Solved I simply don't get all these problems

[Brink]

That 6% could be from the page file and/or restore points that wouldn't be defragged.

 

[XweAponX]

That 6% could be from the page file and/or restore points that wouldn't be defragged.

The only way to optimize system files and those files mentioned above is with a 3rd party Program, I use "Perfect Disk", someone from here, I think told me about it or it was the Windows 7 board. I was looking for a way to Optimise SSDs. It has "Boot Time Defrag" where it sorts out system files at boot up. I don't remember how much it is. I don't know if there are any free optimisers at all other than Defraggler and I had very bad luck with that.

I think PD has a trial, but I'm only saying I use it, I can't really offer it as a solution.

 

[jimbo45]

Hi there.

IMO optimisers etc are rarely if ever necessary now - ESPECIALLY for SSD's -- honestly SSD's have a decent cache and the response time is so fast anyway that the amount of improvement you'd get by optimisation wouldn't be detectable in any sort of typical user environment at all.

I'm not getting into the whole process of defragging - it's been gone over "Ad Nauseam" on these Forums - but suffice to say in over 25 years or more of using PC's I've NEVER bothered with any sort of Disk defragging apart from a very specialized case where Virtual Disks are used in a Virtual Machine and the VM software has its own mechanism. The I/O algorithms for Virtual HDD's are somewhat different to normal OS disks.

For BEST performance --Put the OS and applications on an SSD and if you have several SATA / E_SATA connections use another SSD for things like Photoshop Scratch files / layers etc / other applications temporary work areas.

Music / Multi-media / Office documents / data can be stored on spinners - if you use 7200 RPM spinners with a DECENT cache size in them response will be fine. GET RID OF any 5400 RPM spinners -these will run as slow as molasses - or use them for backups / archives.

Also RAID on any HOME computer is a WASTE of time -- RAID 0 can be better achieved using SPANNED VOLUMES in Windows - no hardware / software necessary - simply convert to GPT and dynamic disks and you can span as many as you like (all different sizes too) in the aggregation. Windows treats all the disks in the aggregation as a "Single physical volume" say F:\. You don't have to worry WHERE the data is stored physically as you just retrieve it in the normal way on Volume F:\

RAID 1 doesn't also buy you anything worthwhile either - you "waste" 50% of the data space in "striping or mirroring". - IMO unless you NEED to be on line 24 hrs a day and need to HOT SWAP without stopping the system just take regular backups . (Even with RAID 1 you still NEED backups in any case).


Screen shot of Spanned Disk use on W8.1. (Works also on W7 / W8).

Cheers
jimbo

 

[specialkone]

Thanks, guys. I have two 10K RPM drives in raid 0. The only worthwhile upgrade to this system is SSD and I'm thinking about the Samsung 840 pro so yes then optimization won't be much of an issue. What I'm more concerned about is why the Windows 8.1 defrag won't work when third party software will. This issue is up on the Microsoft community with no answers. Don't know if I would ever get it working again. BTW it did bring fragmentation to 0.


After reinstalling 8.1 because of user account corruption with Nvidia Geforce experience, now I have this. I don't think the problem is limited to defrag not working. Since the raid array/defrag issues now with games like BF4 and others (COD) which ran perfectly sometimes now have a Microsoft message "BF4 stopped working and must close - sending info to Microsoft". So I'm thinking the issue corruption or whatever is still there. Nvidia told me they know about these issues and are looking into it hopefully with Microsoft. But they said they don't have a cause at this point.

Whether it is network adaptors losing connection, user account corruption, defrag not working or even the youtube web wage freezing up sometimes, if you look at the Microsoft Community it is all with 8.1, not before that.

Personally, I love the Windows 8 concept. All the apps listed in order with a click of the arrow and a Windows desktop there as needed. Don't miss the old start concept. Nothing better for reading news, references than the format of the metro apps. For me better than web searches giving tons of irrelevant data. With the introduction of 8.1 it just doesn't work anymore and I've tried hard. Sadly, if I get that SSD it will likely be going back to Windows 7. I read that it will be supported for consumers until 2020. Maybe the 8.1 issues will be fixed by then.

 

[XweAponX]

I would avoid any Samsung drives, many people have had serious problems with them. Samsung HDD drives are the worst I have ever wasted 80 bucks on, they crashed in less than 6 months, all of them. If you are going to do SSD, do it with Intel.

If you are going to get an SSD drive, then you should buy Perfect Disk, I highly recommend that. It is made to handle SSDs specifically when detected. I've installed SSDs for over a dozen people and I bought Perfect Disk for all of them, and each time they come back, the drives have Zero frag, including System files. What I like about the program is that it is clever and prevents new fragmentation, so after the initial optimization is done, it hardly ever has to do another full optimization on the drive. Its even great for HDDs, although it takes longer. It took a week to optimise 4 HDDs in my system, but now all of my drives are Zero Frag.

 

[specialkone]

I will look at Intel as well. I need minimum 500 gigs. Games these days are 50 gig installs, not 20 as in the past because they support 4K monitors and high res textures. 840 pro retail is $259 for 250 gigs. I see all kinds of models for Intel, starting at $245 for 240 gigs. I pay Canadian prices because of course we are very nice people so it's ok to hit us with higher prices. We just smile. There is no significant difference between retail and OEM, right?

