Defrag Software

[spoons]

Hey all

Just wonder does anyone use dedicated Defraging Software ?

is it worth it ?

does it help ??

I have been looking at going for Ultimate Defrag 3 from PCAviator
Anyone used this software ?

thanks

Spoons

[Ian Warren]

Yip , I use Ultimate Defrag 3 , Not sure its Completely FS based , we would need a software FS whiz to give the gist on what it dose , i have used it since the original , and simply stuck with it for it operation s.

[IslandBoy77]

Oh yes - most certainly!!! As soon as Windows fires up, you've got fragmentation - just the nature of things. A defragged hard drive is ESSENTIAL for gaming, simming, video editing and other high-hard drive intensity usages. I defrag my main drive once every 2-3 weeks, but it could probably do with it every 2 weeks-odd. I notice that my Outlook runs better after a defrag, as the main PST file is now contiguous, not split up. Hard drives do have a finite life (so many million read or writes), and some people worry about wearing their hdds out by too much defragging. I suppose if one were to defrag every other day one might see a small reduction in life-span, but a fragged hard drive will cause just as much wear - so I say, defrag more often and have a quicker drive! Just make sure you also have good backups, as ANY hdd can die without warning, regardless of it's age.

After having tested MANY hard drive defraggers, I've come to the conclusion that there are only 2 contenders:

Payware
---------
PerfectDisk - you just can't beat this one - at all. It can defrag the unmoveables using a boot-time defrag, defrag with relatively little RAM or free HDD space, and sorts the data very well for usage patterns. I've used it since version 5 (now on 11) and swear by it. So much so, that I use it to tidy up my client PCs and get their Windows virtual mem (swap) file organised so that it's contiguous.

Freeware
----------
MyDefrag - Small, fast and free - what more does one want? It can't defrag the swap file yet, but has come along in leaps and bounds. Also, it's native 64-bit as well as 32-bit. It is very thorough, but just not as good as PerfectDisk. I load this onto all client PCs with instructions to use the "System Disk Monthly" option as best (regardless of how often one runs the program).

I think all up I've tried about 10 defraggers - 3 of which were paid - and the 2 above just stand out head and shoulders.

A note on hard drives, though: for simming / serious gaming (and video editing), it's always best to have a separate hard drive for the Windows virtual mem (swap) file, and another for the main apps (in our case, FSX or FS9). keeping these things separate from the Windows hard drive might seem wasteful, but no amount of defragging can beat the performance lift of a 3-drive system configured as I've just mentioned. And if you have cash to blow on Western Digital Raptor hard drives, you are REALLY cooking with gas!

There is a lot of noise about SSD drives these days - but they are no good for any apps that require quick through-put of large files: an SSD drive just can't sustain fast read (or write) speeds for big files. I've heard some suggest making an SSD the Windows hard drive and using Raptor drives for the other 2 - and if money were no object, that would work best.

The place where you'll get the biggest pay-off is hard drive rotation speed and cache. The bigger the cache, the better (as Windows can stuff more data in there while it waits for the hard drive to catch up), and faster rotational speed means less wait time for the hard drive read / write head to wait for the block it's working on to come back around again.

Hope all that helps!

[Chairman]

We use diskeeper on our machines, mostly we put it in set and forget mode and it does its thing when it detects that nothing else is happening.

It's not particularly intelligent, it seems to base usage on user activity so it will start defragging when you're crunching videos or letting the FMC fly you into crowded airspace at a complex addon airport ... so quite often we disable it, inevitably we only remember to re-enable it a couple of weeks later when the machine starts to slow down - and yes it is that fast ...

Wouldn't be without *some* sort of defrag, and would miss one that I couldn't leave on auto most of the time.

Gary

[Ian Warren]

Thanks Peter , we would need a software FS whiz to give the gist on what it dose , I had been using Ultimate Defrag since it was a product given with a copy of the magazine Computer Pilot during its inception and stayed with the product but this is a good eye opener in what to look for .

[IslandBoy77]

A note on automatic stuff - I hate it! The reason I hate automation is twofold: 1) It often gets in my way, leaving me "aggrieved" at it and wanting to switch it off and 2) Often when automation fails, it fails to tell you that it failed! (Did y'all get that all right?)

So, PerfectDisk AND MyDefrag have scheduling available, but defragging while the PC is in use is a waste of time and a recipe for frustration. I do use the scheduler on PD if I want to schedule a Defrag before I go to bed. I just set it for a single instance, 5 minutes from now, with the instruction to Shutdown when it's done. Of course a boot-time defrag can't be done the same way, but they generally only need to be done every 6 months or so, and usually only take 10-15 mins (unless the unmoveables are a real mess or the hard drive is very full).

