this forum is full of reports that Defraggler is slow and/or creates a lot of CPU usage while having close to no disc activity. Inexplicably to the present day this issue is still not fixed, despite the cause seems quite clear. Therefore I'll try and report again and hope that this time something good comes from it:
The issue happens whenever defragmenting a drive with many small files.
It happens with normal "Defrag" operation (not with "Quick Defrag" or when defragging files from "File list", at least it's by far not as severe with those operations)
The actual slow part - and therefore the bottleneck of the defrag operation - is the part where Defraggler decides where to put a file.
One can clearly see in task manager that CPU load for one core is nearly constantly at 100% (that is e.g. 50% total CPU load on my dual core machine). Then for a very short moment (when the file is actually moved) CPU load drops a little, only to rise again as soon as Defraggler starts to compute the best place for the next file.
CPU load is exclusively created by "Defraggler.exe" (or "Defraggler64.exe" respectively). There is no anti virus software interfering (I have even turned it off just to be able to eliminate is as a cause). There is absolutely no other disk activity during this time. There are no backup solutions interfering (I completely disabled SystemRestore / VolumeShadowingService and the like). It's just Defraggler!
Therefore it seems obvious to me that the algorithm that determines where to put files is simply too slow and needs to be improved!
Just to clarify the severity of this issue: When I defrag my hard drive there's only about one write operation every five seconds (for files with only single digit KB sizes)! You can probably come up with an estimate on how long it takes to move several thousand of files during a full defrag yourself...
A little bit of system information:
- OS: Windows 7 Professional x64
- CPU: Intel Core2Duo P8400 (2 x 2.26 GHz)
- HDD: Seagate Laptop Thin SSHD (ST500LM000);
same issue with a Western Digital Scorpio Blue (WD2500BEVT) which I had installed before
- Defraggler: v2.18.945 (64-bit, same issue with 32-bit version though)
Good report. I am wondering whether Defraggler "feels" like it's discontinued. No updates since a lot of time and a few long standing bugs remain (the cpu usage and the terrible "fast fill" algorithm come to mind).
in the off-chance that turning off your AV may still leave some background processes running, and just the usual swag of Windows background services running, it may be a better test if done with the PC in Safe Mode.
it's the only way to say with any sort of assurity that no other activity could be interfering. (of course the caveat is that DF runs in Safe Mode, can't see why it shouldn't)
I would have to agree with OP. I had posted a bug about the rediculously low loads it was placing on my 8 disk RAID 6, but it looks like Piriform deleted it for whatever reason. I can see Defraggler is loading only a one and a third cores, and I can only guess it will take it at least a month to defrag the 4+ TB of fragmented files I have. The only reason I use this is because it supports ReFS and is free. If they made it not suck [eggs] (and be like [another product] i'd consider paying for it.
I had also filed another bug report about it not properly displaying volume sizes 10TB and over, that got deleted too.
( [ ] = Moderator editted to remove competitive product mention and foul language -nergal)
I had posted a bug about the rediculously low loads it was placing on my 8 disk RAID 6, but it looks like Piriform deleted it for whatever reason.
*********************
I had also filed another bug report about it not properly displaying volume sizes 10TB and over, that got deleted too.
Piriform doesn't delete threads (or really interact with the forum at all), moderators (and once, a hacked forum) do, and we do it rarely and only for spam or abuse.
Yes they are Nergal. Is there any reason they dont show up under the Defraggler Bug Reporting part of this forum? The earliest post I see is from 01-28-15. Also for comparision, [a network product I use] doesn't have a problem loading my RAID, ( [ ] = Moderator edit of competition product removal -nergal )
I know there's a way to make older posts show but I can't remember how. Sorry.
Please stop mentioning competition products I've asked another moderator (I can't remove images in my mobile state) to remove that section of that post, although I'd rather you did it before they get here
I know there's a way to make older posts show but I can't remember how. Sorry. Please stop mentioning competition products I've asked another moderator (I can't remove images in my mobile state) to remove that section of that post, although I'd rather you did it before they get here
Wow, so you guys actively do censor posts from customers where they demonstrate that competitors products work when your bug ridden product does not. Good job losing a potential paying customer for life. I'd think you'd want to court the type of people who have 8x 4TB RAIDs (among other rediculous specs) in their home computers, since they often work in IT professionally, and have the ability to procure software on a large scale.
And i'm not sure why you called that a "network product". The only reason I was running the server version is because that license is required to run it on a server OS, and I'm running 2012 R2 Server because Windows 8.1 doesn't offically support ReFS. And its not like anyone isnt going to know what software it is anyways, its not like there are a lot of defragging products which support ReFS.
Says the man who has managed to post over 3,000 times on a forum for a no name software company. Who really has nothing better to do with their life than spend every waking hour for the past few years, reading and responding to every post in this forum?
Meanwhile the original issue stays once more unaddressed...
I dont see it ever being addressed, this product certainly seems abandoned. The developer can't be bothered to make quick bug fixes like the incorrect volume size being displayed which I reported well over a month ago. But look at how quick they are to censor the posts of customers. Piriform has plenty of people who could be working on the product, they'd rather just try to gain (or perhaps more accurately maintain) market share by pretending their competition doesn't exist.
What isn't being said is that the developers read everything posted and make changes accordingly.
Further confirming that this product has been abandoned. Just look at the version history, its been almost a year since a release from them. And if you go through it entirely you can see initially they spent a lot of time developing the product as indicated by their frequent releases, which over time taper off as they lose interest in this product. Defraggler is dead: