In message , Char Jackson
writes:
On Sun, 4 Mar 2012 09:58:19 -0500, Stan Brown
wrote:

On Sun, 4 Mar 2012 08:09:32 -0500, Karen F wrote:

How often should you use Disk Defrag? I now have mine set for once a
month. Thanks.

The stock answer is that it depends on your patterns of disk usage.
But FWIW, since Windows XP was released I have occasionally done a
disk defrag and never, with XP or Win 7, never have I ever seen it
make any improvement.

Agreed. I've never seen it make a noticeable improvement. My
environment is XP and 7, all on NTFS. My advice is to just skip this
task.

I doubt you'd _often_ see an improvement in _performance_ - perhaps if
playing a large video file that was fragmented into lots of tiny pieces.
I _would_ feel _happier_ with a defragged disc - because I feel a
much-fragmented file is more likely to get corrupted, or cause some
other corruption; I do however concede that this is just a feeling.

One case where it could make a difference is drive wear: which way it
makes the difference will change with usage. If you have a lot of
fragmented files which you read often, then your head will do a lot of
seeking; conversely, if you don't read them often, you'll do a lot of
seeking when doing a defrag which you wouldn't otherwise.

(To answer the subject question: I very rarely defrag., usually when I
see a post about a different defragger which someone says is better and
I try it! Can't say I've noticed any improvement, though I _feel_ better
about it - feel the system is likely to be more _reliable_.[And yes I
know that doing the defrag. itself is in theory capable of damaging.])
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)Ar@T0H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

A kind of steely kindness - Carol-Ann Duffy on U. A. Fanthorpe, on Radio 4
2011-12-19