Optimize Drives vs Third Party Defrag

Optimize Drives or Third Party?

  • Optimize Drives

    Votes: 15 65.2%
  • Third Party Defrag Product

    Votes: 8 34.8%

  • Total voters
    23

LovingWindows

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Do you use the built-in Windows Optimize Drivers (Disk Defrag) or do you use a third party product?

If third party product, which product and why?
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 x64
    Computer type
    Laptop
I saw on a forum somewhere, where the poster seemed quite knowledgeable about win8. He said to someone, whom was having difficulties with an extreme slow boot.. to never ever use a 3rd party defragger on win 8. And the reasons why, which made sense. He has a short list of major reasoning. Which I don't want to pull from my memory because its gotta be fighting words to those that use other defraggers.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    win8.1
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    lenovo
Automatic maintenance which also optimizes my drives
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 professional x64 + WMC
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Acer Aspire 5920
    CPU
    Core 2 duo T5550
    Motherboard
    ACER CHAPALA
    Memory
    4GB DDR2
    Graphics Card(s)
    Intel GMA X3100
    Screen Resolution
    1280 X 800
    Hard Drives
    160 GB HDD
I use PerfectDisk by Raxco.

I like the performance improvements I saw when I tested it.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 Pro with Media Center (64-bit)
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Custom-build
    CPU
    Intel Core i7-2600K @ 4.3 GHz
    Motherboard
    ASUS P8P67 PRO Rev 3.0
    Memory
    16 GB G.SKILL Ripjaws X DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (4 banks 4GB DIMM DDR3 8-8-8-24 5-32-12-7 1T 1.5V)
    Graphics Card(s)
    NVIDIA GeForce GT 440
    Sound Card
    Firewire Focusrite Saffire Pro 14
    Monitor(s) Displays
    LG W2353V
    Screen Resolution
    1920x1080
    Hard Drives
    2 of Seagate Barracuda XT ST32000641AS (2TB ea.);
    1 of Seagate Barracuda Green ST2000DL003 (2TB);
    1 of Hitachi Deskstar HDS722020ALA330 (2TB);
    2 of Seagate Desktop ST4000DM000-1F2168 (4TB)
    PSU
    Corsair AX850 Gold
    Case
    Cooler Master HAF 932 Advanced
    Cooling
    ThermalTake Silent 1156
    Keyboard
    Logitech K520
    Mouse
    Logitech M310
    Internet Speed
    7Mbps
    Browser
    Chrome
    Antivirus
    Kaspersky
    Other Info
    Event Studio Precision 6 powered audio monitors;
    Boston Acoustics CS Sub 10 Powered Subwoofer;
    NI Kore controller;
    NI Maschine controller;
    M-Audio Axiom 61 keyboard controller; expression pedal; sustain pedal;

    ... and tons of audio software ...

    I also keep two USB 3 thumb drives (A: and B:) attached with boot recovery and security stuff that I can boot into from BIOS in case of emergency
I use system's Optimize service.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Win 8.1
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Acer Aspire E1-571
    CPU
    i5-3230m
    Motherboard
    Acer Type-2
    Memory
    8GB DDR3 1333MHz
    Graphics Card(s)
    Intel HD 4000
    Sound Card
    High Definiton Audio Device
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Generic
    Screen Resolution
    1366x768
    Hard Drives
    Samsung 850 Pro 256GB
    PSU
    Generic
    Keyboard
    QWERTY
    Mouse
    ELANTECH Touchpad
    Internet Speed
    12.68Mbps
    Browser
    IE11
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender
Do you use the built-in Windows Optimize Drivers (Disk Defrag) or do you use a third party product?

If third party product, which product and why?

Hi there
in over 30 years of using various flavours of Windows (and Linux too) I have NEVER needed to defrag a drive -- and on the very rare occasions I've experimented with this stuff it didn't seem to make an IOTA of difference.

Slow disk performance is usually due to poor HDD's. SATA 7200 RPM's are OK and of course these days with SSD's then poor disk performance can be a thing of the past.

W8 is optimized anyway so any 3rd party defrag is really uneeded in any case.

