Windows 10 defrag

[newbury]

I've been running an early 2019 Dell laptop (8GB RAM, 1TB HD) for my main computer since I got it in 2019. Worked well for a few years, then last year it seemed to get slower. General info on the web and from a couple of sys admins was "Don't try and defrag, it's not worth it".
So about Thanksgiving I bought a refurbed Dell w/ a SSD drive. But to get to my price point (< $250) I had to go to a 512 GB HD w/ 16GB RAM.
Sort of sat the 2019 aside except for pulling something off it now and then. But the 2019 would take forever to boot up proper, the HD was always at 100% usage for a long time. Yesterday I wanted to pull a rarely used file off it instead of from my backup. It took 4 hours or more for the disk activity to allow me to get in, search around and grab the file.
Since I have a complete backup I decided to waste the time and try a defrag.
The Windows 10 defrag took 4 hours to run. The computer works well now.
Boot up only took about a minute after log in before disk activity died down.
I'm glad I hadn't done that before I bought the refurb. A "live backup" is good to have.

 

[bmaverick]

I've been running an early 2019 Dell laptop (8GB RAM, 1TB HD) for my main computer since I got it in 2019. Worked well for a few years, then last year it seemed to get slower. General info on the web and from a couple of sys admins was "Don't try and defrag, it's not worth it".
So about Thanksgiving I bought a refurbed Dell w/ a SSD drive. But to get to my price point (< $250) I had to go to a 512 GB HD w/ 16GB RAM.
Sort of sat the 2019 aside except for pulling something off it now and then. But the 2019 would take forever to boot up proper, the HD was always at 100% usage for a long time. Yesterday I wanted to pull a rarely used file off it instead of from my backup. It took 4 hours or more for the disk activity to allow me to get in, search around and grab the file.
Since I have a complete backup I decided to waste the time and try a defrag.
The Windows 10 defrag took 4 hours to run. The computer works well now.
Boot up only took about a minute after log in before disk activity died down.
I'm glad I hadn't done that before I bought the refurb. A "live backup" is good to have.

Do you have the hard drive NOT indexed or is it indexing? Indexing only helps when fast searching the drive for a file or folder. Yet, it's a huge hog of computer resources and is a culprit of fragmenting the drive.

I typically turn indexing OFF on all my computers and use the program call, EVERYTHING to search.

Next to keep the bloat down, run CCLEANER at least 1X per week. Even if it's the basic clean. Get the free version.

Over the years, Win10 was ok running with 8Gb RAM. After updates and added programs, 16Gb should be the minimum to keep the machine happy.

Yes, a backup is good to have. Not only of the user main folder and below, also the bookmarks saved off from the browser.

Win10 Pro, 3.4Ghz QC I5, 16Gb RAM boots up in less than 16 seconds.

 

[MossRoad]

The problem with windows operating systems is they do no put things back where they got them from.

I've used this explanation for years...

Take your nice, organized, personal file cabinet for example.
- Open a drawer.
- Take your tax folder out.
- Pull some pages from 4 years ago out of it, look them over.
- Now put the pages you took out anywhere they'll fit in the drawer, not in the tax folder, not next to each other, just anywhere they'll fit in the drawer.
- As you do this, write yourself a note as to where each page was put.
- Now the next time you need those pages, consult the note, hunt for each page, pull them out one at a time, look them over, put them back in different places in the drawer, be sure and update your note.

Each time you access a file, Windows breaks it up into pieces (fragments), puts the fragments anywhere they'll fit, and writes itself a note as to where the fragments are.

The more you use the PC, the more fragments windows creates, the longer it takes to locate and assemble the fragments each time you need them.

The ONLY reason Windows works is because processor speed has increased enough to handle this massive task.

Windows is a brute force operating system. It is not elegant, like UNIX.

 

[MossRoad]

I've used a free version of Auslogics Disk Defrag for years on hard drives. (not sure it works on SSD without the paid version).

I set it to defrag AND optimize the drive. It goes out, finds all the fragments, puts them all back in contiguous space, and gains you a huge contiguous chunk of free space.

Windows needs that free space to efficiently throw all the fragments into as it re-frags your hard drive again.

 

[dstig1]

Can you buy drives pre-fragged? Asking for a friend...

 

[CliffordK]

One thing that Windows tends to do is run updates at the most inconvenient moments. If you had a computer that had been off the web for 2 years, then reconnected it to the web and turned it on, you can be sure it tried to slam you with updates.

I've been experimenting with a cell phone hotspot for a while. It works reasonably well, except I repeatedly get hit with Windows updates that just grinds my web access to a halt. I also got it preinstalled with WPS office (which I don't really use) that really hammers me.

While Windows doesn't seem to allow me to turn off updates, I can recognize several bad actors and kill the processes whenever I see them.

 

[MossRoad]

Can you buy drives pre-fragged? Asking for a friend...

 

[LittleBill21]

guys SSD doesn't need defrag its actually bad for them. they use something called TRIM which lets the storage controller decide how the data is placed on the ssd.

I haven't run a defrag in prolly 10+ years and my machines work fine. You really don't need any of this software anymore, most of it causes more issues then it solves.

 

[MossRoad]

One thing that Windows tends to do is run updates at the most inconvenient moments. If you had a computer that had been off the web for 2 years, then reconnected it to the web and turned it on, you can be sure it tried to slam you with updates.

I've been experimenting with a cell phone hotspot for a while. It works reasonably well, except I repeatedly get hit with Windows updates that just grinds my web access to a halt. I also got it preinstalled with WPS office (which I don't really use) that really hammers me.

While Windows doesn't seem to allow me to turn off updates, I can recognize several bad actors and kill the processes whenever I see them.

You can select when windows will check for and download updates. But expecting it to wait on a machine that's been off for 2 years is kinda hoping.

 

[MossRoad]

guys SSD doesn't need defrag its actually bad for them. they use something called TRIM which lets the storage controller decide how the data is placed on the ssd.

I haven't run a defrag in prolly 10+ years and my machines work fine. You really don't need any of this software anymore, most of it causes more issues then it solves.

I think we're talking about defragging the old spinning disk hard drives, not SSD. I don't have any windows machines with SSD. I have one with a couple TB hard drives.