really need to check your MOBO docs. Don't want to open another can of worms but you might even want to check your BIOS to make sure that your ports are running at optimal speeds.

Hi,

I have 2 usb ports on the front of my pc (1 black and 1 blue (my wireless router stick is plugged into the blue port, not sure if it makes much difference). Then on the backof my PC I have another 2 blue ports (keyboaard and mouse are cplugged into them), and another 4 black ports. So in total, 3 blue and 5 black.

When you mention if my external/internal drive, and if it has blue usb jack, do you mean to say that the drives are connected to usb 3.0 or 2.0? I have an internal one, and its nearly impossible to check, as I bought it already built, so they have blocked it off quite well. I can try and open it up one day and check, but otherwise I wont know. I know I have seen quite a few SATA3 wires, multicoloured ones, so will have a look.

Otherwise, , thank you for your help again again.

 

[The Paladin]

regarding what usb speed he is getting inside or speed of SATA internal drives download SPECCY, launch it, ones its done analyzing your system , click on storage and you will have it in details.

as for free defrag yes download , install and run it. it MUCH faster than defraggler ever has been. I never understood why it took hours for defraggler to do what it does when every other defragging software does it in at very least 1/2 it's time

SPECCY can be downloaded : https://www.piriform.com/speccy/download/standard
Auslogics Disk Defrag Free : http://filehippo.com/download_auslogics_disk_defrag/

 

[ledhead11]

Couldn't really tell which port you're using.

You do have at least one USB 3.0 port

Is this an external drive? If it is and it has blue on the inside of the USB jack then the drive is USB 3.0. If the jack is black than its likely 2.0. If 3.0 then make sure its plugged into the port that also has blue.

F.Y.I Blue ports/jacks are usually 3.0 while black are 2.0.

If this drive is internal then it gets really hard to say. Some companies use white/gray/blue for SATA III while most(but not all) use black for SATA II. There are no absolutes on this one. You really need to check your MOBO docs. Don't want to open another can of worms but you might even want to check your BIOS to make sure that your ports are running at optimal speeds.

Hi,

I have 2 usb ports on the front of my pc (1 black and 1 blue (my wireless router stick is plugged into the blue port, not sure if it makes much difference). Then on the backof my PC I have another 2 blue ports (keyboaard and mouse are cplugged into them), and another 4 black ports. So in total, 3 blue and 5 black.

When you mention if my external/internal drive, and if it has blue usb jack, do you mean to say that the drives are connected to usb 3.0 or 2.0? I have an internal one, and its nearly impossible to check, as I bought it already built, so they have blocked it off quite well. I can try and open it up one day and check, but otherwise I wont know. I know I have seen quite a few SATA3 wires, multicoloured ones, so will have a look.

Otherwise, , thank you for your help again again.

As Paladin said you can use speccy to look at the details for the system, another program for such things is Crystal Disk Info: https://osdn.net/projects/crystaldiskinfo/downloads/65980/CrystalDiskInfo7_0_5Shizuku.exe/

I included the link for the simple/basic 12mb exe version. What you want to see if the Transfer rate, it should be SATA/600 if the drive is plugged into the SATA III port. If it says SATA/300 then its in the SATA II port and should be moved. There's no real standardization for the internal cables/ports for me to accurately tell you a color to look for in regards to the right port. You need to look at you MOBO manual for that. I've personally seen white/grey/blue ports on Gigabyte and MSI boards used for SATA III and black usually for II but honestly anything is possible there.

In regards to what you found externally. The black USB ports are usually 2.0 and the blue are normally 3.0. Since your problem exists with the internal this doesn't really matter now. I do recommend you plug you keyboard/mouse into the black to free those ports for a possible external drive. Mice/keyboards don't really need that much speed. If you should backup or move files to something external the 3.0 plugs will be much faster.

 

[ledhead11]

Granted all that stuff about the internal drive ports only matter if the drive supports SATA III and most in the last 5-10 years do. If, for some reason, it only supports SATA II than none of this really matters and you should just focus on finishing your defrag. If you run Crystal disk info the first number in the transfer section is the current mode and the second is what the drive supports.