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Best defragmenting software (or none at all)?


Nerva

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I've read that with files being as large as they are these days and with HDD's having NCQ, that defragmentation offers little to no benefit, and just puts more wear on the HDD.   Is this true?   If not, what are the best defragmentation programs these days?

 

I forget if it was the old Norton or Central Point, but back in DOS times, there was one that actually had a "prioritize programs and folders with full file reorder" option -- it would stick all your directory info and .exe's at the front of the drive, and literally reorder every file and every cluster on the drive from end to end, in one long session.   Probably overkill, but it was cool to watch.

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Hi, from recommendations and personal experience, i find that using Perfectdisk Pro with Smartplacement Performance strategy and having the hard disk drives formatted with 64K NTFS cluster size, is the best combination for speed and quick times, i defrag only once per month my hard disk drives.

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NCQ has nothing to do with fragmentation.  It's about the order of operations performed on the disk, to minimize the read/write head movement. 

This improves performance overall (decreasing the affect of fragmentation, yes), but reduces the wear and tear on the drive by minimizing the movement

 

However, there are some issues with NCQ that can cause performance issues. So defragmenting isn't a bad idea.  Pre-emptive defragmentation is a better idea, even. 

 

 

As grimpr mentions, using larger cluster (allocation unit) size when formatting the disk is a good way to reduce fragmentation, as NTFS will store larger contiguous chunks.   This also increases the performance on large, sequential reads. 

 

 

 

As for the specific file placement... well, that's less important, IMO, because LBA handles things differently than the CHS addressing method.  

But programs like PerfectDisk do allow for customized profiles. But not really on file type, but on access frequency, IIRC.  

 

 

In fact, I use PerfectDisk myself.  It doesn't give significant improvements in performance, but for me, the free space consolidation is more important, as I run my drives VERY VERY full. 

 

 

 

 

Also, speaking of pre-emptive defragmentation.... They use "File system filters" to do so, and normally, DrivePool bypasses them. You may need to disable the bypass to get benefit from them.. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But really, there isn't a huge need to defragment drives anymore.

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Also, speaking of pre-emptive defragmentation.... They use "File system filters" to do so, and normally, DrivePool bypasses them. You may need to disable the bypass to get benefit from them.. 

 

 

But really, there isn't a huge need to defragment drives anymore.

 

From personal experience i recommend disabling all real time defragmenation features in defrag programs like OptiWrite in Perfectdisk and others, they only mess things up especially with other system filters running like AVs or Drivepool, a simple free space consolidation or smartplacement defrag once a month is more than enough nowdays. 

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From personal experience i recommend disabling all real time defragmenation features in defrag programs like OptiWrite in Perfectdisk and others, they only mess things up especially with other system filters running like AVs or Drivepool, a simple free space consolidation or smartplacement defrag once a month is more than enough nowdays. 

 

 

Well, StableBit DrivePool doesn't use file system filters at this point in time. But it definitely does bypass them on the underlying disks.  

 

But yeah, the more filters you have installed and running, the more likely that there will be some sort of bad interaction between them. 

 

 

Also, depending on your usage, the pre-emptive defragmenation likely isn't necessary. Unless you're moving around or modifying files a *lot*, it's not really needed. And yes, the periodic defrag pass would be better in this case.

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Seems to me that a "Stablebit Defrag" would be a great idea for a new product -- it would complement both Scanner and Drivepool rather well -- and if they're all developed by the same company, in theory there shouldn't be any fear of bad interactions between them.

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