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Benefits of defragging?
Hotlead Junkie
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I'v just defragged my C drive for the first time in over a year. Frankly I'm not very tech savvy so what benefits am I going to see from this? What prompted me was freezups and crashes when playing certian games (in this case, Spore which I bought the laptop in preperation for).
A few questions
-What are the immediate benefits from defragging? Will I notice a much faster response time (I'm fairly sure the drive was pretty heavily fragmented)
-Is there a good chance that this will reduce/eliminate crashes/lockups/freezing with memory intensive programs such as games?
-I'v only defragged my 35gb C drive so far, but most of my games are on D, until i get around to defragging D, would it be wise/make any difference if i re-installed said games onto C drive?
The report of my C drive
About those 2 files that could not be defragmented, do I need to worry about those?
If anyone could give me a simple summary of how badly my drive was fragmented and if it has been noticably improved, plus give me a little feedback on those questions of mine I'd really appreciate it, thanks. I'v been really meaning to give this thing a spring cleaining but have been very intimidated by this kinda thing and have never known if it is worth doing, totally safe or such.
So I should defrag each drive around once a month to keep performance up, right? I apologise for the tecno-retardedness and appreciate the time you have taken to read this :P
A few questions
-What are the immediate benefits from defragging? Will I notice a much faster response time (I'm fairly sure the drive was pretty heavily fragmented)
-Is there a good chance that this will reduce/eliminate crashes/lockups/freezing with memory intensive programs such as games?
-I'v only defragged my 35gb C drive so far, but most of my games are on D, until i get around to defragging D, would it be wise/make any difference if i re-installed said games onto C drive?
The report of my C drive
Volume ACER (C:)
Volume size = 34.57 GB
Cluster size = 32 KB
Used space = 19.05 GB
Free space = 15.52 GB
Percent free space = 44 %
Volume fragmentation
Total fragmentation = 0 %
File fragmentation = 0 %
Free space fragmentation = 0 %
File fragmentation
Total files = 98,590
Average file size = 151 KB
Total fragmented files = 0
Total excess fragments = 0
Average fragments per file = 0.99
Pagefile fragmentation
Pagefile size = 1.50 GB
Total fragments = 853
Folder fragmentation
Total folders = 5,094
Fragmented folders = 62
Excess folder fragments = 163
Fragments File Size Files that cannot be defragmented
2 10 MB \Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Office10\MSO.DLL
2 24 MB \Program Files\Microsoft Works\DICT.EIT
Volume size = 34.57 GB
Cluster size = 32 KB
Used space = 19.05 GB
Free space = 15.52 GB
Percent free space = 44 %
Volume fragmentation
Total fragmentation = 0 %
File fragmentation = 0 %
Free space fragmentation = 0 %
File fragmentation
Total files = 98,590
Average file size = 151 KB
Total fragmented files = 0
Total excess fragments = 0
Average fragments per file = 0.99
Pagefile fragmentation
Pagefile size = 1.50 GB
Total fragments = 853
Folder fragmentation
Total folders = 5,094
Fragmented folders = 62
Excess folder fragments = 163
Fragments File Size Files that cannot be defragmented
2 10 MB \Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Office10\MSO.DLL
2 24 MB \Program Files\Microsoft Works\DICT.EIT
About those 2 files that could not be defragmented, do I need to worry about those?
If anyone could give me a simple summary of how badly my drive was fragmented and if it has been noticably improved, plus give me a little feedback on those questions of mine I'd really appreciate it, thanks. I'v been really meaning to give this thing a spring cleaining but have been very intimidated by this kinda thing and have never known if it is worth doing, totally safe or such.
So I should defrag each drive around once a month to keep performance up, right? I apologise for the tecno-retardedness and appreciate the time you have taken to read this :P
Hotlead Junkie on
0
Posts
-That drive, as it is now, is basically completely defragmented.
-You don't need to worry about those two files. What happened is the defragmentation program asked the operating system "oh hey, can I have exclusive access to those files for a while? I want to move them around, and I don't want anything else to touch them while I'm doing that". And then the operating system said no, because they were in use at the time. Nothing to worry about.
-Defragging depends on use. Some people never do it, because they don't feel it's worth the hassle, or they simply don't need to. Others do it religiously. Most only do it when they become aware that fragmentation is causing performance problems, and feel like messing with it.
-It's hard to tell exactly how knowledgeable you are the subject, but if you're clueless and curious on exactly what fragmentation/defragmentation is, I can post some info/point you to some info on it. It's not that complex, and it'd probably answer all of your questions in a wonderful and illuminating way.
Disclaimer: not a computer expert, take what I say with a grain of salt, entirely possible I'm wrong all over the place, etc.
The wiki on it is pretty extensive. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defrag
Works best if the pagefile is of a static size so it won't get defragged again.
Anyone know why a lot of my WoW MPQ files can't defrag? They aren't in use. Could it because they are so damn big? That would be my first guess, but I have oodles of free space to slide them around in.
To defragment the pagefile you can just use a freeware tool such as PageDefrag from Sysinternals (no need to download and install it if you download JkDefrag GUI that I mention below).
As for the WoW files you mention, well the first step would be to use a defragmenter that doesn't suck like the utility bundled with Windows does. If you don't mind paying for such a thing, PerfectDisk from Raxco is about as good as it gets, but if you need it to be free, go for JkDefrag GUI (a frontend for the jkdefrag tool).
Now these tools won't help you if the files really are locked and the process doing so refuse to let them go, but to fix that I would suggest you to install the fantastic free Unlocker utility. Just right-click the locked file and unlock it. It will also list exactly what process is locking it.
These guys rock. Also, if you want to clean up your temp files and clear out your registry of dead entries, check out their CCleaner program.
I compared Defraggler with Diskeeper (corporate) and they both would do about the same job. The best part about Defraggler? It is free.
PerfectDisk! That's the one that I used in the story above. I'll look into that JkDefrag thing for fixign those MPQs.
so whenever I walk away from my comp for a while and the screen-saver loads up it's defraging my computer.
it may not always get it completely done by the time you come back. but after a while because your doing it everyday or more, it only takes maybe 15mins to get your files back in nice order.
plus you don't have to worry about setting a time or a day or whatever to let your computer defrag for hours at a time.