The only time a defrag might be necessary is when running a Virtual machine due to the way in which the "Virtual Disks" can grow - but this is usually handled within the virtual machine environment such as VMware where their own utilities are used to "defrag the virtual disks".

If you want to re-organize your disk drives a good solution is to take an image backup using a program such as acronis, re-foirmat the drive and then restore the image.

Unless you are doing an exact cluster by cluster restore the restored image will have all the "wasted chains" etc all removed and the data on the disk optimized.

Cheers
jimbo
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Linux Centos 7, W8.1, W7, W2K3 Server W10
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    Monitor(s) Displays
    1 X LG 40 inch TV
    Hard Drives
    SSD's * 3 (Samsung 840 series) 250 GB
    2 X 3 TB sata
    5 X 1 TB sata
    Internet Speed
    0.12 GB/s (120Mb/s)
in over 30 years of using various flavours of Windows (and Linux too) I have NEVER needed to defrag a drive -- and on the very rare occasions I've experimented with this stuff it didn't seem to make an IOTA of difference.
I'm rubbish at deleting stuff so ran for a long time with a very full HDD, in Windows XP, which didn't auto-defrag. As the anti-virus software was updating its database, it would keep having to scavenge around for space on the disk and end up with a database file in about 10,000 fragments (which of course it kept having to refer to, nearly every time I did anything on the computer). In that circumstance, defragging did make a big and noticeable difference. Another example is defragmenting the pagefile and hibernate file (which you could do in XP using Sysinternals) when they also got fragmented due to lack of space, and again this made a big difference.

But I agree that it's probably quite rare that it makes much difference.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1, 10
in over 30 years of using various flavours of Windows (and Linux too) I have NEVER needed to defrag a drive -- and on the very rare occasions I've experimented with this stuff it didn't seem to make an IOTA of difference.
I'm rubbish at deleting stuff so ran for a long time with a very full HDD, in Windows XP, which didn't auto-defrag. As the anti-virus software was updating its database, it would keep having to scavenge around for space on the disk and end up with a database file in about 10,000 fragments (which of course it kept having to refer to, nearly every time I did anything on the computer). In that circumstance, defragging did make a big and noticeable difference. Another example is defragmenting the pagefile and hibernate file (which you could do in XP using Sysinternals) when they also got fragmented due to lack of space, and again this made a big difference.

But I agree that it's probably quite rare that it makes much difference.

Hi there
XP is a different ballgame -- but even there a Backup and restore would fix it -- and I think unless you were really short of RAM the paging device or data set wasn't heavily used in most cases. Note also paging was only used after the OS was booted -- so it wasn't "Persistent" between boots. It opens fresh after each boot.

W8 has a lot better "Garbage collection" routines built in to the OS.

However if any system is running with 95% full disks you are bound to get some sort of degradation.

Cheers
jimbo
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Linux Centos 7, W8.1, W7, W2K3 Server W10
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    Monitor(s) Displays
    1 X LG 40 inch TV
    Hard Drives
    SSD's * 3 (Samsung 840 series) 250 GB
    2 X 3 TB sata
    5 X 1 TB sata
    Internet Speed
    0.12 GB/s (120Mb/s)
I've never used a third-party defrag tool because I don't believe they offer enough (or any) advantage over the built-in defrag to justify the cost...
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Win 10 Pro 64bit
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Home built Intel i7-3770k-based system
    CPU
    Intel i7-3770k, Overclocked to 4.6GHz (46x100) with Corsair H110i GT cooler
    Motherboard
    ASRock Z77 OC Formula 2.30 BIOS
    Memory
    32GB DDR3 2133 Corsair Vengeance Pro
    Graphics Card(s)
    GeForce GTX 980ti SC ACS 6GB DDR5 by EVGA
    Sound Card
    Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium HD, Corsair SP2500 speakers and subwoofer
    Monitor(s) Displays
    LG 27EA33 [Monitor] (27.2"vis) HDMI
    Screen Resolution
    1920x1080
    Hard Drives
    Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250GB (system drive)
    WD 6TB Red NAS hard drives x 2 in Storage Spaces (redundancy)
    PSU
    Corsair 750ax fully modular power supply with sleeved cables
    Case
    Corsair Air 540 with 7 x 140mm fans on front, rear and top panels
    Cooling
    Corsair H110i GT liquid cooled CPU with 4 x 140" Corsair SP "push-pull" and 3 x 140mm fans
    Keyboard
    Thermaltake Poseidon Z illuminated keyboard
    Mouse
    Corsair M65 wired
    Internet Speed
    85MBps DSL
    Browser
    Chrome and Edge
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender, MalwareBytes Pro and CCleaner Pro
    Other Info
    Client of Windows Server 2012 R2 10 PC's, laptops and smartphones on the WLAN.

