Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.newusers (
More info?)
To each his own, I guess. In the almost three years that I have used XP,
Disk Defragmenter has never recommended that I manually defrag and I can't
honestly say that my computer runs any slower. I have manually defragged XP
three times: The first time was about a year and a half ago, just to see if
it made any noticeable difference in performance - it didn't - and the other
times were before upgrading to SP 1 and SP 2.
Based on my own experience, the experience of an un-scientific sampling of
friends, and from what I've read on the subject, it's taken me far longer to
write this post than the amount of time I would have saved by running a
third party defragmenter. I understand that the companies that sell this
software may have a different point of view ;-)
Modem Ani
"Ken Blake" <kblake@this.is.an.invalid.domain> wrote in message
news:Oj1Wcw6MFHA.432@TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...
> In news:AhV1e.12054$ZB6.2404@newssvr19.news.prodigy.com,
> Unknown <Unknown@Somewhere.Kom> typed:
>
> > What you don't quite understand is that the disk experiences
> > MORE
> > wear if you don't defrag. Suppose for example you have ten
> > items each
> > one in a separate track. The disk has to do ten seeks. If
> > defragged,
>
>
> Yes, that's correct.
>
> But it really doesn't matter much. Disk drives hardly ever wear
> out, whether they are defragged or not. Modern drives are
> well-made and rarely fail through wear. They may occasionally
> crash, they may be replaced with faster ones, or bigger ones, but
> wear is seldom a factor in determining their useful life.
>
> Not defragging is foolish. It can almost always be done
> overnight, so from a practical standpoint, it takes no real time
> at all, and there's no penalty for doing it. It doesn't have to
> be done anywhere near daily, but if you do it once a month or so,
> it can provide a small, but perceptible improvement in
> performance.
>
> --
> Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
> Please reply to the newsgroup
>
>
> > it only does one. "Husky" <cbminfo@toast.net> wrote in message
> > news:eguf41lhaaf766v0nhcct155429ki25cij@4ax.com...
> >> On Sun, 27 Mar 2005 18:54:42 -0500, "jt" <jt@jt.jt> wrote:
> >>
> >>> Hello all,
> >>>
> >>> New user of XP home w/ sp2. Is the native defrag adequate or
> >>> should I get a better one? Which is better, O&O pro or
> >>> PerfectDisk?
> >>>
> >>
> >> I'll probably get jumped on because I agree with the guy don't
> >> defrag unless you want to. It can put more wear on your drive.
> >> And
> >> with the size of the new
> >> drives 100's of gigs, the last thing they need is more wear.
> >>
> >> Read up on how data is written to a drive. It's also read back
> >> in
> >> the same manner. it's like trying to keep up with a jet
> >> fighter vs a
> >> railroad train if
> >> you defrag.
> >>
> >> the data is written in chunks. It starts out fragged. the head
> >> will
> >> read from
> >> head x sector xx then following the link tables it'll grab the
> >> next
> >> sector of
> >> data. if the head just passed that sector it needs to make a
> >> complete
> >> roundtrip
> >> to get back to it. Where if it reads from this sector and the
> >> next
> >> sector is xx
> >> ms away, it has some breathing room to snag that sector
> >> without
> >> circling the drive excessively.
> >>
> >> merry go round = disk drive platter, data = brass ring.
> >>
> >> Think merry go round and grab the brass ring. Could you grab a
> >> 2nd
> >> ring if it
> >> were 2 seconds past the 1st, or would you have better luck if
> >> you
> >> circled the
> >> ring half way and got a 10 second breathing space for the 2nd
> >> ring ?
> >>
> >> If the rings were all 2 seconds apart would it take you longer
> >> to
> >> grab them in
> >> order if they were staggered or inches apart ? You can't
> >> control the
> >> speed of
> >> the horses. If you miss #2 ring you have to go all the way
> >> around to
> >> get it again.
> >>
> >> If all the links are too close together [defragged] it takes
> >> longer
> >> to read than if the data is spaced around the drive the way
> >> it's
> >> originally written. Defragging is to move unused stuff into
> >> one place so you can have
> >> the most active stuff on the inside tracks. Fastest access.
> >> Trouble is if it sticks all the fast stuff one link after the
> >> other,
> >> it does the complete opposite of why you wanted to defrag it
> >> in the
> >> 1st place cause now
> >> they have to circle more often to get to the data.
> >>
> >> --
> >> more pix @
http://members.toast.net/cbminfo/index.html
>
>