Correct defragmentation order?

[Toshik]

Hello!

 

The questions is what is the right order to defragment the drive with defraggler?

 

1). When i full defrag the drive defraggler shows 0 fragmented files. Like it should be.

 

2). Then i defrag free space and after that analyzer shows some files that are again fragmented 2-3%.    

 

So i redo full defrag, again 0% but free space is fragmented according to disk map  . That is endless circle.

 

Should i defrag free space first and then make full disk defrag or vice versa?

 

Looked through help, but didn't find anything about this issue.

 

P.S: On big volumes (400Gb-1,2Tb) when i defrag all fragmented files, it shows 0 of them are fragmented. Then if i click defrag, it does smth very slowly up to whole night (8 hrs), but i don't understand what is it actually doing cause there are 0 fragmented files.

 

So can smb clarify this things to me?

[Nergal]

Basically the amount of fragmentation you are worried about is so small that it has no baring on your pc. Freespace is used and disused and other things are working on the pc. You are fine with the amount of fragmentation you are currently experiencing and you're not going to do much better. Personally if pushed to answer i'd rarely freespace defrag and would stick with drive or file defrag and not worry if <20%

[mta]

I think I can recall only once doing a freespace defrag in all my digital life.

and as @Nergal says, your levels of fragmentation are fine.  the effort you are expending far exceeds the benefit you are aiming for.

what you seem to be trying to achieve, firstly, is the Holy Grail of defragging, and secondly, simply wasted at the next PC reboot.

then there is the time and hard drive usage going down the drain.

 

personally, my DF process consists of sorting the File List into descending size order and selecting all files > 10,000KB then re-analysing and sorting the Fragments into descending order and selecting all files > 10 fragments.

takes mere minutes and you get the best performance gain for the smallest effort with least drive wear.

I do this maybe once every 3 months (and even that is a bit excessive - every six months would suffice.  we seem to have been fooled into thinking we should DF very regularly and for the average user, we simply don't need to.)

[Toshik]

Thx for explanation, i will stick to disk defrag instead of free space.

 

And as for the second questions what is DF doing if the analysis shows 0 fragmented files? I presume it somehow reorders files according to inner algorithm even when the option to move large files to end of the drive is not selected. 

[mta]

as a test, try doing your Q2 in Safe Mode as that way there would be nothing running in the background that may be causing re-fragmentation or DF to change it's %.

[login123]

For the 2nd question: 

 

 2). Then i defrag free space and after that analyzer shows some files that are again fragmented 2-3%.     

 

Don't know the answer why this is, but every defragment tool I ever used, external or built in to the OS (xp & 7), do the same thing . . . immediately after they finish there is some small degree of fragmentation. 

 

As said above, it won't help much to try to get that percentage to zero. 

[Andavari]

every defragment tool I ever used, external or built in to the OS (xp & 7), do the same thing . . . immediately after they finish there is some small degree of fragmentation. 

 

I think that's by nature, and probably why many defrag tools completely undo what another one has did by spending forever re-arranging a disk that was just deemed fully defragged with a competing product.

[Toshik]

I noticed that Defraggler can't defrag pagefile.sys. That's ok what i thought, because this file is in use by system.

But after i booted another OS (i have dualboot), i still didn't manage to defrag it, but this time, it is not used at all.

 

Why does DF unable to defrag it?

[kroozer]

 

 

I noticed that Defraggler can't defrag pagefile.sys.

To defrag pagefile.sys you run a Boot Time Defrag .  .
http://www.piriform.com/docs/defraggler/technical-information/boot-time-defrag
 

[Toshik]

 

To defrag pagefile.sys you run a Boot Time Defrag .  .

http://www.piriform.com/docs/defraggler/technical-information/boot-time-defrag

 

1). This menu is greyed out (disabled) in my free version of defraggler.

2).  I'm more interested in technical details why i'm not able to defragment pagefile.sys under second OS, but able at boot-time as you mentioned