How often do you defrag?

[aimeeandbeatles]

Poll coming.

 

[Padma]

Never.

Linux systems do not require periodic defragging.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

I forgot to add "never" to the poll.

Do Linux defrag by themselves, or do they save files for best usage of disk, or what?

 

[Padma]

Depending on the filesystem used, there are a variety of methods involved.

In general, they save files for best usage. It is possible to seriously fragment a Linux system, if you set out to deliberately do just that. But in normal use, it doesn't happen. I have never seen my system get more than ~5% fragmented, even after running constantly (not even a reboot)for more than 2 months. I usually install Linux, and then never, ever, worry about fragmentation.


On my wife's Vista box, between all the crap that our grandkids download, and how long it's been since I did any maintenance on it, it is running like a dog. I need to sit down and do some cleanup (including defrag) this weekend.... :sigh:

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

I looked it up, and it seems to say since it doesn't crowd files together, that if you edit a file, you don't have to move pieces of the file elsewhere. But it can get fragged if you have more than 80% full.

Source

 

[Zelig]

Never.

On my wife's Vista box, between all the crap that our grandkids download, and how long it's been since I did any maintenance on it, it is running like a dog. I need to sit down and do some cleanup (including defrag) this weekend.... :sigh:

Vista defrags automatically when idle, unless you've disabled it through the task scheduler.

 

[azzaman333]

Never .

 

[Aramazd]

Never ever.

 

[Padma]

Vista defrags automatically when idle, unless you've disabled it through the task scheduler.

Thanks. That should save me a step. (and a lot of time!)

 

[LucyDuke]

Rarely these days. I just do it for the thrills, anyway.

 

[kuukkeli]

On Linux never. On Windows daily (using JkDefrag).

 

[GVBN]

Never .

 

[Macha]

Never on Linux/Vista. Occasionally on XP

 

[FriendlyFire]

Given the size of HDD these days I reformat probably every two-three years.

 

[Cutlass]

Maybe once a year. I have enough free space so it doesn't get to bother me more often than that.

 

[innonimatu]

Never.



Vista defrags automatically when idle, unless you've disabled it through the task scheduler.

Great, one more useless service to disable...

I never saw any real advantage from defragging NTFS file systems.

 

[Zelig]

Great, one more useless service to disable...

I never saw any real advantage from defragging NTFS file systems.

I used to be big on disabling services, but it really makes very little difference. They consume CPU resources only when idle, and consume negligable memory when other programs need it.

 

[Cutlass]

Some services you want to disable just because they are annoying as hell though

 

[Speedo]

On Windows daily (using JkDefrag).

That's a good way to send your hard drive(s) to an early grave. If you want to be fanatical, you can defrag maybe 2-3 times a month, but even that's fairly pointless unless you are doing a crapton of file movement to cause fragmentation. Most people really don't need to do it more than 2-3 times per year.

I really only defrag when I either need to tweak the position of apps on the disk, or else I've been doing a lot of installing/uninstalling. Got about 4 games I'm planning to uninstall this weekend, will probably defrag after that.

 

[Quintillus]

Whenever I think of it really. Which isn't all that often. I don't think I've defragged my program/data drives since I set them up in December, and I'm not sure I've defragged my XP drive either. My Windows 7 drive auto-defrags itself.

But now that I check, my data drive is extremely fragmented:



52% fragmentation, 88% file fragmentation. That's in part because about 47% of the drive (9 of 19 GB) is two files, though. The funny thing is, I haven't noticed any performance degradation, and this is the slowest part of my hard drive to begin with.

Speedo does have a good point, though - while the efficiency of a nonfragmented drive usually cancels out the cost of fragmentation, if you do it too often, or too too high a degree, the defragging will put more wear on the drive than being fragmented. That's why Windows 7 no longer completely defrags a drive - it will leave a small portion fragged if it isn't worth it to defragment it.

*thinks UAC in reaction to Cutlass's post*

*leaves data drive at 88% fragmentation since there's only 5% free and it still seems decently fast*