Defragging Computer

[Amund]

So, I have this computer. It's slow and old. I haven't defragged it since I got it, and that was in 2004-ish. So I recently decided to run the windows defragging program. After 16 hours of that, I found a different defragger program. I'm going on 22 hours of straight defragging, 8 hours alone on the new program, and it still has 34% fragmentation.

What I want to know from you guys is

A) what is your longest defragment time

B) what defragger program do you use most often

C) How often should I/do you defrag your computer

 

[viranimus]

I gave up trying to defrag computers around 2003 area.

Honestly in my situation I find it easier to periodically (roughly once a year) do a complete reformat and reinstall of the OS.

Often times you find that you accumulate junk that theres really no practical reason for you to have anymore anyway. Reformatting tends to take care of that problem in my personal estimation. Things like left overs from uninstalled programs. Improper registry values, archaic programs youve moved away from but never bothered to fully uninstall, etc.

Seriously, I have archived files dating back to 2003 that I absolutely positively have no reason to have any more, but I still have them for some stupid reason.

And as for longest defrag time.. I would say about 24 hours with the defragger in Windows 98, after that long I gave up hope it was ever going to complete the process.

As for defragger programs.. I did try out Smart Defrag which you can find on downloads.com

[link]http://download.cnet.com/Smart-Defrag/3000-2094_4-10759533.html?tag=mncol;2[/link]

That I found to have a nice feature, that it basically is always running and takes up nominal system resources to do it. However, I just didnt feel compelled to keep it running and never bothered with turning it on. However it was one of the best I had ever saw.

 

[Leg End]

Is this order:

A) Hmmm... 3 hours.

B) Auslogics Disk Defrag.

C) Every Week/Every Night

EDIT: Ninja'd to the first post and higher quality too. Congrats.

 

[olendvcook]

I set mine to auto defrag every Wednesday and whenever i look its always 0% fragmentation

 

[JezebelinHell]

Part of your problem may be that your page file is actually fragmented and Windows will not defrag it without some additional steps on your part...

http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-10878_11-1056269.html
http://www.theeldergeek.com/page_files_and_fragmentation.htm

 

[Veldaroth]

Yeah, you should probably defrag it more often... I usually do mine over night or while I'm gone for the day and I always forget to look at the time, so I have no idea how long mine usually takes.
However, you could always reinstall the operating system. That'll fix all your problems! Granted, you will loose everything on it, but that's what hard drives are for.

 

[tharglet]

Deee.... fraaaagggg.....?

I don't bother. Ever.

I'm not much in the habit of deleting stuff that often, so the fragmentation won't be all that bad. Windows's defragger is fairly useless at defragging oversized files, so it's a little pointless on my game-filled drive .