[aklug] Re: OT: Defragmenter

Piet van Weel wrote, on 1/7/2009 7:39 PM:
> After using for years DiskKeeper, I'm finally convinced that they really
> don't want to produce a quality product anymore. Does anybody have any
> that they can recommend that will go through and...
>
> 1. De-fragment (Duh!)
> 2. Optimize Paging Files
> 3. Consolidate Free Space
> 4. Schedule-able

Summary: I'm a big fan of JKDefrag (Jeroen Kessels) + PageDefrag
(Sysinternals).

1. JKDefrag:
http://kessels.nl/JkDefrag/

- GPL.
- Very small, no installation required.
- Great command-line options, including consolidate free space, sort
based on last access, etc. Puts all directories at the fastest end of
the disk, just like good ol' Norton SpeedDisk.
- Good technical info on the main page, including stuff about the MFT,
the $UsnJrnl file, etc.
- Excellent use of screen real estate to show very fine-grained detail
of files.
- Levels of verbosity that are automatically written to a text file,
including summary of largest files, defragmentation state, etc.

I do wish that it would let you hover over files and tell you what
they were; that lack, and the fact that the current version can't
defrag the MFT, are the only significant drawbacks.

You can use DiskView to see what files are resisting defrag.

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/FileAndDisk/DiskView.mspx

As to the MFT, it usually only needs to be defragmented once, in my
experience. Oftentimes it's already in a clean state, but I've seen a
couple of people - especially those who started out FAT32 and switched
over to NTFS - with thousands of fragments of MFT, which really seemed
to drag the system down. I have occasionally used the trial version
of PerfectDisk, which can defragment the MFT on reboot. I recommend
running JKDefrag a time or two beforehand, so that there's a nice
clean space for the MFT to be moved to.

Again, I recommend reading the JKDefrag main page - very educational,
lots of good links and little-known Windows command-line utilities.

2. PageDefrag:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897426.aspx

- Schedule at one or all boots; set and forget.

If there was a command-line way to delete all but the last system
restore point, I would run that before running the defrag.

I also recommend firing up SpaceMonger 1.x once in a while to detect
space hogs for possible paring down, and then using CCleaner to delete
all of the cruft, prior to a defrag.

http://www.sixty-five.cc/sm/v1x.php
http://www.ccleaner.com/

Also, be wary of files created under other profiles, as they often
resist both defrag and automatic (CCleaner) cleanup.

And finally, don't bother defragmenting SSDs (except for consolidating
free space, as SSD writes work better with contiguous free space, I'm
told).

This may have been more detail than you needed. ;-)

Royce

-- 
Royce D. Williams                                   - http://royce.ws/
Small groups defend themselves against free riders; big groups don't.S
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