RAINMAKA Posted January 10, 2006 CID Share Posted January 10, 2006 i was wondering what exactly disk defragmenting does? my computer was running kinda slow and a friend said defragment your hard drive. i was what this actually does and if it would help Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
richcornucopia Posted January 10, 2006 CID Share Posted January 10, 2006 It rearranges files that are commonly used in conjunction or for the same purpose and places them together on the hardrive, close to each other. This way when you are using something that needs those 2 files they are right by each other so it takes less time to search the hardrive for them. Somebody else could probably give you a more technical definition. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RAINMAKA Posted January 10, 2006 Author CID Share Posted January 10, 2006 so there would no harm done if is was to do it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
php Posted January 10, 2006 CID Share Posted January 10, 2006 so there would no harm done if is was to do it? no Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
resopalrabotnick Posted January 10, 2006 CID Share Posted January 10, 2006 actually the rearranging of files is only done for some system files. the far more important function of defragmentation is to put the fragments of files together. say you have a fresh install. you have a couple of files of say 2, 4, 5 and 3 MB on your drive, that are located at different locations on the drive. thats 14 MB. if you delete these files, these 14 MB total get tagged as free in the FAT. (file allocation table, the index of the drive, so to speak) now you create or download or copy a 16 MB file. what happens is that the OS fills all the free space on the drive, using the 4 spots making up the 14 MB and then hangs the rest of the file, the 2 MB that's left, onto the end of the used space. now this one file, when read, requires the drive to go to 5 seperate areas to read it, making the process slower. this example is of course exaggerated. most of the bits freed up are a lot smaller, and files can end up being chopped into dozens of pieces or more. imagine this going on for some time, with the swapfile also being spread from hell to breakfast, and you begin to see the problem. defragmenting the drive means that the os goes and sees how big file x is. it now moves files y and z to make enough room to write file x in one fell swoop. and the same for every other file. like a big jigsaw puzzle. this allows files to be read faster, since there are no seek times during the read process, only at the beginning of it. hope this helps. and in case you didn't want to know, the info is now in your head, so you're stuck with it. enjoy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
organ_shifter Posted January 10, 2006 CID Share Posted January 10, 2006 so there would no harm done if is was to do it? It's perfectly fine. Although the version on Windows is a little watered down compared to 3rd party solutions. I like Diskeeper 10 Professional Version: 10.0.593.0. It works very well. See the screen for a good look at it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
richcornucopia Posted January 10, 2006 CID Share Posted January 10, 2006 Any advantages to disk keeper vs using the windows utility besides the nice gui? Is it faster, more efficient...? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RAINMAKA Posted January 11, 2006 Author CID Share Posted January 11, 2006 are there free trials to disksweeper 10? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
richcornucopia Posted January 11, 2006 CID Share Posted January 11, 2006 http://www.diskeeper.com/downloads/home/downloads.asp?RId=1&SId=2&CId=5&pass=9242482 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RAINMAKA Posted January 11, 2006 Author CID Share Posted January 11, 2006 roughly how long does defragmenting take? the computer im using only has a 40 gig hard drive Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RAINMAKA Posted January 11, 2006 Author CID Share Posted January 11, 2006 because im guessing the larger the drive the longer the defragmenting time would be Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
php Posted January 11, 2006 CID Share Posted January 11, 2006 to some extent a larger drive takes longer, but if your drive is fragmented badly, it will take a while... I would suggest running it overnight Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RAINMAKA Posted January 11, 2006 Author CID Share Posted January 11, 2006 that whats i was thinking. just start it and go to bed. i hope things don't pop up and you have to click them and wake up to having nothing done Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
richcornucopia Posted January 11, 2006 CID Share Posted January 11, 2006 Nope you just click defragment and thats all, you can let it run without having to do anything else. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheHalf Posted January 11, 2006 CID Share Posted January 11, 2006 Then again if you use your PC everyday and use many programs on your PC, better to defrag everyday then. The first time may take a bit but if you defrag everyday before you shut-down your PC, it won't take as long. I also use Diskeeper 10. TheHalf Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
organ_shifter Posted January 11, 2006 CID Share Posted January 11, 2006 Yeah, you can set up three defragment methods. Primary Defragmentation Job Properties Secondary Defragmentation Job Properties I-FAAST Defragmentation Job Properties I have them set up to run on a schedule, and my drives stay in perfect order. It runs during games and all. Slow down isn't noticable too much at all. Enabling I/O Smart will stop the defrag or cause it to run on very low computer usage. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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