Defragment xp question

[alidan]

should i defrag a 1.5tb seagate drive, i have less than 2% free space and last time i looked it up, windows wants 10-15% free space before you defrag.

im also a bit concerned about wear and tear on the drive.

any help here would be appreciated.

 

[Pyree]

No need to worry about wear and tear, worry about whether you have enough space to complete the defrag. Is this a boot drive or backup/storage drive? If it is boot drive, I recommend you get a new HDD and move your extra stuff to the new drive. If it is a backup/storage drive, fragmentation is not too much of an issue.

 

[Hawkeye22]

Defraggler may be able to work with that little free space. I don't know for sure because I can't currently get to piriform's web site. If the link below doesn't work, try back later.

http://www.piriform.com/defraggler

 

[WyomingKnott]

I defrag disks by doing an image backup and restore (with warnings like verify the backup so that you don't destroy your drive. Ideally, restore to a new drive). Using my ancient and obsolete Norton Ghost 8.0, I get totally unfragged results.

You might consider getting a second drive and moving some of your storage to it. An excellent way to free up space.

 

[apache_lives]

why bother its xp - its never going to get better

you want performance you need windows 7, more ram and an ssd otherwise meh

also - if your worried about ware and tare dont, aslong as you backup any important data you will be fine, dont trust any single hdd with your important data, the drive can fail any time anywhere

 

[alidan]

i despise windows 7, i cant use it without swearing profusely every single time i have had to touch it over the last i believe year and a half.

i have 2 hdds, which are basically mirrors, because i cant trust the 1.5tb drive, and after 6 failures across the two in a small time frame, who would.

anyone know if any problems will occur with normal windows defrag though? it doesn't tell me i cant defrag, just that it recommends 10%, at the same time, xp was built before 100+gb drives were the norm, and before 1tb on a drive was even an option.

 

[Hawkeye22]

Just start it before you go to bed and check for errors or completion in the morning. The worse that will happen is that it leaves part of your drive fragmented. It will not cause any data loss.

 

[alidan]

well everything thats hard to backup is backed up, so heres hoping nothing goes wrong.

wear and tear is honestly only a concern due to 6 failed drives in a small time.

defraging as soon as i go to sleep.

 

[zero888]

Oh man isn`t defragging everyones favorite thing to do while maintaining a computer
I remember do it for someone`s hdd that was 7 YEARS OLD!!!

 

[RonCaber]

should i defrag a 1.5tb seagate drive, i have less than 2% free space and last time i looked it up, windows wants 10-15% free space before you defrag.

im also a bit concerned about wear and tear on the drive.

any help here would be appreciated.

Wow, it looks like you have been through the ringer with defragmenting your hard drives!

I've had similar frustrations, so I know exactly where you are coming from.

As for wear and tear, like the other posters point out, it is not really an issue with defragmenting if it is done thoroughly. Keep in mind that the built-in was designed for casual users (and much smaller drives as well). what may be happening is that the built-in may not be able to completely defrag that size drive even if left on all night. If the defrag is not complete, THAT will cause extra wear and tear on your machine (fragmentation leads to over-use of the drive, so they tend to fail prematurely).

I would recommend a good commercial defragmenter that runs transparently so it does not interfere with your usage of the PC. Also, such programs tend to be much faster, and the best of the best actually prevent most of the fragmentation in the first place, so it makes it a lot more pleasant to work on your PC.

Here is a Top 10 Reviews which shows an unbiased side-by-side comparison of the best defrag programs around:

http://disk-defragmenter-software-review.toptenreviews.com/

The top placer was completely transparent during defrag (with the PC being used with programs running in the background) and it also prevents fragmentation.

Get a free trial of a good commercial defragmenter and see how if it helps your system as much as it helped mine.

Cheers!

Ron Caber

 

[harveytoot]

It is best to do it with 10 % space. I highly recommend doing it with diskeeper as they are offering free trials on their website and it is a very good program!