I would appreciate advice / guidance on performing defrag on 2003r2. Just file/print/AD volumes - thanks

We run a scheduled defrag weekly using the OS defrag command. Some promote a third party defrag but I've yet to come across someone that can demonstrate what, if any, measurable improvements there are to these applications.

Our scheduled defrag emails the results and defrags all local drives. An extra bonus is you also get disk usage info. Here's a sample email:

===================================================================================

Weekly Defragmentation report for APPSRV1 .

===================================================================================

===================================================================================

Defragmenting of C: started at 01:00 AM on Mon 06/25/2007

Windows Disk Defragmenter

Copyright © 2003 Microsoft Corp. and Executive Software International, Inc.

Analysis Report

34.18 GB Total, 15.37 GB (44%) Free, 1% Fragmented (3% file fragmentation)

Defragmentation Report

34.18 GB Total, 15.37 GB (44%) Free, 0% Fragmented (0% file fragmentation) .

Defragmenting of C: completed at 01:07 AM on Mon 06/25/2007

===================================================================================

Defragmenting of E: started at 01:07 AM on Mon 06/25/2007

Windows Disk Defragmenter

Copyright © 2003 Microsoft Corp. and Executive Software International, Inc.

Analysis Report

171 GB Total, 90.75 GB (53%) Free, 2% Fragmented (5% file fragmentation)

Defragmentation Report

171 GB Total, 90.75 GB (53%) Free, 0% Fragmented (0% file fragmentation) .

Defragmenting of E: completed at 01:44 AM on Mon 06/25/2007

===================================================================================

Diskeeper 2007

Install, configure and forget it's there. It'll even defrag on the fly in real time without any performance degradation.

Can't say if it applies to Win2003 (but cannot think a reason why it should not) these may be of interest to you:

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=85812

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=92895

jaclaz

This is a good read and will offer some more information about Diskeeper:

http://www.sql-server-performance.com/sql_fragmentation.asp

We were already doing the DBCC REINDEX on our SQL cluster but we recently implemented DK2007. After letting it do it's thing for a day or two we noticed an improvement in how well the system responded, and continues to respond.

Another vote for diskeeper 2007. Best defragger I've used, and I've tried out the other big dogs too- PD (resource leech), O&O (slow).

Yes, the automatic defragging method is really useful: truly set-it-and-forget-it, and doesnt steal your system resources either. More defraggers should implement this feature in the future.

I just use the builtin windows defrag and just run it as a scheduled task.. it wont email me all that information.. jsut a log file on the root of the c:\ drive as to if it completed or not

The script is here:

http://lazynetworkadmin.com/content/view/6/6/

The builtin defrag engine isn't nearly as good as the full product. I believe it's based on Diskeeper 7.x (possibly 6.x or even as old as 5.x). Even 10.x isn't nearly as good as 2007 (11.x). They got a lot right with the latest version. They generally release a new version every year...incidentally right after I renew my maintenance agreement. That's coming up so Diskeeper 2008 (name is my assumption) should be out in a few months.

For those thinking about purchasing Diskeeper...make sure you get the maintenance agreement! You buy them in 1 year blocks and during the period of the maintenance agreement you get maintenance, support and all upgrades free of charge. You'll pay about half the cost to renew the maintenance agreement every year than if you purchased each upgrade outright. I believe purchasing in volume comes includes the maintenance agreement for the first year.