    1GBps Ethernet ports
To my knowledge w8 has nothing to do with GC on any ssd. It is run from the FW level on the ssd.

Maybe you are thinking of trim and it's implementation.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    W7
I like the way Optimize identifies SSD and stops defragsvc.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Win 8.1
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Acer Aspire E1-571
    CPU
    i5-3230m
    Motherboard
    Acer Type-2
    Memory
    8GB DDR3 1333MHz
    Graphics Card(s)
    Intel HD 4000
    Sound Card
    High Definiton Audio Device
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Generic
    Screen Resolution
    1366x768
    Hard Drives
    Samsung 850 Pro 256GB
    PSU
    Generic
    Keyboard
    QWERTY
    Mouse
    ELANTECH Touchpad
    Internet Speed
    12.68Mbps
    Browser
    IE11
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender
Hi there
W8 file system reclaims deleted space much more efficiently than previous OS'es -- but rather than run a full bloodied defrag on a disk that's had zillions of updates and file deletes you are much better off backing it up, re-formatting it and restoring it again.

3rd party backup / restore (unless operating in full disk clone mode -- cluster by cluster - 99.9% of time unnecessary) reads complete files sequentially and saves in compressed mode to the backup disk. When restoring the files are read sequentially and on a newly formatted disk they are allocated as efficiently as possible (space wise that is) which is a lot better than the hours spent in a defrag which is only a partial solution at best since it's almost impossible to move and re-allocate loads and loads of files optimally on a single disk.

One use for clone mode is used when MOVING or COPYING some types of databases where the index structure contains references to specific relative or actual physical disk addresses -- I'm not going in to the geometry of disk drives --you can google for that -- but just backing up and restoring normal data or OS'es shouldn't need "Clone mode".

If you don't believe how difficult or complex a defrag process is just take a piece of paper and draw an image of a disk with say 30 files in the directory with space allocated all over the place with very few areas of empty space.

Now try and devise an algorithm for reading these -- combining space where possible, chopping out unused space from other allocated files etc etc. It's not trivial and on say a 1 TB fairly full drive with loads of small files and deleted chains it can take HOURS. often moving and re-allocating the same pieces of data MANY times during the process.

A backup / restore will complete very quickly indeed --and also an advantage is you've got your backup.



In any case USER data doesn't change very much -- if you are optimising a disk drive it's only even worth considering on the OS drive which if its an SSD won't need this action anyway

Cheers
jimbo
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Linux Centos 7, W8.1, W7, W2K3 Server W10
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    Monitor(s) Displays
    1 X LG 40 inch TV
    Hard Drives
    SSD's * 3 (Samsung 840 series) 250 GB
    2 X 3 TB sata
    5 X 1 TB sata
    Internet Speed
    0.12 GB/s (120Mb/s)
It a bit of an old chestnut this question. Fragmentation is an issue on any file system. I had a salesman from EMC come to prove to me that if he backed up my (fairly large) server onto his disks it would be quicker. Guess what, it was.

You can achieve the same by backing up and restoring your system on the disk you already have.

If you have only a couple of drives on your system let windows optimise it. These guys are all PHD in Math and know more than us certainly. If your system is larger and you have several hundred disk or SAN then the optimisation will run under Linux on the IO subsystem anyway.

