Defrag or not to Defrag?

[AstaLaVista]

Hmm, didn't know that Vista has an automated Defrag option... it goes to show how much of a Noob I am when it comes to Vista

I rather do a manual defrag though since I use my PC mainly for Gaming, I hate to be in the middle of a firefight and have lag or slow FPS's because Vista decides to do a schedule defrag at that moment and since my PC is turned off during the day, I can set it up do so then.

 

[Barman58]

Hi Astalavista,

You can schedule the vista defrag to a particular time and it is designed to stop as soon as any user activity is sensed, you may already be using it without knowing it :D

 

[SIW2]

Hi altavista,

If you type defrag into the start search menu, it will pop up. Right click it and select Open , then you will see something like this.



Good idea to set the scheduled defrag to a time when your pc is likely to be on, although it will run later if missed - this tutorial explains it :

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/72832-disk-defragmenter.html

Hope it helps

SIW2

 

[swarfega]

Here is one forum discussion on the topic of lost free space after defrag. There are lots of them online.

windows vista general Reduced disk free space after defrag in Vista SP1

I was not aware of it until I read this. And it is true....I did lose free space (from 77 % to 75%) and gain used space after my last defrag (which I did manually out of curiosity). Further reading on the topic indicates Vista's most recent defrag system has the least loss in free space compared to XP, W98 and earlier versions. Apparently, the more intricate earlier versions (when defrag is graphed and progress is illustrated)required more space to function. Hence the seemingly truncated (and disappointing to most of us) "cheaper" Vista no illustration system.

Out of curiosity, I just checked my free space, 1 week post-defrag, and it's higher by 1% (76%) even after having downloaded a tutorial video (video+Quicktime player=1GB total).

Honestly, I dunno how to interpret this space loss and gain in relation to defragging. In summary, I still will defrag but only when my PC says so. (yep, I concede my CPU has tech IQ higher than mine)

The fact that theres a post in another forum doesn mean its correct. Your just consolidating data, defrag cant create new data.