Free Defrag Program, Good or bad?

[grizzley]

i have had a really rough time with my computer being super slow lately and friends have suggested that i try a disk defrag, so i was googling to find a program that could do it for me and i came across a website called htp://www.coolz.co.za that makes refernce to a program called diskeeper.
i just want to know if anyone as heard of or used this program before? and if it will be reliable to use on my computer?

[Chrisjan B]

I think it will work fine. You can also use the free http://www.auslogics.com/disk-defrag
I find there is usually other issues when your computer slows down: viruses, spyware, when last did you do a diskcheck, does the PC have enough memory?

Maybe you should some knowledgeable person have a look?

[Dave A]

Assuming a Windows OS, do these defragmenters really do a better job than the Windows defrag program anyway? I got PCtools at one time and wasn't that impressed. Ultimately, it just repacked and indexed things differently, but came with other problems, like the daily slowdown as it shuffled its way through making my PC "healthier."

From a user point of view, it was slowing me down more than the fragged files were.

[Chrisjan B]

Assuming a Windows OS, do these defragmenters really do a better job than the Windows defrag program anyway? I got PCtools at one time and wasn't that impressed. Ultimately, it just repacked and indexed things differently, but came with other problems, like the daily slowdown as it shuffled its way through making my PC "healthier."

From a user point of view, it was slowing me down more than the fragged files were.

A Windows PC needs to be defragged regularly (at least monthly)and the reason I recommended the Auslogics program is that is quite fast and seems to do a good job. I yesterday defragged my two 320 GB harddrives in about 30 minutes time and you can still work on the PC while it is working.

See the Defragmention Explained at http://www.auslogics.com/disk-defrag

Hard disk errors can also be a source of a slow PC. Windows XP does not always alert you to disk errors. It is also a good idea to run the Windows checkdisk utility from time to time with the /f and /r switches from a command line. Keep in mind that if you do this it takes up to an hour to run after the PC has been restarted, schedule it for a convenient time then.

[Marq]

I hauled out the April 2007 copy of PCFormat magazine which ran a helpline by Luis, a guy who seemed to know what he was talking about. He advocated many times that defragging was a waste of time.

This is part of his last reply on the subject of defragging...

Defragmenting a computer hard disk is a pointless waste of everybody's time, as I've said in these very pages since time immemorial. It's the 21st century equivalent of prayer beads, or something. The only thing you'll ever get in return for the time you waste defragging your computer's hard disk is the faint placebo comfort of the ignorant and deluded user.
If a fragmented hard disk really did generate dangerous amounts of extra heat and affect overall system performance, don't you think that the hour or so of solid thrashing that defragmenting often entails would be enough to guarantee your disk's ultimate demise, if not that of your entire rig? It's like saying 'regularly plough up your lawn to prevent unsightly worm casts!'
So I'll say this for (hopefully) the last time: Don't bother defragging - you're wasting your time.

I haven't defragged my drive since reading that and do not seem to have had any problems as a result.
To check this, I ran this auslogics programme on my one drive - 600 defragged files out of 200,000 - no problems reported....mmm... I think Luis knew that answer was coming.

Your slow computer is probably software related. Probably Vista? Could be virus, spyware or registry problems. Check out startup options - often I find programs load update checkers and stuff that keeps your computer busy in the background that you do not need. My internet usage shot up one day last week - I eventually discovered that adobe was updating my software in the background and was downloading a 400meg file. Stopped that process and hey presto - instant speed up.

[Dave A]

...don't you think that the hour or so of solid thrashing that defragmenting often entails would be enough to guarantee your disk's ultimate demise,...

Does he have any advice on Anti-virus scans? They pound the poor hard drive too.

[Chrisjan B]

IMHO a hard drive is made to work - just like a car's engine - you regularly service your car, you should also maintain your Windows PC - clean out junk and temporary files, check for unnecessary startup programs, check for viruses and spyware,do a disk check (I have solved many a problem by running chkdsk in Windows) They guy may be right about defragging but if one read up a bit about how Windows stores files all over the place and the hard drive head seeking madly for all the different fragments I am wondering if it is worth it not to run a defrag. It is not all about heat, wear and tear also comes into play. Solid State Drives (SSD) does not have any moving parts but is still fairly small and very expensive - that is one of the reasons why the new ASUS eeePC is so quick. At least there is light at the end of the tunnel!

Nowadays when I built a PC I install a hard rive cooler, especially 120GB and up, they run at between 43 and 50 degrees Celsius with the cooler it goes as low as 28 degrees Celsius. A case with good airflow also helps. Seagate hard drives nowadays carry a 5 year warranty - one will get the odd failure also. What is the use if you cannot put a load on it? i thing the Search Indexer in VISTA thrashes the drive more than defrag and virus scan combined.

Related to anti virus programs - it is all a trade off - be virus free and get some work done most of the time or don't bother and struggle with a problematic PC.

As I am an Afrikaans guy I struggle a bit to express myself - I hope everybody understand my ramblings!

[Dave A]

You're communicating just fine, Chrismine.

Personally, I favour defragging every now and then. About once a month I do a disk cleanup and defrag. I ran a hard drive (hard ) without defragging for about 6 months once, and I reckon the defrag (when I got round to doing it) did help with access times - probably more noticeable on older drives given the access times of the really up-to-date stuff nowadays.

Also, an XP or later defrag isn't going to move every file on the drive like Windows 98 and earlier versions used to. So it isn't nearly as intense on the hard drive.

The way some AVs thrash the drive on a daily basis is a different story, I reckon. Now that is working a hard drive hard! Surely once or twice a week is enough given all the scanning these programs run on any file load and execute anyway?

