How longdoes it take to defrag a HDD?

[Ponch]

Keep in mind that the average life expectancy of a hard drive is 5 years.

Whenever you defrag, you shave about 3 months use from that drive.

We're defragging 350 PCs every monday at 13.30. According to your maths, most HDDS should be dead after 5 months. I can obviously not confirm that. We have about 6 dead HDDs a year.

+ Sorry but your links are not really fact based.

[CoffeeFiend]

+ Sorry but your links are not really fact based.

Exactly. It proves nothing, and to the contrary, goes against your point (which is little more than circumstantial evidence, or plain bad luck).

Your own link in your last post says it should increase life: "This should make it last longer". And it only makes sense when you think about it. I've never, ever seen a drive die prematurely from being defragged a lot, and I've been doing this for numerous years too.

[Zxian]

In reading over the AnandTech thread quickly, it's clear that Taltamir really doesn't understand the mechanics of defragmentation, or general drive operations for that matter.

To quote, he states that defragmenting is a "read-erase-write" procedure, which is incorrect. No data is actually "erased" in modern file systems (NFTS, HFS+, etc). When you delete several hundred gigabytes of data from your recycle bin, the process happens almost instantaneously. All that's being erased is the file's metadata in a file table, not the data itself. Writing is no more strenuous to a drive than reading is. The only thing that changes is that the heads are feeding current to change the magnetization on the disk (to write), rather than having a current induced by the existing magnetization (to read).

Also, leaving a file system to be extremely fragmented can impact system performance (more than most people realize) as well as increase the long-term stress on the drive. In order for a drive to access highly fragmented data, the read/write heads need to travel back and forth over the surface of the drive to retrive the bits and pieces. This back and forth action puts more regular wear and tear on a drive than occasionally defragmenting (note: occasionally).

Defragging your drives nightly is likely excessive, since the gains are minimal and you're putting unnecessary I/O operations on the drive. However, running a defrag once a week or every two weeks is not going to severely impact the lifespan of your hard drives. It will improve your system performance, and if anything, increase the lifespan compared to never defragmenting it at all.

To answer the original question, if the drive is connected via USB and has never been defragged before, you're looking at a period of several hours.

[Arrow22]

I went to a number of places to validate my beliefs but

as many that supported me, others said I was wrong.

I really doubt that this thread will solve the debate but

EVERYONE said scrap the Windows defragger, and I am sure all here will agree.

In the end, it comes down to personal beliefs.

Note:

Cnet was saying that Vista Defrags every week,

I have not seen this on any of my systems.

Can anyone here verify this?

[GrofLuigi]

Cnet was saying that Vista Defrags every week,

I have not seen this on any of my systems.

Can anyone here verify this?

You'll have to set a stakeout.

Wait for the computer to lie idle for several hours...

GL

[CoffeeFiend]

as many that supported me

I'm sorry, but I've never seen any actual evidence backing that up, ever (random uninformed folks saying so on various forums doesn't count). Besides the very extreme cases of defragmentation that is (if you go out of your way to make a batchfile that loops your defrag'er, sure... or doing it on SSDs).

And yes, it's scheduled by default to run once a week:

[DreamSkape]

Depends on the following factors:

1. Size of the partition;

2. Percentage of used space

3. Frequency of file fragments.

4. The more free space you have, the faster will be the defrag process.

5. The type of program you are using to defrag... I use SmartDefrag (It is Free, Gives you three modes of defrag, You can set it to auto Defrag... example if your computer is idle, the program starts defragmenting until the CPU usage is high again.. fine for me)

Take care that you are not using the partition that is being defragmented. Writing and reading during the defrag will increase the defrag time significantly.

B) I do not know about VISTA, but if you are using Windows Live OneCare, it defrags the C drive weekly. You can change the settings though.

--

Regards,

DreamSkape

Signed: Tuesday, April 14, 2009, 3:39:15 AM IST

Cnet was saying that Vista Defrags every week,

I have not seen this on any of my systems.

Can anyone here verify this?

You'll have to set a stakeout.

Wait for the computer to lie idle for several hours...

GL

This is same as the Auto Defrag option in Diskeeper and SmartDefrag. You better rely on one on these rather than on Vista. You may also use Windows OneCare, it will remind you about defragmenting every week or as per the settings you specify. Also defrags C drive only at the specified time. In short, if you want an anti-virus, firewall, and tune-up (including HDD defrag), Windows OneCare is the Be(a)st.

--

Regards,

DreamSkape

Signed: Tuesday, April 14, 2009, 3:45:24 AM IST

[Stoner81]

I was using Diskeeper 2007 but it kept getting in the way so i binned it, now im using O&O Defrag Pro 11 which is awesome to say the least gives far more options of defrag and just does it by itself!

Here is the homepage for anybody interested;

http://www.oo-software.com/smb/en/products/oodefrag/