Defraggler & Memory usage

Defraggler
1

I came across something odd. Yesterday I ran DF v2.08 on a Win XP machine with 1 GB of memory. And at the same time I watched what happened with DF's memory usage. It went up from ~15 Mb to ~ 45 Mb when DF was analyzing a 11 Gb drive. Right after it was finished analyzing, memory usage went back down to ~ 25 Mb.

And that behaviour of that DF version contrasted with how DF v2.12 behaved on my Win 7 laptop with 8 Gb memory. I ran DF and memory usage went from about 4 Mb (direct after DF's start) to ~ 175 Mb when it had finished analyzing my 500 Gb harddisk. The big surprise was that DF's memory usage didn't go down after DF had analyzed that drive. It remained at ~175 Mb.

Question: does DF take the size of the total amount of (remaining free) memory into account whether or not to reduce its memory "footprint". ? Or has this part of the program code been removed ? Perhaps one of the moderators can pass on this question to one of the developers ?

2

Why not download from FileHippo the installer for one of these older versions and test for yourself whether it is defraggler that has changed,

or if it is something about the different amount of RAM and or differences between 64 bit Windows 7 and / or ?? bit Windows XP ?

3

1. Excellent idea. Should have thought of that before.

2. Downloaded and installed v2.08 on my Win 7 (64 bit) system. But to no avail. Both versions (v2.08 & v2.14) install two programs (Defraggler64.exe & Defraggler.exe) but when I run these two programs, they both say they're a 64 bit version. Yet both programs are different in size. Shouldn't one program (Defraggler.exe) say "32 bit" and the other program ("Defraggler64.exe") say "64 bit" (click on "help", "about") ??

3. When I run Defraggler.exe or Defraggler64.exe then in both cases both programs show up in Task Manager under the process "Defraggler64.exe". Seems DF automatically starts the 64 bit version when it detects its installed on a 64 bit version.

4. Tried all versions (v2.08, v2.14) & (Defraggler.exe & Defraggler64.exe) but no version reduced memory usage after the initial analysis. Seems DF determines that there's (more) than enough free memory available and then it simply doesn't reduce the amount of memory it occupies.

4

For the last few years I have never installed Piriform products, I have always unzipped the Portable versions.

I always have both the 32 bit and 64 bit versions available to unzip on my 64 bit system.

I still have dfsetup211.zip and have now unzipped the 32 bit variant in the same folder as the 64 bit variant.

I double click the 32 bit variant and Defraggler is launched.

I click on help / About and as I expected I was told v2.11.560 (64 bit), even though Windows Explorer still shows that I have selected the 32 bit version.

I rename Defraggler64.exe as #Defraggler64.exe and NOW when I launch the 32 bit variant and use Help / About I only see v2.11.560 - it no longer passes control to the 64 bit version.

When I launch Defraggler.exe it takes a

Working Set (Memory) of 13,856 K and Peak ditto of 36,108 K and after a single Analyze of C:\ it increases to

Working Set (Memory) of 48,536 K and Peak ditto of 76,740 K and after a second Analyze of C:\ it increases to

Working Set (Memory) of 48,928 K and Peak ditto of 77,312 K

When I launch #Defraggler64.exe it takes a

Working Set (Memory) of 15,392 K and Peak ditto of 38,196 K and after a single Analyze of C:\ it increases to

Working Set (Memory) of 51,028 K and Peak ditto of 90,284 K and after a second Analyze of C:\ it increases to

Working Set (Memory) of 51,656 K and Peak ditto of 91,296 K

When #Defraggler64.exe Analyzes R:\ it achieves working of 263,236 K and Peak of 417,624 K

R:\ is a 742 GB Partition with 686 GB of used space consisting of 386.195 files in 60,829 Folders rescued from a broken HDD

Defraggler reports 40,613 Fragmented Files (504.6 GB) and 96,289 Total Fragments, 73% fragmentation.

I would guess that After an Analyze the memory is not released because :-

either it will happen within a second or two of the user deciding it is not worth defragging today,

or alternatively it will be needing the information in the memory to determine which files to shuffle first and where to shuffle them.

Quite possibly when Memory is in short supply then defraggler may be more frugal in its use of resources,

and as a result it may take longer to do the same job.

This may explain / illustrate the "folklore wisdom" that you can make a computer faster by throwing more RAM at it. :D

5

I tested the 32 bit & 64 bit version and I saw something similar. And yes, it makes a difference in performance/speed when the user curtails DF's memory usage. (think CLEANMEM !). It's not a difference of night and day, but it's significant enough to be noticed.

Of course, "throwing more RAM at it" increases one's computer speed ! Two weeks ago I increased the amount of memory form 4 GB to 8 GB. Previously, Win 7 always filled nearly the entire memory, not used by processes, with data of some kind and called that "Stand-By" memory. Now with 8 GB, after having used my laptop for say 1 hour, it's not unusually to see the amount of "Stand-by" memory grow to 4 & 5 GB and in some (rare ?) occasions even to over 6 GB.

Switching between tasks/processes is always faster when all the info/data needed is in the memory than reading it from harddisk.