A strange thing happended. I run defraggler on a few years old Finnish Vista (Amilo Si3655) computer.
The following lists the information Defraggler gives before and after the operation (I used finnish version and tried to translate terms back to english my self):
Disk health = good.
Before defragging:
1078 fragmented files = 49,0 GB
12419 fragments together
27% fragmented
Benchmark: Random reading 1,01 MB/s
Disk space used 180,5 GB
Disk space free 11,6 GB
Disk size 192,1 GB
After defragging:
27 fragmented files =28,8 GB
321 fragments together
19% fragmented
Benchmark: Random reading 1,30 MB/s
Disk space used 154,4 GB
Disk space free 37,2 GB
Disk size 192,1 GB
So, it appear that there is more than 25GB more free space in the disk. Where does it come from or what has gone?
I really cannot say is some files have gone, I need to check that.
Is it possible that defraggler has fixed something in the file system, so that fragmented and possibly messy system used more space than it should?
I didn't empty recycle bin when defraggler asked. But it appear that there are only few and relatively new files. (though it is possible we emptiend the bin a month ago, but cannot remember.)
So, I am very curious about this. What has happened? Is this a bug or did defraggler fix something?
So far I haven't encountered any missing files, and the computer feels to operate more smoothly than before.
You had only 6% free space before defrag so I'm presuming you lost Restore Points, which increased free space to 19%. In Vista you can check your VSS size by right-clicking System Volume Information\ Properties\ Size.
You can check the quantity of Restore Points in CCleaner\ Tools\ System Restore.
Unless suspended, Windows ordinarily increases VSS size during defrag, but you may have lost some or all of your Restore Points due to Windows clipping the VSS allocation cos you were running low on free space.
To temporarily suspend VSS activity during defrag ensure this is ticked ☑ . .
If you now have no Restore Points create one immediately.
Thanks for the answer. I think that what you wrote is exactly what happened for me.
I did not have the "Stop VSS ..." check selected.
Using ccleaner I can see that I have no restore points before the defragg operation. But there are some newer.
Using System Volume Information\ Properties I can only see zero size, but searching for "VSS size" I found the vssadmin command which now gives several GBs of shadow copies.
If I understand correctly, the maximum size of the shadow copies is initialized to the smaller of 15% of the volume size or 30% free volume size.
So, 15% of 192,1GB is roughly 28.8 GB. Thus it seems reasonable that there was 25.x GB of backups which are now gone. Also, the free size of the disk just after running degraggler was 37.2 GB. 30% of it equals, 11.6 GB, and as it happens, vssadmin report maximum shadow copy size of 11.159GB.
So, all this evidence suggests that the shadow copy area was indeed cleared and re-initialized during defragging.
By the way, I think the Finnish version of "Stop VSS when defragmenting NTFS volume" is translated incorrectly. It says "Pysäytä virituaali-levy kun eheytetään NTFS levyä". In English this means something like "Stop virtual disk when ..." (anyway, it should say virtuaali). To translate "Stop VSS when ... " I would perhaps say something like "Pysäytä järjestelmän palautus, kun ..." where "järjestelmän palautus" means "system restore". Or simply say "Pysäytä VSS-toiminto, kun ...".
Using System Volume Information\ Properties I can only see zero size, but searching for "VSS size" I found the vssadmin command which now gives several GBs of shadow copies.
Interesting. In my Vista SP2 they concur.
If I understand correctly, the maximum size of the shadow copies is initialized to the smaller of 15% of the volume size or 30% free volume size.
You can adjust the maximum size for shadow storage. If you wish to max it at 10GB, in Command Prompt type:
Other readers of this thread who wish to verify shadow storage allocation -- Start\ Accessories\ right-click Command Prompt, Run as Administrator, type:
vssadmin list shadowstorage
enter.
Both actions are easier in Win7. Win key + Pause-Break\ System Protection. Hilite the OS[C] system drive\ Configure\ Disk Space Usage. Adjust the slider.
