Defraggler and windows 10 Defrag tool show very different defragmentation

[bobsage]

For some reason on some of my drives defraggler shows 20%, 35%,50% fragmentation but windows built in tool shows 0% fragmentation for them. Is this normal that the two are so different? 

[nukecad]

Yes it's normal.

All defrag tools use different methods, and different rules/settings. All will show different levels of fragmantation depending on those rules/settings.

What may be especially relevant here is that they often have settings to ingnore files with less than 'X' fragements, or files that are less than 'Y' KB in size (or more than 'Z' KB in size).

Obviously if they have different settings for those then they will show different levels.

[Andavari]

Windows 10 built in defrag tool won't defragment files over 64MB in size.

Allot of 3rd party defrag tools will defrag with no file size limitation - which in turn can cause System Restore Points to start disappearing. More strange is the potential loss of overall hard disk space supposedly not tied to System Restore Points, etc., with hard disk space that mysteriously can't be reclaimed - just search the forums for that.

In my opinion when using 3rd party defrag tools on the system disk where Windows is installed it's better to just have them defrag only the fragmented files, i.e.; via the file list like what Defraggler and umpteen others have and then let Windows itself deal with optimization. If you do things that way your defrag's will be done surprisingly fast, you won't have to disable the built in optimization, and the built in optimization won't have to undo a ton of stuff 3rd party defrag tools do differently.

[bobsage]

Thanks for your responses. Most of my fragmented files are large and over 64mb, so that is why windows does not see them as fragmented.

Some of these drives are 6-8tb and only have 5% space left. Some files are 2-10gb movie files. Would you recommend choosing the "move large files to end of drive" option?

 

8 hours ago, Andavari said:

In my opinion when using 3rd party defrag tools on the system disk where Windows is installed it's better to just have them defrag only the fragmented files, i.e.; via the file list like what Defraggler and umpteen others have and then let Windows itself deal with optimization. If you do things that way your defrag's will be done surprisingly fast, you won't have to disable the built in optimization, and the built in optimization won't have to undo a ton of stuff 3rd party defrag tools do differently.

Are you referring to doing the quick defrag instead of the full defrag?

 

[nukecad]

Andavari means in Defraggler - Ananlyze - View Files (or open the file tab) - then check (or highlight) the specific files you want to defrag - and select 'Defrag Checked' (or Defrag Highlighted).

That defragments only the specific fragmented files rather than reorganising the whole disk, so it's much quicker to do.

Windows 10 itself will Optimise (reorganise) the Disk in the background as and when required.

[Andavari]

Exactly. For me that's the modern way of defragmenting HDD's since Windows 10 has the restriction on the file size limit. After I replace my 2TB external portable backup HDD with an SSD of matching capacity my days of performing defragmentation will be over.