Memory issue

[Ramzy]

If Defraggler is left open for an extended period of time -- For instance, if it's defragging a large drive, or if you simply minimize it -- It tends to use up huge amounts of RAM. This is just a quick example, however i've seen it hit 700MB+

 

 

While Defraggler is open:

 

After Defraggler closes:

 

http://forum.piriform.com/index.php?showto...mp;#entry114130

 

I brought this up in 2008, in Windows XP. The issue has persisted over the year, through Vista, and now Windows 7... Would be nice if this got sorted already.

[Guest MrRon]

Can any one else confirm similar figures for RAM use?

[Ramzy]

The exact instant i open Defraggler, it uses about 90MB of RAM, but that's only with one HDD visible.

 

As more HDD's load into the list, Defraggler jumps to exactly 299MB RAM usage.

 

If i re-open Defraggler, it doesn't reload the list of hard drives, but it instantly uses 299MB of RAM.

 

Computer specs:

Intel Q9550 CPU

ASUS P5E motherboard

GTX285

8GB DDR2-800MHz

4 HDD's

- 2x400GB RAID0 (3 partitions)

- 2x1000GB regular

[John Gray]

It wouldn't surprise me if any active program would try to use as much memory space as it needs, if nothing else is running. Surely that's the way Windows memory allocation/optimisation is supposed to work?

[Ramzy]

Superfetch is for Windows, not for specific programs, as far as i understand.

 

Allocating 700MB of RAM to a program that calls on the standard defrag service in Windows doesn't make much sense.

 

In any case, my previous thread, in Windows XP, i used to only have 4GB of RAM, and i experienced the exact same issue.

[mr don]

The exact instant i open Defraggler, it uses about 90MB of RAM, but that's only with one HDD visible.

 

As more HDD's load into the list, Defraggler jumps to exactly 299MB RAM usage.

 

If i re-open Defraggler, it doesn't reload the list of hard drives, but it instantly uses 299MB of RAM.

 

Computer specs:

Intel Q9550 CPU

ASUS P5E motherboard

GTX285

8GB DDR2-800MHz

4 HDD's

- 2x400GB RAID0 (3 partitions)

- 2x1000GB regular

 

- Shutdown your PC

- Disconnect a drive from each Raid Array & reboot, try it again.

- If this solves the problem, check the switches for correct Master/Slave setup on the drives themselves.

- If this doesn't solve the problem, connect the drives (1 drive, non raid array) directly to the MoBo instead of a Raid Card & see if that solves the problem.

- If this still doesn't solve the problem, try connecting a flash drive or some other drive & see what it does without the other drives installed/running.

[Ramzy]

I run RAID0, i can't disconnect a drive without destroying my array.

 

Besides, why the hell would i want to do that? If MyDefrag, Auslogics Defrag, PerfectDisk, O&O Defrag, Diskeeper, and many more defragging programs run without any problems (excess ram usage), why should Defraggler be the exception?

 

Furthermore, when i had Windows XP, i didn't have a RAID array.

 

I don't think drastically changing my hardware setup is the right thing to do, considering Defraggler is the only program that suffers from this issue.

[MRIS]

I don't think drastically changing my hardware setup is the right thing to do, considering Defraggler is the only program that suffers from this issue.

 

I'm with him on that one.

 

I'm also seeing the same problem, and can confirm that the more drives you have the MUCH more memory defraggler uses.

 

I'm sure there's some design flaw in the code somewhere that misappropriates memory/forgets to release it.

[Ramzy]

There we go, MRIS knows what i'm talking about here.

 

Here's what i get the second i open Defraggler:

 

[Ramzy]

New version of Defraggler, v1.16.165 x64, same memory issue persists.

[Tasgandy]

Can any one else confirm similar figures for RAM use?

 

Screen captures indicate no issues with RAM use, see attached.

 

Regards

Tasgandy

 

[Gronxx]

Uses 230? MB on my 4-HDD xp64 system. I have 8 GB of RAM total.

 

Other big users include K-Meleon and AVG.

 

I don't have any problem with Defraggler's memory demands, as I would expect a defrag app to take a lot. Other defraggers I've used were more intrusive than Defraggler (especially OO) and, to me, Defraggler seems light and quick. (I wish I could say the same for Nero, which I like but which is really demanding and sensitive on my box.)

 

I agree that programs such as defraggers will serve best by using lots of memory if it is available. You want scans like this to work fast. If the system were crashing or seizing up because the memory usage were crippling it, THEN I would be concerned. On my box, Defrag completes the defrag of any selected drive and then Task Man drops Defraggler from the chart altogether, so I'm assuming that means that Defraggler has quit upon finishing and is now consuming nada.

[Ramzy]

Gronxx, you don't fully understand what's going on here.

 

Defraggler isn't using more memory to work better or run faster. It uses more memory the more hard drives you have listed in the GUI.

 

It's a memory leak... It doesn't affect your defrag times or stability. It's simply an issue caused by the number of drives listed.

 

It's a bug.