If you have a Mac, Linux or windows home PC and you have some reason to think it is slow because of fragmentation then just refresh it by copying your files to an external drive and then restoring them. You will get a better result than paying for some software and it is free.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 10 Pro Prieview x64
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    MacBook Pro Core2Duo
    CPU
    T7600
    Memory
    3
    Graphics Card(s)
    ATI Radeon X1600
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Internal
    Screen Resolution
    1440 x 800
    Hard Drives
    40GB
    Keyboard
    Apple
    Mouse
    Apple
    Internet Speed
    Varies
    Browser
    Various
    Antivirus
    Defender
A backup / restore will complete very quickly indeed --and also an advantage is you've got your backup.
Cheers
jimbo

I missed you post. Exactly correct.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 10 Pro Prieview x64
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    MacBook Pro Core2Duo
    CPU
    T7600
    Memory
    3
    Graphics Card(s)
    ATI Radeon X1600
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Internal
    Screen Resolution
    1440 x 800
    Hard Drives
    40GB
    Keyboard
    Apple
    Mouse
    Apple
    Internet Speed
    Varies
    Browser
    Various
    Antivirus
    Defender

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 10 x64
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    HP Envy DV6 7250
    CPU
    Intel i7-3630QM
    Motherboard
    HP, Intel HM77 Express Chipset
    Memory
    16GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    Intel HD4000 + Nvidia Geforce 630M
    Sound Card
    IDT HD Audio
    Monitor(s) Displays
    15.6' built-in + Samsung S22D300 + 17.3' LG Phillips
    Screen Resolution
    multiple resolutions
    Hard Drives
    Samsung SSD 250GB + Hitachi HDD 750GB
    PSU
    120W adapter
    Case
    small
    Cooling
    laptop cooling pad
    Keyboard
    Backlit built-in + big one in USB
    Mouse
    SteelSeries Sensei
    Internet Speed
    slow and steady
    Browser
    Chromium, Pale Moon, Firefox Developer Edition
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender
    Other Info
    That's basically it.
I've been using Win 8 for only a few days, so I'll stick with the default setting for now.

From what I experienced, the need for third-party software has a lot to do with the amount of data copied, moved, and deleted in the HD. If it's not much, then one can probably make do with the default setting.

I experienced this with a PC running on Win 7 with lots of data moved around. With the default setting, I noticed in time a noticeable slowdown. When I used a third-party program, though, it speeded up.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 64-bit
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    None
    CPU
    Intel Core i5-4690
    Motherboard
    MSI H97M-G43
    Memory
    8 GB 1866 MHz Kingston HyperX Fury Black
    Graphics Card(s)
    Inno3D N770 GTX770 2 GB DD5 256-bit
    Sound Card
    Realtek HD
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Samsung SyncMaster S23B300
    Screen Resolution
    1920 x 1080
    Hard Drives
    Intel SSD 250 GB
    Seagate 2 TB
    WD 2 TB
    WD Mybook 2 TB
    PSU
    Corsair HX750W
    Case
    Antec 900
    Cooling
    Intel Water Cooling
    Keyboard
    Logitech K120
    Mouse
    A4Tech X7
    Internet Speed
    50 GB
    Browser
    Cyberfox 64-bit
    Antivirus
    Avira Free
Ever since I started using Win8, including RC before that, I turned off auto defrag and no third party defragers and guess what, fragmentation hangs around 0 (zero). Was really close to that during Win7 days and believe me my HDDs and SSD get quite a workout. Programs downloaded and data, brought in, uninstalled all the time. There's about 1,5 TB of data on disks with maybe 50 GB going in and out. If that amount of stuff going thru W7 and 8 I don't know how much more I can write and erase to make it fragment any more.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 Pro
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Home made
    CPU
    AMD Ryzen7 2700x
    Motherboard
    Asus Prime x470 Pro
    Memory
    16GB Kingston 3600
    Graphics Card(s)
    Asus strix 570 OC 4gb
    Hard Drives
    Samsung 960 evo 250GB
    Silicon Power V70 240GB SSD
    WD 1 TB Blue
    WD 2 TB Blue
    Bunch of backup HDDs.
    PSU
    Sharkoon, Silent Storm 660W
    Case
    Raidmax
    Cooling
    CCM Nepton 140xl
    Internet Speed
    40/2 Mbps
    Browser
    Firefox
    Antivirus
    WD
I used Norton Utilities for several years then moved to Diskeeper. However with Windows 7 I experimented with the built in Defrag and found that it worked just as well as the Diskeeper that cost money. So I just don't use any 3rd party optimizing programs at all. Win7 and Win 8 seem to handle my optimization just fine.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 Pro MC
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Asus G75VW / Z97 Pro
    CPU
    Intel Core i7-3610QM / I7-4790K
    Motherboard
    Z97 Pro
    Memory
    16 GB Hyundai HTM315156CFR8C-PB PC3-12800
    Graphics Card(s)
    nVIDIA GeForce GTX 670M (GF114M)
    Sound Card
    VIA 6.0.10.1600
    Screen Resolution
    1080
    Hard Drives
    Samsung 850 Pro 256, Samsung 850 Pro 1TB
    Internet Speed
    30 down 3 up
    Browser
    Explorer 11
    Antivirus
    NIS and Malwarebytes
Ever since I started using Win8, including RC before that, I turned off auto defrag and no third party defragers and guess what, fragmentation hangs around 0 (zero). Was really close to that during Win7 days and believe me my HDDs and SSD get quite a workout. Programs downloaded and data, brought in, uninstalled all the time. There's about 1,5 TB of data on disks with maybe 50 GB going in and out. If that amount of stuff going thru W7 and 8 I don't know how much more I can write and erase to make it fragment any more.
But does that mean your OS is on an SSD? (Where fragmentation isn't an issue).

