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Is it necessary to do a diskcheck every few years + Vopt defragmenter is free

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It took almost exactly two days, 48 hours of non-stop defragmenting for Defraggler to complete the task of a 37% 2TB defrgamented drive. Its display is informative as far as how many files are left to defragment and current state of defragmentation.

I tested Puran on my other 2TB drive which was about 10% defragmented. it took 4 hours and 40 minutes.

Both Vopt and Puran leave you in a bit of a confusion as to whether they are finished.
The programmers didin't think it necessary to inform us using words like 'finished' or terms like 'completed successfully'
After half a day or a day of more of activity, I find this to be a fatal user interface flaw, leaving you confused if the task was completed or was somehow interrupted.

It does appear that two days Defraggler took is way too long for a drive that has 300GB of free space...

I will probably use the program you recommended, Puran Defrag for all future defrags.

For very old systrms, VoptXP is still the best, but not for new systems, in my opinion.
 
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Yes, they all appear to have that option. We go back to how really Windows native defragmenter should be allowed to do its thing regularly in the background so you don't ever have to even think about it.

But for manual defragmenting, the time it takes and information they provide I think is what they are measured on, because after you defragment the drive, the drive is no longer fragemented as reported by ALL of them, so sure there is a place for discussing methods, but the information they provide and time it takes are things that are noticeable when using different ones. I may let DEfrgaller people know about the two day defrag I went through just to see what they say... But as of now, the one you suggested is "better". Vopt is no longer being developed, but user interface of Vopt version 9 is pretty clunky.
 
I asked both Defraggler and Puran creators the same question:


Why do programmers of defrag software don't think it necessary to inform us using words like 'finished' or terms like 'completed successfully' when the program finishes the task? Most or all defrag programs do not inform you they are finished using words 'finished' or 'completed'.

After half a day or a day or more of activity, I find this to be a fatal user interface flaw, leaving you confused if the task was completed or was somehow interrupted.

I hope you take this solely as user feedback. Puran Defrag is a fine program.
 
Diskeeper and O&O Defrag are "professional" products right ? whats the difference ?
 
My understanding is that defragging doesn't really make much or any difference in performance unless the percentage of fragmentation is pretty high. And every version of Windows since Vista does this in the background unless you disable it. That's good enough for me. But I'm not sure that's true for nonsystem drives.
 
My understanding is that defragging doesn't really make much or any difference in performance unless the percentage of fragmentation is pretty high. And every version of Windows since Vista does this in the background unless you disable it. That's good enough for me. But I'm not sure that's true for nonsystem drives.
It's worked for me, that method of letting windows tale care of it, for years. As I said, the difference between most of these programs are hardly noticeable. :)
 
NoNo, i meant whats the difference between the "professional" programs and the free ones. Is it the defrag speed, the algorithm it uses, the fact they have a brand name ? (asking anyone who actually got one of these and tried it)

Defrag performance is really up to how much you alter the files in your HDD which will cause them to fragment, ex: In a system disk that will almost daily have 10%+ because Windows keeps messing around with the files, you keep installing and uninstalling programs, image and video editing etc etc etc... They work basically like : the deep defrag re-arranges the files in a way that will be the faster to access (most used 1st, bigger at the end) and moves everything to the start of the HDD, the quick only touches fragmented files and moves folders/system files.

Why i said that nowadays that you run everything from a SSD except backups the HDD is barely touched hence fragmentation should be low and quick to fix.
 
I'm guessing you can get enterprise level support for such products.. no idea what else...

As for fragmentation, my windows HDDs never came close to 10% defrag /day or even a week... likely not even a month unless I was manipulating tons of files..
 
You said you had the Windows defrag running in the background, small wonder it never got so high ? I got used to disabling it because in its 1st iterations the constant HDD background noise really got on my nerves ;)
 
Never noticed. At the time I had a games/active storage drive and a backup drive which didn't change much. :shrug:
 
Why else would so many people on the forums in the old days turn off defragmenting!?!
OF COURSE the noisy clunkers would grind our brains out. It was unbearable for me as it was for a lot of people on the forums, some of which had computers where they slept and lived all day.

Drives are both quieter today + we switched to SSDs but this was not the case years ago.
To answer the question asked, I think the additional cost is associated with other features that a program 'suite' would come with rather than features of just the Defrag part of the program 'suite'.

The question of how we measure 'better' remains unanswered. A Senior Member here did do a test on many major defrag programs at the time, posting the results but when I asked Vopt creator before he died about it, he was surprised about some of the testing methodology and did not agree with the testing approach....

To me the speed and displayed information, and ease of use, is important, but I never saw a reliable method of meaningfully testing the results.
In extreme cases of defragmentation, my main complaint is lack of clearly informing the user that the process has finished, after having been working for so long.
Just stopping and that's it is totally confusing. Particularly since if you start it again, it would actually work on deftragmenting again for a while.


Most importantly, exactly why a Windows a defragmenter is said to be 'inferior' in articles about defragmenting, is actually a major unanswered question.
 
Has anyone taken the time to look up and read any comparison articles?? Typically those would say something... ?
 
Since SSD's came to the fore good reviews about defrag programs have been few and far between, and most of them don't explain exactly what changes but simply if its better in the eyes of the reviewer :( I will google a bit see what pops up.
 
most of them don't explain exactly what changes but simply if its better in the eyes of the reviewer


Sadly not as every one of them is exactly what i wrote above. As you said changes will be only from the logs and what i personally want to know would probably only be answered by people that used them or the actual programmers. Might help OP though ?
 
Forgive me, I am missing the point. Maybe you can clarify.
 
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