Whether or not to defrag registry?

[oliver555]

Howdy folks,

I have one of those system optimisers and one of the features is to defrag the registry. However, my harddrive is an SSD and I've heard you shouldn't defrag this because it shortens its life. Am I right thinking defrag'ing the registry would harm the SSD's lifespan?

Apologies for posting in wrong section but I cannot see the delete button.

 

[Ironsounds]

Hello... I've been defraging one of my SSD now for over 2 years... So far test results are good.

 

[USAFRet]

SSD + defrag - no reason to do this. The drive firmware moves things around as needed. And it just creates extra write cycles on the drive that are not necessary.
Maybe once a year.

Registry defrag? Noooo. Absolutely no reason to do this.
"system optimisers"? Delete that piece o junk. Those things generally do more harm than good.

 

[daswilhelm]

Hello... I've been defraging one of my SSD now for over 2 years... So far test results are good.

what are these "test results"?

 

[lodders]

I never, never install or use system optimizers. Maybe I am biased. Any experts out there want to disagree?

 

[Ironsounds]

Hello... The SSD drive in question is in a DAW, Gigabytes of Audio data recorded on it, Projects are recorded, removed, edited, and returned to it... the Computer is a mobile/portable recording DAW... having a clean, not fragmented data Blocks available for it helps large Multi-input performance... If the drive dies it will be replaced... but so far ( over 2 years ) it has been outstanding and I perform DEFRAG on it before data collection... maybe a Myth Buster's attitude I took on this drive. B ) Intel sata2 240gb.

I feel it is going through more than a typical OS install situation here... I need Write cycles from this drive... no other way around it... if that is BAD so be it... but I feel at this point the performance has exceeded a platter type HD would or could give me... And if you truly understand the write cycle test specs and convert them to actual Years of use... you will see what the Math reveals and how robust the memory is.

 

[USAFRet]

I never, never install or use system optimizers. Maybe I am biased. Any experts out there want to disagree?

Last xmas, a friend of mine came to me with a brand new laptop, that was unusable.

2 days out of the store....unusable.
Why? All the 'system optimizer' things that were running. After power on....it was at least an hour before it kind of settled down. This 'Reg Cleaner', that 'Drive Optimizer'....this other thing...all trying to run at the same time. And stepping on each other. Drive use pegged at 100% for an hour or more.
Wipe, reinstall a clean OS. Poof...completely usable system.

Those things are completely useless. And often dangerous.

 

[USAFRet]

Hello... The SSD drive in question is in a DAW, Gigabytes of Audio data recorded on it, Projects are recorded, removed, edited, and returned to it... the Computer is a mobile/portable recording DAW... having a clean, not fragmented data Blocks available for it helps large Multi-input performance... If the drive dies it will be replaced... but so far ( over 2 years ) it has been outstanding and I perform DEFRAG on it before data collection... maybe a Myth Buster's attitude I took on this drive. B ) Intel sata2 240gb.

I feel it is going through more than a typical OS install situation here... I need Write cycles from this drive use... no other way around it... if that is BAD so be it... but I feel at this point the performance has exceeded a platter type HD would or could give me.

Still...'defrag' does nothing on an SSD.
Maybe you could show us performance numbers before and after...

 

[Ironsounds]

Hello... If you truly understand the write cycle life test specs and convert them to actual Years of use... you will see what the Math reveals, and how robust some types of SSD memory is... but my drive is disposable at some point in time, and I don't treated with a KID Glove... I think the Write-Defrag VOODOO is just talk with my current SSD experience.

 

[daswilhelm]

Hello... if you truly understand the write cycle test specs and convert them to actual Years of use... you will see what the Math reveals and how robust the SSD memory is... but my drive is disposable and not treated with a KID Glove.

what does this have to do with the fact that defraging an ssd does nothing?

 

[Solandri]

Defragging a SSD accomplishes nothing. The "sector" addresses a SSD reports are not real. They're just a numbers in a table which map to the real flash memory addresses. It's done this way so the drive's wear leveling algorithms can move files around without the OS knowing that the physical memory locations of a file has changed. So defragmenting a file to make it contiguous in this virtual table does not make it contiguous in physical memory. All it does is create an unnecessary write cycle.

Defragmenting is required on hard drives because the physical read/write heads take time to move from track to track. Files can be read/written faster if the file is contiguous and the head doesn't have to move during the read/write. There is no similar slowdown in SSDs. Each read/write involves electronically accessing a location in flash memory. It takes the same amount of time regardless of location.