A general thought on defragging and system setup: do you REALLY need System Restore? I mean, lets face it - it's not that good even on 7, and most times a restore will only fix fairly minor stuff. I leave my System Restore switched off. If one feels the need to have it on, switch it off, do a restart, THEN do a defrag. Same goes for Hibernation - does one REALLY need it on? My experience has been "no". If you don't want to shut down, just "sleep" the computer. Leaving a computer sitting in Hibernation over longish periods of time is not helpful: reading data up from the Hibernation file is still slow, prone to errors / crashes (although much better in 7), and you're not saving much more than if you had the computer in Sleep (and you have a slower startup and the risk of corruption). And by switching Hibernation off (easy in XP, not so straight-forward in Vista / 7), there's less to defrag, and for those whose defragger can't do unmoveables, it means better defragmentation (as the Hibernation file is AT LEAST as big as your RAM - and a 2 or 4GB fragmented file is a sod of a thing to have messing up you hard drive!).

For those who don't know, here is the procedure to switch Hibernation off:

1. Open the Start Menu, then All Programs, then Accessories.
2. Right click Command Prompt.
3. Select Run as administrator. (if you have UAC off you won't need right click and do the Run as admin - you can just left click it to run it)
4. To turn hibernation off type the following “powercfg -hibernate offâ€￾ without the quotes.
5. To turn Hibernation on type the following “powercfg -hibernate onâ€￾ without the quotes.

Note that not all systems may support hibernate. You can check your systems available sleep states by running the command powercfg /a from a command prompt.

There might be those who consider some of this to be blasphemy - I am a "less is more" man, and I specialise in optimising PC performance. You can take my free (usually $50 per hour) advice and get a faster PC, or schlepp along as per normal

[Chairman]

Agree totally with you about hibernation and system restore (aka Microsoft's way of making sure you never ever really get rid of a virus) - turned those off ages ago

[Splitpin]

Peter, Im using O&O defrag12....seems to work for me....or should i find something else........

[IslandBoy77]

QUOTE (Splitpin @ Aug 28 2010, 01:20 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Peter, Im using O&O defrag12....seems to work for me....or should i find something else........

Hey Marty. O&O is ok - certainly one of the "useful contenders". But I'd go to MyDefrag if you want free. Also, PD has a full, 30-day demo available - I always install that on client PCs, switch off Restore / Hibernation, do a PD boot defrag, do a full PD defrag within Windows, then uninstall PD (it leaves a Raxco folder in the Program Files and in the user Application Data - I think - that need to be manually removed). From then on, use MyDefrag with the System Disk Monthly option.

[cowpatz]

Good info thanks guys. not sure about system restore though. I know it is a resource hog but it has saved my bacon a few times.

[Splitpin]

QUOTE (IslandBoy77 @ Aug 28 2010, 01:25 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Hey Marty. O&O is ok - certainly one of the "useful contenders". But I'd go to MyDefrag if you want free. Also, PD has a full, 30-day demo available - I always install that on client PCs, switch off Restore / Hibernation, do a PD boot defrag, do a full PD defrag within Windows, then uninstall PD (it leaves a Raxco folder in the Program Files and in the user Application Data - I think - that need to be manually removed). From then on, use MyDefrag with the System Disk Monthly option.

Thanks Doc

[IslandBoy77]

QUOTE (cowpatz @ Aug 28 2010, 01:33 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Good info thanks guys. not sure about system restore though. I know it is a resource hog but it has saved my bacon a few times.

One has to have something to fall back on. Rather than rely on the Restore - whose usefulness is limited at best - I do daily & weekly backups instead. One should be regular backups anyway, but the way I look at it is that Restore is the "poor man's backup", but flaky. Still, so long as a person is aware of the risks in relying on Restore, and has some sort of backup plan in place, and doesn't mind the extra overhead, then, I suppose, why not? I do find that people who tinker a lot tend to use Restore. Having said that, I tinker a fair bit and have never used it...

[AndrewJamez]

I agree, I have all that turned off as well, I use auslogics boostspeed, defrag and system optimising software. I have always defraged even after every fsx addon, hell try doing a defrag after installing Orbx's australia and you'll see what a difference it makes. It takes and hr or more to defrag all those 3-4000 fragmented files. It has to help perfomance. there's no question about it.
My approach to computor setups is to optimise performance and minimilise programme installations. Keep good house keeping practises and keep every thing neat, tidy and organised, that way a fresh installation is fairly painless.