On my old Win XP setup, where it didn't auto-defrag, the (spinning) OS drive needed regular defragmenting and performance was definitely suffering, so now in Win8, I leave the built-in defragmenter switched on.

I've found that on drives where there isn't an OS , fragmentation is much less of an issue.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1, 10
Ever since I started using Win8, including RC before that, I turned off auto defrag and no third party defragers and guess what, fragmentation hangs around 0 (zero). Was really close to that during Win7 days and believe me my HDDs and SSD get quite a workout. Programs downloaded and data, brought in, uninstalled all the time. There's about 1,5 TB of data on disks with maybe 50 GB going in and out. If that amount of stuff going thru W7 and 8 I don't know how much more I can write and erase to make it fragment any more.
But does that mean your OS is on an SSD? (Where fragmentation isn't an issue).

On my old Win XP setup, where it didn't auto-defrag, the (spinning) OS drive needed regular defragmenting and performance was definitely suffering, so now in Win8, I leave the built-in defragmenter switched on.

I've found that on drives where there isn't an OS , fragmentation is much less of an issue.
There's 3 HDDs where most of the stuff and all data is stored, SSD is for windows and some programs only. There's no valid reason for system, boot drive to fragment, it happens when there's a lot of files going in and out. Even if there was an HDD instead of SSD as boot drive there would be no more fragmentation. As you know, files are not really erased when deleted, they stay where they were and OS writes data to empty spaces until it runs out of them, only then real erasing and writing goes on. If a file will not fit in empty space, parts of it that does not fit gets written to next empty space and that's called fragmentation. In SSD it does not matter if file is split in multiple spaces because every cell that contains it is equally available to OS. The only slowdown can occur during writing is if non empty cells have to be erased at the same time as data has to be written to it. That's where GC (Garbage Control) in SSD's firmware coes into play and at spare time when SSD is not used, it erases (write zeros, turn transistors off) in the cells that are marked by Trim for total erasure. That because of it's speed happens in milliseconds and does not affect SSD's speed at all.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 Pro
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Home made
    CPU
    AMD Ryzen7 2700x
    Motherboard
    Asus Prime x470 Pro
    Memory
    16GB Kingston 3600
    Graphics Card(s)
    Asus strix 570 OC 4gb
    Hard Drives
    Samsung 960 evo 250GB
    Silicon Power V70 240GB SSD
    WD 1 TB Blue
    WD 2 TB Blue
    Bunch of backup HDDs.
    PSU
    Sharkoon, Silent Storm 660W
    Case
    Raidmax
    Cooling
    CCM Nepton 140xl
    Internet Speed
    40/2 Mbps
    Browser
    Firefox
    Antivirus
    WD
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