[Chrisjan B]

As long as your AV program has "realtime" scanning enabled you should be fine for twice a week...

Not bragging - but so far I had only two PC's I was unable to remove viruses from - had to reinstall... Which unlike the "norm" is usually the last resort.

[irneb]

One thing none of the Defrags (especially Windows Defrag) does is defragment system files / files opened during the defrag. You can find quite a lot of these things doing a Google - some better than others, some more expensive.

E.g. the one I use is http://ultradefrag.sourceforge.net/ - totally open source. Looks rather early 90's but does the job. It's also got an option to do defrags on shared / system files during start-up (while they're not opened yet). It allows for scheduling, and with some tweaking you can defrag absolutely everything on the disk even that Page file, user hives (where registry is store), etc.

As to AV / AS, most of these do make your PC slower. I've got AVG which I set to do a scan at 18:00 each day ... leave the PC on (just turn off the monitor) & let AVG scan & shut-down after. This way the scan is done daily while you're not using the PC. Nothing worse than having a scheduled scan start while you're working on a particularly important document, finding that the PC is nearly not responding at all.

If you want to know why to defrag, here's an article explaining the nuts-n-bolts: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defragmentation

[grizzley]

firstly i must say that everyone on this forum has been such a great help. wow its nice to know that there are people out there willing to put all they can into helping someone else! i decided to go along and download the diskeeper program and it is amazing, it runs in the background when im not busy on my computer and i dont need to switch it on and off, also it gives me loads of stats about ny hard drive, thanks for the go ahead on that one, you guys should check it out, you never know what dangers lie out there when you download a program off the net.
thanks a bunch to everyone

[duncan drennan]

i decided to go along and download the diskeeper program and it is amazing

Grizzley, how about contributing to the conversation instead of just trying to promote a product? As has been pointed out before, we are all about trading knowledge for value, and I am sure you have more to contribute than you are letting on.

[Marq]

Does he have any advice on Anti-virus scans? They pound the poor hard drive too.

Here you go Dave - fresh off the scanner - from PCFormat aug 2007 - Luis's helpline column on Virus checkers.

Viruses? Pah!

Now, virus-checking. That's a whole other kind of stupid.

Do you take anti-malaria tablets every night and sleep inside a mosquito net? No? Why not? Malaria is a deadly disease that has probably killed more people than any other disease in human history. So what if you don't get malarial mosquitoes in this country; better safe than sorry, right? In fact, why not go further? Why not vaccinate yourself against every disease ever? Let's get someone to isolate every single pathogen in existence - including those that don't affect humans, those that aren't harmful and those that went extinct years ago. Let's get them to create vaccine for every single one of these and then inject the resulting three pints of serum into our arms once a month. And even though this frequently leaves us unable to pick up our arms, drive a car or even remain conscious, let us happily pay for this service.

I am not advocating unprotected sex with strangers here. Computer viruses are not a lethal plague sweeping the world. It's more like hay fever. It's a mild itch is all, and not very contagious. I have 14 computers running a slew of operating system versions, all continuously connected to the net They have been infected by two viruses since 1990. One came on an infected floppy disk, neither resulted in a loss of data only minor slowdown and was completely cured in an hour using only a free scanner downloaded from the web after infection.

Prophylactic use of anti-virus software is both unnecessary and a very common source of software conflicts. So why does every other piece of print and online advice recommend that you install a virus scanner and keep it up to date? Because it feels like the precautionary principle, the conservative approach, the belt-and-braces tactic. "Yes," the argument goes, "in theory the masses could keep themselves safe by showing some common sense about which executables they download and which email attachments they open. Yes, they could use Opera instead of IE, avoid warez and download updates as soon as they become available. But what if they don't? Wouldn't it be irresponsible of us to not also recommend a virus scanner if it could provide some additional protection, no matter how small?"

If virus scanners did not cost money, had no false positive alerts and never caused your system to crash, I would say yes. But in fact they do all those things, and so it becomes a trade-off. Are the disadvantages of installing a scanner more than the disadvantages of not installing one? In my view they are. There is a reason why step 2 or 3 of every troubleshooting flowchart is "have you disabled any automatic virus scanner?" Now since I have already said that I'm not going to be drawn into defending an unnecessarily extreme position, I will admit that there are times when you want to run a virus scan on your hard disk. When you have symptoms that can't easily be explained by any other means or you have a specific error message that Google matches to a known virus, then it makes sense to run a sweep of your hard disk. But there is really no need to install a commercial virus scanner for this. The free online one at www.trendmicro.com is perfectly good. Yes it may have a slightly smaller virus signature database than the best commercial systems but, really, it's not going to make any difference.

Virus infection is overwhelmingly the least likely thing to go wrong with your PC and infection by an obscure virus that is only caught by the gold-standard scanners is so unlikely that you can discount it. Sure, it could happen. But your PC could be trampled by escaped cows - do you have specific measures in place to deal with that contingency as well? None of this will convince you of course, I'm perfectly well aware of that But just because you're stubborn, doesn't make me wrong. So far, everyone else reading this has been treated to one clever guy with lots of letters after his name saying one thing and another clever and handsome guy saying something else. There is no way to tell which is right.

[grizzley]

haha sorry Duncan wasnt trying to promote in anyway, stumbled apon it my accident just thought that i would first ask about it to see if it was legitimate, and just like evryone was so nice to me thought i would repay the favour by letting everyone know where their advice lead me.

[irneb]

I might be wrong, but I think I heard (or read) somewhere that the standard Windows Defrag is actually a scaled down version of DiscKeeper ... might be wrong, but the name rings a bell.