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DJsexie
May 30th, 2002, 00:00
What does this function do? Will it help me speed up my RAM?
is0lized
May 30th, 2002, 00:16
it takes info and places it together, takes awhile but it helps speed up the opening of programs, ect
_Street_Fighter
May 30th, 2002, 00:18
when you install stuff, your computer just installs it anywhere on on hard drive... what disk defragment does is that it reorganizes your data neatly...

the RAM speed will still be the same but your computer might run a little smoother after you defrag... i usually do it once a month...

- SF
Toefur
May 30th, 2002, 00:20
I've never defragged. Maybe I should one day.
guitarnerd
May 30th, 2002, 02:23
Originally posted by Toefur
I've never defragged. Maybe I should one day.
You probably won't be able to, or it will take 2-3 days unless you reformat.

Anyway as said earlier it organized all the files on your hard drive kind of in categories for your system to recognize easier. Although it will not help, or has nothing to do with your ram it will speed up your computer a bit in a lot of cases. Since I think you are more interested in how it effects performance I Will tell you. It puts stuff nearer to the edge and in a big bundle on the hard drive so it can detect without the hard drive moving around, there fore seek times are quicker and your hard drive and everything else runs a little faster.
Toefur
May 30th, 2002, 02:37
Hm, Well I format on a regular basis... so maybe I don't need to? :confused: :D
guitarnerd
May 30th, 2002, 02:52
Originally posted by Toefur
Hm, Well I format on a regular basis... so maybe I don't need to? :confused: :D
Probably not then. Reformatting can be a pain though I hate re-installing big software applications like Visual Studio and stuff, it takes all day.
roblev
May 30th, 2002, 14:43
well i think windoes xp does something with disk defragmentation because i have install a whole bunch of crap, un-installed it, download and upload big and small files, and a whole bunch of crap and it sez that my 20 GB hard drive is only 0.5% fragmented.
Robert
May 30th, 2002, 17:31
Windows XP better manages your space/memory. But, defraging is the only way to speed up your commonly used programs. It's suggested to run the defrag once a week. The first time you run it, it will take a little while. After thr 3rd or 4th time of running it every week, it'll go real fast since most of the hard drive already has been defraged.
DCI
May 30th, 2002, 17:51
On XP i just did a analyze it said like some mp3s have fragments. whats it mean? If i defrag it what will happen to the mp3s?
roblev
May 30th, 2002, 17:53
those mp3s should just be like they are
DCI
May 30th, 2002, 17:54
Then what does it mean if they have fragments?
guitarnerd
May 30th, 2002, 17:58
Originally posted by DCI
On XP i just did a analyze it said like some mp3s have fragments. whats it mean? If i defrag it what will happen to the mp3s?
They will have a less chance of a drop out if you defrag.

Ok, let me clear this up you WILL NOT have data loss or any such thing from a defrag it can ONLY help your puter!
roblev
May 30th, 2002, 18:02
i am not sure, but if by chance you turn off your computer at some exact nanosecond can't the bit being transferred from one place to another be dropped, therefore corrupting that part of the HD?
haha!
DCI
May 30th, 2002, 18:21
Okay, i'll do some more research on it. First time im doing it.
guitarnerd
May 30th, 2002, 18:36
Originally posted by roblev
i am not sure, but if by chance you turn off your computer at some exact nanosecond can't the bit being transferred from one place to another be dropped, therefore corrupting that part of the HD?
haha!
Hard drives are linear, bad sectors are where the magnetics can no longer be written, that would just cause that 1 byte of data to be lost, it probably wouldn't effect much.
But that is the same as if it were to be turned off when it is not defraging.

WHAT ARE YOU SCARED OF, your computer is worse of not defraging that if you were to do it, like I said it will only help.
trenzterra
May 30th, 2002, 21:25
Originally posted by guitarnerd

Probably not then. Reformatting can be a pain though I hate re-installing big software applications like Visual Studio and stuff, it takes all day. It takes me 1 1/2 hours. I tried it yesterday, and maybe its the cause of my problem :(
guitarnerd
May 30th, 2002, 23:02
Originally posted by trenzterra
It takes me 1 1/2 hours. I tried it yesterday, and maybe its the cause of my problem :(
Dude not to sound mean but get read of ME and go with an NT OS it will take you 15 minutes on the same drive
Jan
May 30th, 2002, 23:27
Originally posted by guitarnerd

Dude not to sound mean but get read of ME and go with an NT OS it will take you 15 minutes on the same drive
I use ME and it takes 15/30 minutes (depending how much time between)

As I have said before we can't all afford to just pop out to the store to buy a new operating system :confused2
trenzterra
May 30th, 2002, 23:31
Originally posted by Jan

I use ME and it takes 15/30 minutes (depending how much time between)

As I have said before we can't all afford to just pop out to the store to buy a new operating system :confused2 Actually it depends on how much space you use on your HDD. How much space have you used Jan?