 

[Clintlgm]

I will look at Intel as well. I need minimum 500 gigs. Games these days are 50 gig installs, not 20 as in the past because they support 4K monitors and high res textures. 840 pro retail is $259 for 250 gigs. I see all kinds of models for Intel, starting at $245 for 240 gigs. I pay Canadian prices because of course we are very nice people so it's ok to hit us with higher prices. We just smile. There is no significant difference between retail and OEM, right?

I would dump both of your 300 GB hardives, put in a Samsung 840 pro 256 GB 5 year warranty , I have had a Samsung 830 going for 2 years now with no problems. pick up a 750 GB 7200 rpm hard drive. Put your OS and main programs on your SSD all other programs and games on the 750 GB. you have more than enough storage space and amazingly fast NB.

 

[lehnerus2000]

RAID 0 vs SPANNED

Also RAID on any HOME computer is a WASTE of time -- RAID 0 can be better achieved using SPANNED VOLUMES in Windows - no hardware / software necessary - simply convert to GPT and dynamic disks and you can span as many as you like (all different sizes too) in the aggregation.

I think that RAID 0 is different to SPANNED VOLUMES.

So-called RAID 0 is supposed to increase your HDD Read/Write speed.
I would have thought that most people using RAID 0 are using it for performance.

It can be used for creating SPANNED VOLUMES, but that would be risky (multiplying your chances of data loss).

A RAID 0 (also known as a stripe set or striped volume) splits data evenly across two or more disks (striped) without parity information for speed. RAID 0 was not one of the original RAID levels and provides no data redundancy. RAID 0 is normally used to increase performance, although it can also be used as a way to create a large logical disk out of two or more physical ones.

...
RAID 0 is also used in some computer gaming systems where performance is desired and data integrity is not very important. However, real-world tests with computer games have shown that RAID-0 performance gains are minimal, although some desktop applications will benefit. Another article examined these claims and concludes: "Striping does not always increase performance (in certain situations it will actually be slower than a non-RAID setup), but in most situations it will yield a significant improvement in performance."

Wikipedia - Standard RAID Levels
​

SPANNED VOLUMES are used to increase storage capacity.

A spanned volume is a formatted partition which data is stored on more than one hard disk, yet appears as one volume.
Spanned volumes are a non-RAID drive architecture, and may be implemented in hardware or software; they may be referred to as Concatenation, SPAN, BIG, or JBOD, though this latter is ambiguous – JBOD may also refer to each physical disk being presented as a separate logical volume.

Wikipedia - Spanned Volume
​

 

[specialkone]

Ok thanks guys. Back to the defrag problem with 8.1, so I run chkdsk c: /f. It says volume in use (normal) and on restart it scans and/or fixes with no problems. Defrag still doesn't work. Then I run chkdsk c: /r. It hangs at 11% complete. After an hour it is still there at 11%. Cold shut down (many of those with 8.1) hit a key quickly and it thankfully skips the chkdsk /r.

Is there maybe a registry fix or restore point possibility to fix this? The problem is being reported in the 8.1 Microsoft community but silence on any fixes.

 

[wingman1800]

Scannow fix

I tried I ran this:

Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth

and this worked perfeftly !!!! Will it work in Windows 7 or do you know what would??? This is by far the easiest solution
tom

 

[specialkone]

I tried I ran this:

Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth

and this worked perfeftly !!!! Will it work in Windows 7 or do you know what would??? This is by far the easiest solution
tom

Thanks but I already tried/ran that. See post #7. It runs fine, no component store corruption. Still have the defrag issues. So now I see at boot chkdsk /f runs fine but chkdsk /r makes my computer hang. It is starting to make me feel like 8.1 has been compiled with different languages that don't talk to each other or coded in some cases for specific hardware at the expense of functionality for basic PC desktops. There is nothing very complicated about the hardware in this system but 8.1 has made it very complicated.

 

[specialkone]

Hopefully this is the last chapter of my defrag problem which was down to 6% fragmented according to Windows 8.1 but I noticed from the Auslogic defrag screen that fragmented was 0% but of course I then noticed that swap file squares were not defraged. I set the swap file to no swap file, rebooted and ran auslogic again and then Windows 8.1 showed 0% fragmented. Ran scan now again and restore PC health and didn't notice any change. Set the swap file to automatic again and fragmented was then 3%. Few days back figured I should just run the Windows defrag analyze part again. Fragmented is 0%. Not sure why but must have been Brink's hands on guidance and tutorials and/or a combination of them.

Thanks to Brink and the rest of you for your help. I still run auslogic hoping for no further defrag issues. Brink they need you on the Microsoft 8.1 forums. Those quick but quite useless text book support responses over there to defrag, network failures, mouse lag, corruption and other 8.1 issues are upsetting to a lot of users besides me who simply think they aren't being listened to especially when they already said they tried the steps earlier recommended by the "experts".

 

[Brink]

Glad we could help.