MAP
January 27th 04, 04:21 PM
>-----Original Message-----
>I read an article recently, PCWorld I think, that said
that someone ran
>a test and that defragging didn`t make much difference
in the way the
>cpr ran.
>Ideas and comments welcome.
>.
>
2) Defrag Nay...
The item on "[Is] Defragging Pointless?" (
http://www.langa.com/newsletters/2004/2004-01-22.htm#3 )
brought some interesting mail on both sides of the issue:
Fred, I wasn't sure from the item in the latest LangaList
as to whether you had looked at the PC World item about
defragmenting your hard drive or not. If not, you should
take a look - they mentioned the conventional wisdom that
you gave for why defragmenting will increase performance,
but when they ran actual tests on the matter, they found
no significant increase in performance.
Also, on the issue of partitioning, they were right there
with you, that partitioning made a great deal of sense.
If you haven't already, the article is worth a look - go
to
http://www.pcworld.com/howto/article/0,aid,113743,00.asp
for the start of the main article, and the page with the
tests on defragging
is found at
http://www.pcworld.com/howto/article/1,aid,113743,pg,8,00.
asp
---Tim Fitzpatrick
Thanks, Tim. I did see the piece, but either they
mismeasured, or their definition of what constitutes
a "significant" change differs from mine.
I can see how that might happen. For example, if you
compare the performance of a fragmented drive to a
defragged one over the course of a full day, the
defragged drive's time savings might not seem to add up
to all that much (maybe a couple minutes). One could
argue that that isn't a "significant" improvement. But to
me, having a PC that feels snappier, more responsive and
less "in the way" all day long, is indeed significant.
I'll take a defragged drive any day.
And sometimes, the defrag differences are actually quite
dramatic. See next item.
Click to email this item to a friend
http://langa.com/sendit.htm
return to top of page
3) ...and Yea
Sometimes, defragging makes a *huge* difference:
Hi Fred. On the article in the newsletter on defragging (
http://www.langa.com/newsletters/2004/2004-01-22.htm#3 ),
I completely agree that PC World are dead wrong. I use
chat programs a fair bit as well as surfing the net and
in the past have noticed that my internet connection
(dial-up) would progressively deteriorate until it became
unstable. Once I had defragged though I would be back at
full speed both on chat programs and normal surfing.
And this degradation used to occur once my defragged
level went below 97%. Since then I have regularly
defragged at least once a week and have found not only
does my internet connection work better but both games
and applications I use as well ---Robert Mitchell,
Queensland, Australia
You're probably seeing fragmentation problems with the
internet cache, Robert. By default, Internet Explorer
sets aside a huge cache for itself. That alone can cause
performance issues, but if that huge cache ends up
scattered all over a fragmented drive, your PC will
thrash itself senseless trying to manage the cache as you
surf.
The solution is twofold. First, defragging will help, as
you've seen, because the cache will be all in one easy-to-
access piece. But you also can reduce the raw size of the
cache: In IE, go to Tools/Internet options and in
the "Temporary Internet Files" area use the Settings
button to make the cache something reasonable. (Other
browsers have similar settings.) For dial up systems, 20
or 25MB is usually enough cache. For always-on, high-
speed connections, 10MB or so is all you need.
Keeping the cache reasonably sized, and then keeping it
contiguous (defragged), should eliminate virtually all
cache-related performance problems
>I read an article recently, PCWorld I think, that said
that someone ran
>a test and that defragging didn`t make much difference
in the way the
>cpr ran.
>Ideas and comments welcome.
>.
>
2) Defrag Nay...
The item on "[Is] Defragging Pointless?" (
http://www.langa.com/newsletters/2004/2004-01-22.htm#3 )
brought some interesting mail on both sides of the issue:
Fred, I wasn't sure from the item in the latest LangaList
as to whether you had looked at the PC World item about
defragmenting your hard drive or not. If not, you should
take a look - they mentioned the conventional wisdom that
you gave for why defragmenting will increase performance,
but when they ran actual tests on the matter, they found
no significant increase in performance.
Also, on the issue of partitioning, they were right there
with you, that partitioning made a great deal of sense.
If you haven't already, the article is worth a look - go
to
http://www.pcworld.com/howto/article/0,aid,113743,00.asp
for the start of the main article, and the page with the
tests on defragging
is found at
http://www.pcworld.com/howto/article/1,aid,113743,pg,8,00.
asp
---Tim Fitzpatrick
Thanks, Tim. I did see the piece, but either they
mismeasured, or their definition of what constitutes
a "significant" change differs from mine.
I can see how that might happen. For example, if you
compare the performance of a fragmented drive to a
defragged one over the course of a full day, the
defragged drive's time savings might not seem to add up
to all that much (maybe a couple minutes). One could
argue that that isn't a "significant" improvement. But to
me, having a PC that feels snappier, more responsive and
less "in the way" all day long, is indeed significant.
I'll take a defragged drive any day.
And sometimes, the defrag differences are actually quite
dramatic. See next item.
Click to email this item to a friend
http://langa.com/sendit.htm
return to top of page
3) ...and Yea
Sometimes, defragging makes a *huge* difference:
Hi Fred. On the article in the newsletter on defragging (
http://www.langa.com/newsletters/2004/2004-01-22.htm#3 ),
I completely agree that PC World are dead wrong. I use
chat programs a fair bit as well as surfing the net and
in the past have noticed that my internet connection
(dial-up) would progressively deteriorate until it became
unstable. Once I had defragged though I would be back at
full speed both on chat programs and normal surfing.
And this degradation used to occur once my defragged
level went below 97%. Since then I have regularly
defragged at least once a week and have found not only
does my internet connection work better but both games
and applications I use as well ---Robert Mitchell,
Queensland, Australia
You're probably seeing fragmentation problems with the
internet cache, Robert. By default, Internet Explorer
sets aside a huge cache for itself. That alone can cause
performance issues, but if that huge cache ends up
scattered all over a fragmented drive, your PC will
thrash itself senseless trying to manage the cache as you
surf.
The solution is twofold. First, defragging will help, as
you've seen, because the cache will be all in one easy-to-
access piece. But you also can reduce the raw size of the
cache: In IE, go to Tools/Internet options and in
the "Temporary Internet Files" area use the Settings
button to make the cache something reasonable. (Other
browsers have similar settings.) For dial up systems, 20
or 25MB is usually enough cache. For always-on, high-
speed connections, 10MB or so is all you need.
Keeping the cache reasonably sized, and then keeping it
contiguous (defragged), should eliminate virtually all
cache-related performance problems