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Need 3rd Option besides 'Quick Defrag' and 'Defrag'


xpacetrue

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I understand that Quick Defrag is meant to be just that, a quick and dirty defrag that sorts out the worst of the problem in a short amount of time. And 'Defrag' is for a thorough job where time isn't much of a constraint, right? We can expect to leave it run overnight, right? That's acceptable. That's fine... in theory.

Don't get me wrong: Most of the time, Defraggler works like a champ. Usually, it performs well and as swiftly as one can expect. Usually...

But, in my personal experience with Defraggler Professional v2.22.995 (64-bit), it sometimes acts up. By that, I mean it occasionally takes far too long even defragging a bit over a hundred gigabytes on a roughly 420 GB partition (Western Digital Caviar Black 500 GB, internal, 7200 RPM). Specifically, it seems to hang on a particular block.

But it's not a bad sector. And it's not even hanging. It's just stuck on that one block for 10 hours or more! I can tell that the program is running. At the bottom, left hand corner it displays the file it is currently analyzing or working on. And it is still going through files, albeit very, very slowly. What's more, I can tell that the files it is slowly going through are small. Indeed, many of them are .png image files, which it goes through at a rate of about 1 file per second. I can also tell that it only vary rarely writes to disk, spending the bulk of it's time constantly reading and analyzing.

The way I see it: Sometimes Defraggler seems to try too hard to consolidate and fill up the remaining space in a block to the point that it seems to thoroughly analyze nearly all the files on the disk in order to find one that fits the space just perfectly. It's almost like it's trying to find a single puzzle piece to fit a puzzle the size of a football field and it is individually picking up and scrutinizing every puzzle piece (file) available. But there's such a thing as going overboard, is there not?

While I have the patience to let Defraggler run overnight or even a bit longer, my patience is not infinite. Most recently, I had it defrag less than 127 GB out of a 420 GB partition. I started it in the evening and it gave an initial estimate of about 3.5 hours. But it became stuck on one block almost immediately. About 10 hours later, the estimate became 45 minutes, eventually becoming 30 minutes. And 14 hours later the estimate is still 30 minutes with no sign of finishing.

My point:

To avoid users like myself getting very frustrated at this - terminating the process prematurely and just relying on 'Quick Defrag' from now on - we desperately need a third option. That, or we need a checkbox somewhere in options to disable whatever behavior is causing it to get stuck on a single block for over 10 hours. Maybe users should be able to choose between "Quick Defrag", "Defrag Lite" and "Defrag Heavy"?

 

Edited by xpacetrue
clarification
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On 01/01/2021 at 17:12, xpacetrue said:

The way I see it: Sometimes Defraggler seems to try too hard to consolidate and fill up the remaining space in a block to the point that it seems to thoroughly analyze nearly all the files on the disk in order to find one that fits the space just perfectly. It's almost like it's trying to find a single puzzle piece to fit a puzzle the size of a football field and it is individually picking up and scrutinizing every puzzle piece (file) available. 

What you need in this circumstance is a 'files only defrag' rather than a consoildate.

TBH most experienced users use a file only defrag, disc consolidation takes longer and once drives got to 500 Gb and above consolidation just takes too long.
(And usually isn't needed anyway as you are less likely to be running out of disc space on a larger drive).

I've never had a file defrag take longer than about 30 mins, that's usually after a Windows update/Patch Tuesday, most are much shorter if you do it weekly.

To do a files only defrag in Defraggler:
Analyze as usual.
Once you have the results click on 'View Files'. (or select the 'Files list' tab).
image.png

Now click on the box at the top of the list to tick all the fragmented files found, then click 'Defrag Checked'
image.png

That will defragment the fragmented files without attempting to consolidate the disk.

PS. If you get an error saying 'Defrag Aborted' don't worry about it, it happens occasionally sometimes more that others.
It has defragged what it can, but has left alone anything system protected, or anything that has altered or been reopened, since the analyze.
(Usually defender, sysWOW64, SXS, or $Extend files, sometimes your AVs files).
You can see that here, the $Extend file(s) has not been defragmented and still has 23 fragments, but the rest are now in one piece.
image.png

*** Out of Beer Error ->->-> Recovering Memory ***

Worried about 'Tracking Files'? Worried about why some files come back after cleaning? See this link:
https://community.ccleaner.com/topic/52668-tracking-files/?tab=comments#comment-300043

 

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  • 4 months later...

Yes, can only agree to nukecad:

There is no performance improvement in defragging whole disks in one task. Just takes excessive ammount of time, wears down disk mechanics, and all this for no noticeable improvement in performance afterwards.

You should perhaps consider only defragging the files with most fragments. But also keep in mind, the bigger the file, the more fragments it needs to be worthy of defragging.


As an example...
--------------------------------------
Imagine, you have a file which is 800 KB in size, but has 2000 fragments. - You should consider defragging this one, as it it really fragmented.
If you have a file of 9 GB, that has 10 fragments.. well.. who cares. This file is THAT big, so 10 fragments make no difference at all when reading. It does not fit in any read buffer anyway. Operating systems use read buffers of a certain size (where the 9 GB file does not fit in anyway) per file access, and since the disk most likely has more than one task at the same time, it will be stressed with other read/write tasks anyway, so it will reach over the surface anyway multiple times. 10 times more won't hurt performance at all. But compared to actually defrag the 9 GB file, this takes considerably way way longer than search for the 10 fragments of that huge file.
--------------------------------------

You should perhaps consider defragging most often used files, like those in %windir%\System32 or %windir%\INF more often, as Windows comes across with them quite often.
Like for instance if you have a 50 KB INF file with 5 fragments.. you might want to defrag it. - Due to the importance of this file (windows might read them quite often), and since it's quite small, it might fit into the operating system's read buffer, and therefore can be read in one-go. This might work out if you have data sequentially (1 fragment) on your disk.

Also consider defragging folder information. Important folders like these in %windir% and the like, are mostly used on your disk. These folders need to be accessed as fast as possible.

No sense in defragging log files and stuff that is only rarely accessed ever again.

Do not defrag open databases. Defraggler (and all other defrag tools) WILL render the DB to end up being corrupt, as the database service does not know, you're defragg(l)ing it's database, and therefore writes into it, while Defraggler is also writing in that file. The result is a corrupted file. - Always avoid defragging open databases.


--> All the above things can only lead to the conclusion to NEVER use the "Defrag" button. - Always use the FILE tab to choose what to defrag. Sort after file size, most or less fragmented files, then use defrag selected file(s). You may also use multi-select to select them first and then LAUNCH the process. :D

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