The only way defragmenting can help a SSD is if you've got some sort of problem with TRIM, or the drive is suffering degradation effects like on the Samsung EVO 840s which can be temporarily alleviated by re-writing the data.

 

[Ironsounds]

Hello... What is the definition of a "unnecessary write cycle" cause-effect?

1) Well that's good to know Nothing actually gets moved or re-written in a DEFRAG command to a SSD... So People can stop saying it going to Hurt your SSD then... around here?
2) And just say with a standard OS install it is not needed?
3) That there is no need to take a KID's Glove approach to a SSD... Write all you want to them?

 

[USAFRet]

To 'defrag', bytes get moved from here to there, to consolidate a particular file than may exist in multiple blocks.

With an HDD, this resulted because there may have not been enough contiguous apce to save file X. So it saves where there is free space.
Defrag moves all those blocks around to defragment that file. And all the other files like that.

In an SSD...it matters not. The drive firmware puts stuff where it needs to go. Contiguous blocks for a particular file does not matter.
So it is pretty useless to do it.
And if you do do it...it would just be unneeded write cycles to that drive.
It won't kill it, but it is not necessary.

 

[Ironsounds]

Hello... once again... What is the definition of a "unnecessary write cycle" cause-effect-VooDOO?

 

[USAFRet]

Hello... once again... What is the definition of a "unnecessary write cycle" cause-effect-VooDOO?

Current consumer grade SSD's are warranted to X years, or Y TB writes.
Let's say 5 years, or 75TBW. Typical.

75 TB writes to that drive is actually a loooong time in regular use.
A typical SSD, 25, 120, or 500GB drive, used as a typical in-home boot drive...will sustain maybe 5TB per year.
So thast 75TB warranty is far out in te future. It matters not.

However...if you were to defrag daily or weekly...that theoretical 5TB/year may increase a LOT. That's what the defrage thing does...move bits around.
And on an SSD, does nothing of any value.

For your drive that you've been defragging continuously....I'd like to see some numbers on that.
Size, make/model, how much data, power on hours, TBW.

 

[Ironsounds]

Hello... Good point... OK let me dl the intel SSD app and see what numbers come up on it, before or when I use it this weekend... Could be interesting... B )

 

[EngineeringHeadhunter]

No need to defrag an SSD.

This is an opinion, but hopefully a logical one. When your PC accesses data on a mechanical hard drive, it has to spin the HD and physically move an electronic sensor over the HD to pick up the data (sensing magnetized and non-magnetized areas and converting that to data). By optimizing your HD and defragging the registry, you are placing the data on the HD in a more closely related order so the mechanical parts of the HD do not have to work as hard (work hard = work slow). As another poster mentioned, you are also reducing blank space between data points on the HD and making more usable space available. Imagine how much an old record player would have to work if a song were placed on it but in random locations. You would be spinning the record and lifting and dropping the needle to put the music together. Defragging brings order.

An SSD is not a spinning disc like a Hard Drive. It's a big electronic chip. The SSD is more like my sock drawer. I open the drawer, see my socks and pick them out. Organizing my socks by color or pattern may speed up the process in my head, but not a PC. It knows where the socks were placed and just picks them out from the drawer.

 

[Deleted member 14196]

defraging the registry is really not a good idea, you gain nothing from it whatsoever, except more self induced failures. leave it alone.

 

[CountMike]

With modern Windows, W7 and up, possibly Vista too, disk fragmentation is on very small scale, even "spinners" let alone SSDs. I have 20+ HDDs of many vintages and none of them show over 1% fragmentation.
Some fragmentation is even desirable. With data bases for instance, leaving empty blocks after a file speeds up it's expansion for new data, without that it would have to chase next empty block or even delete data from it first. Same goes for expendable windows files like Page and Swap files for instance.
That's all not even counting that formatting and partitioning on disk is gust logical, not physical placement on data on disk and those defragmenting programs show logical, not physical "places" on platters (de)fragmentation,
Windows XP was last Windows where Registry was read sequentially, line by line. Vista and up, have different method so Registry size and it's "fragmentation" do not matter at all, obsolete, not connected to anything entries as well as empty lines are completely ignored, just like they never were in there. So Registry base de-fragmentation or it's cleaning does zilch, nothing, nada !!! An exercise in futility.