[John Gray]

It's a memory leak... It doesn't affect your defrag times or stability. It's simply an issue caused by the number of drives listed.

It's a bug.

Well, my Defraggler memory usage has stayed fairly constant at 361,024 KB (give or take a MB or so) for about half an hour while defragging.

 

Memory leaks cause the amount of memory used to increase with time, and (some of) the memory is not returned to the memory pool when the leaky program terminates. Is this what you observe?

[Ramzy]

Bought a new 1TB hard drive today, plugged it in, now defraggler boots up with 399MB of RAM usage.

 

Kind of getting silly now... Would like an official response.

 

After ONE single analysis, ram usage is nearly 500MB.

 

So now we know that this bug is directly related to the number of physical hard disk drives that are currently active.

 

edit: OK, i scanned each of my hard drives, now RAM usage is nearly 600MB.

[romex]

The same with me. My partitions:

 

Ram usage after start (not scan or defrag):

 

Ram usage after scan all partitions:

 

I made a little test:

I have Paragon Drive Backup is an exact copy (sector to sector, the same) in my partition "Z" made (65914 files, 32.6 GiB of 150GiB, 20% fragmented) and this once again with one competitors and their exact copy with Defraggler, defrag on the same partition.

The result:

The competition took 34 minutes and Defraggler took over 4 hours!

 

I repeat that again. The same result ... But why Defraggler takes so long?

 

EDIT: All on Windows Vista 64-Bit

[romanoff]

Hi Guys,

 

Can you please post the debug logs from these situations? The best ones would be /debug4 logs.

 

Best regards

Romanoff

[Ramzy]

Not sure how to post debug information from Defraggler.

 

Care to explain?

 

Also the latest version of defraggler with the changelog "- Rearchitected memory management on Vista/W7." still has not made a difference to the memory usage. In fact, it increased slightly.

[hazelnut]

See here

 

http://docs.piriform.com/defraggler/troubl...r-in-debug-mode

 

and here

 

http://docs.piriform.com/defraggler/advanc...line-parameters

[Ramzy]

Analyzed every single drive one by one, and did a quick defrag on C:

 

RAM usage was about 500MB by the end.

 

 

/debug3 generated an 80MB file that contained an index of every single file on all of my drives, which i will not be posting up, sorry.

Defraggler64.exe._1_17_172__2010_02_16_13_48_.txt

[romanoff]

Hi,

 

I see that some things need to be explained.

 

In order to use more sophisticated layout algorithms, Defraggler needs some knowledge about the structure of file system on the specific machine it is going to defrag. This data is gathered in memory in a highly efficient data structure. Unfortunately if the file system is large and complicated (has a very large number of files, fragments or a very deep folder tree) the memory consumption increases.

 

After the drive is analyzed the file system structure information is cached in memory (that's why you are able to switch between analyzed drives and see the list of fragmented files etc.), so after analyzing several drive the cumulative memory consumption may be large.

 

Best regards

Romanoff

[Ramzy]

I don't want to downplay the amount of work Piriform have put into Defraggler. It's an excellent free tool, and they have done a huge amount of work.

 

With that said -- Defraggler is one of the slowest defrag engines i have ever used. What takes Defraggler hours takes Perfectdisk or Diskeeper a fraction of the time.

 

Besides the defrag speed -- I can analyze every single one of my drives with Perfectdisk, yet the RAM usage is no where near the same as Defraggler. Same goes for Diskeeper.

 

Why is Defraggler any different? If Defraggler was an insanely fast defragger, i would say "fine, the ram usage is acceptable, it's putting all the information to good use" -- But Defraggler isn't fast. It's slow. Very slow. Slower than pretty much every other free or paid defragger available.

 

Something is wrong. Either there's a bug, or you guys need to trim the fat off of Defraggler and optimize its memory usage, as the current system is yielding no performance increase, and still eating up insane amounts of RAM.

[infimum]

Why is Defraggler any different? If Defraggler was an insanely fast defragger, i would say "fine, the ram usage is acceptable, it's putting all the information to good use" -- But Defraggler isn't fast. It's slow. Very slow. Slower than pretty much every other free or paid defragger available.

To be fair, its analyzing speed is the fastest of all defrag applications I've used. But I agree with you on other points.

 

I am using all the other applications put out by Piriform. They are lean, simple, and fast. I really hope Defraggler will be headed in the same direction.

[Ramzy]

I'm guessing this issue has pretty much been swept under the rug at this point. Looks like a fundamental issue in the way defraggler handles resources, something that i doubt will be fixed.

[Snowknight26]

Sure does look like it won't ever be fixed, nor any other critical issues (as can be seen from the lack of updates).

 

1.5GB of RAM usage even though no analysis could have taken place because it fails - which is a whole nother issue probably do to the RAID size - and the Properties group box that has the pie chart in the lower right still shows incorrect sizes (in bytes).

 

As always, attached is a debug4 log.

 

Defraggler64.exe._1_17_172__2010_02_20_22_00_.txt