I have used an amazing 5GB so far, more than what I expected.
Toefur
May 31st, 2002, 04:04
Originally posted by Jan

I use ME and it takes 15/30 minutes (depending how much time between)

As I have said before we can't all afford to just pop out to the store to buy a new operating system :confused2

Since when did getting a new OS involve going to the store? :biggrin2: :bandit2:
Daniel
May 31st, 2002, 18:09
Originally posted by guitarnerd

Hard drives are linear, bad sectors are where the magnetics can no longer be written, that would just cause that 1 byte of data to be lost

No...if you have 1 little box that is a badsector(in the defraging program), you actually lost 4 kb not 1 byte since 1 square is a cluster.
guitarnerd
May 31st, 2002, 18:13
Yeah, go to cosco XP is only $95 there. If they have those there
I have 60gigs of space and about 30gigs are used It takes me 20 minutes to defrag
guitarnerd
May 31st, 2002, 18:35
Originally posted by Daniel


No...if you have 1 little box that is a badsector(in the defraging program), you actually lost 4 kb not 1 byte since 1 square is a cluster.
That actually depends on your allocation size but the default is like 4012bytes or something like that
niv
May 31st, 2002, 23:28
Windows defrag [9x/NT] sucks major ballz. Use O&O defrag instead, it takes longer but it's much more thorough and much more effective, another piece of freeware.
guitarnerd
June 1st, 2002, 01:23
Originally posted by Semi
Windows defrag [9x/NT] sucks major ballz. Use O&O defrag instead, it takes longer but it's much more thorough and much more effective, another piece of freeware.
Windows Nt stands for is on NTFS
trenzterra
June 1st, 2002, 01:32
Originally posted by guitarnerd
Yeah, go to cosco XP is only $95 there. If they have those there
I have 60gigs of space and about 30gigs are used It takes me 20 minutes to defrag How can $95 be "only"
guitarnerd
June 1st, 2002, 01:35
Originally posted by trenzterra
How can $95 be "only"
Because $1000 is a lot
Warp
June 1st, 2002, 01:41
Originally posted by guitarnerd

Windows Nt stands for is on NTFS

Er.. no.
NT is rumored to be short for "New Technology"

NTFS is... New Technology Filing System or NT File System.
DJsexie
June 1st, 2002, 23:38
um..how long is it gonna take to defrag my HD if i havent done it in 3 years and i have ONLY 3.5KB used? 1 to 2 hours? :confused:
guitarnerd
June 2nd, 2002, 00:37
Originally posted by Warp


Er.. no.
NT is rumored to be short for "New Technology"

NTFS is... New Technology Filing System or NT File System.
Yes, NT means New Technology, NTFS means New Technology File System, Hence the NT?

um..how long is it gonna take to defrag my HD if i havent done it in 3 years and i have ONLY 3.5KB used? 1 to 2 hours?
Ummm, maybe 1 second since you only have 3.5kb used, what OS are you running DOS lol
Though you probably meant 3.5gb so it I will say it depends on your File system
DJsexie
June 2nd, 2002, 00:50
lol:o :D

oops, I meant to say 3.5GB..(I'm getting these measurements mixed up again..:o)..and I am running on win98..so um...how long is it gonna take?
Jan
June 2nd, 2002, 00:58
On win98 it should take 30-45 minutes. That's about the time it took on my old puter :p

<edit>Do a full scan disk first or it might get halfway through defrag and then spit the dummy and tell you to anyway :confused2
Canuckkev
June 2nd, 2002, 01:33
Yea, scandisk first. And I would suggest reformatting a drive that hasn't been for 3 years. Your computer will run a lot faster then. But backup your stuff first.

And BTW DJ, by "underneath", is that...under my desk?:biggrin2:
niv
June 2nd, 2002, 08:01
Depends on the speed of your HD as well, how fast it can read data...

My old old 'puter that had 10 GB used and Win98 took a half a day to defrag. It was a 5400 RPM drive. :confused2
trenzterra
June 2nd, 2002, 09:06
Originally posted by Semi
Depends on the speed of your HD as well, how fast it can read data...

My old old 'puter that had 10 GB used and Win98 took a half a day to defrag. It was a 5400 RPM drive. :confused2 I hope I don't use that much space :nervous:
guitarnerd
June 2nd, 2002, 15:23
It will vary really, because defrag time depends a lot on your internal data speed. Which in most cases is much more than just 100mbps On my puter it is 500mbps It just all depends on your stuff, and there is only one way to find out....do it
Homeygwiz
June 5th, 2002, 13:27
Defrag is great to improve speed of the PC.

I believe this analogy works if you still don't know what Defrag means.

Just think about a library and a librarian. When people take out books to read and then return them the librarian puts them back in the correct order.

Same with Defrag the computers data is re-ordered so the PC can access it easily - which means it will speed up the performance a little bit.

Since I have a small hard drive with not a whole lot of data on it it only takes me a few hours to Defrag my harddrives.

HGW
guitarnerd
June 5th, 2002, 14:40
Originally posted by Homeygwiz
Defrag is great to improve speed of the PC.

I believe this analogy works if you still don't know what Defrag means.

Just think about a library and a librarian. When people take out books to read and then return them the librarian puts them back in the correct order.

Same with Defrag the computers data is re-ordered so the PC can access it easily - which means it will speed up the performance a little bit.

Since I have a small hard drive with not a whole lot of data on it it only takes me a few hours to Defrag my harddrives.

HGW
Good anology, but the so called "librarian" still has to organize the new books (new data)

What do you mean by "ONLY A FEW HOURS" Like I said I have 60gigs of space and actually now about 40gigs used and it takes me 30 minutes maybe 45 now