Aevin

Re: Diskeeper on Vista Ultimate I use Diskeeper 2008 Pro running in background defrag mode on 32-bit Vista Home premium (160 GB drive) and XP Pro/SP2 ( total 1.5 TB), and it manages the drives beautifully. Fragmentation is minimal whenever I check the GUI. Diskeeper should run fine in X64 too according to their website.

Re: Defragmenting hard drives on Windows Server 2003/SQL Server You may find some of these white papers dealing with defrag of servers, from the Diskeeper site useful. Found them just recently, so I haven't finished reading all. http://downloads.diskeeper.com/pdf/InvisiTasking-White-Paper.pdf http://files.diskeeper.com/pdf/Virtualization_Performance.pdf http://files.diskeeper.com/pdf/SQLdefragmented.pdf Hope this helps.

Re: repeatedly defrag Could be the defrag has not completed due to -low disk space. Need to clear up some disk space. The XP defragger needs atleast 15% to function well. -fragmented system files (MFT, page file) . Need to do a boot-time defrag. XP defragger cannot do it. -heavy fragmentation. May need repeated attempts. You could check the analysis report for the list of fragmented files. that should indicate if the system files are fragmented. Also, you can defrag quickly and thoroughly (including system files) even under low space conditions, with third party utilities such as Diskeeper. They are not free, but you can get 30-day fully functional free downloads from the Diskeeper website if you want. That's a quick fix to most defrag woes.

Re: Disk Defrag The MS XP defragger actually tells you to defrag if the MFT and PF are fragmented, but there's nothing it can do to defragment those regardless of number of passes it makes. But it recognizes that those files are 'important' and their fragmentation will reduce performance. That's where Diskeeper steps in- it has the ability to defrag both the files, among a host of other features.

Re: Defrag strategy to extend disk life I use a third party (paid) fully automatic real-time defragmenter on my laptop, and it's really nice. Unlike the Vista defragmenter, it does not go on a defragging spree every time it gets a chance. Instead, from what I see, after it has defragged the drive the first time after installation, it needs to work only for a few mins a day ..maybe 2 or 3 mins, cleaning up that day's fragments. I find it very convenient and effective compared to scheduling defrags the old fashioned way. It's resource consumption is also very low, so CPU usage is miniscule. I don't even need to leave the laptop on for the express purpose of defragging since the auto defragger does everything transparently in real-time in the background. My laptop runs just as fast as the day I bought it (and removed all the bloatware:D ) although the 160GB drive is more than 60% full. BTW, no such thing as 'too much defragging'...if there is no fragmentation, the defragger will not have anything to do, so no "unnecessary wear & tear" on the drive. Although, I don't see how defrag itself is any extra wear and tear on the drive..it's just like any other random access drive operation.:)

Re: He's back -- Fraggie's back Sorry, I have no solution for your specific defragmenting predicament, but in my experience, Vista's defragmenter can be a big headache. After I got my Vista infested notebook recently, one of the first system maintenance programs I loaded on it was the Diskeeper 2008 defragmenter. It offers everything the Vista defragmenter lacks : predictability, features, control, and performance.:cool:

Re: Defragmenting Because it uses intelligent I/O detection for the CPU and disk. It will back off when the system needs resources for something else. Another reason is that frequently modified files are frequently fragmented, so the vista defragger tries to defrag them when required. I like the Vista proactive approach to defragmentation- automatic is easier on the user as well as the admin, and the disks remain optimized in the background. When you have to administer a large number of PCs, this makes even more sense compared to scheduling defrags or manually executing on each machine. Why not let Vista maintain itself? That's the positives list. On the cons side, Vista defrag gives nearly zero control; so you can't easily select which volumes to defrag and what mode to use, what files to exclude etc. Commercial defragmenters have executed this in a far better manner - a good combination of automatic defrag, performance, speed and control.

Re: Diskeeper much use for Vista? What version of Diskeeper does it come with? Is it the latest? Diskeeper 2008 is very good. It is better than vista's defragger because it comes with the choice of manual/scheduled/auto defrag and also you can apply a specific defrag mode for a specific partition or drive. For eg. C: can be set to defrag automatically, and D manually. You also get VSS compatibility and some other bells and whistles with DK 2008.

Re: Disk Defragment Automatic defragmenters work in the background, depending on availability of free system resources, so a constant progress display may not always be available. Automatic defrag is quite useful/efficient compared to manual or scheduled defrags because it takes care of itself and needs no fiddling by the user. Whenever fragmentation increases due to file activity, the defragger will deal with it automatically during system idle. Vista's defragger is not 'truly' automatic I think, but a pseudo-automatic, yet it still does not offer much control or progress display. Third party automatic defraggers come with better controls, more options/features and the ability to view progress display at a given time. In these aspects, they are better than vista's defragger.

Re: Do I need defragment on server running RAID 5? Chkdsk checks for file system integrity before a defrag, so that the chance of messing up data during a defrag due to file system errors, is minimized. If a volume is not alright, then a defrag won't most likely run on it until it's been fixed. (chkdsk /f). It's a good idea to run chkdsk if you suspect something is wrong, or if you haven't run one in a long time. Reg. when to defrag, you have to run the analysis from the built-in defragmenter, decide whether you need to defrag and schedule a defrag job for the relevant volumes, or run them manually. For automatic defraggers, the analysis is automatically done in the background, and if necessary, defragmentation occurs, again automatically, when there are sufficient free system resources to do so i.e. usually when idling. Over the long term, this is a more efficient and effective solution compared to the manual/scheduled defrag IMHO. YMMV.

Re: Do I need defragment on server running RAID 5? The latest versions of Diskeeper are VSS compatible according to their website: http://www.diskeeper.com/diskeeper/home/dk2008comparisonchart-home.asp

Re: disk defragmenter From what I understand, in NTFS the free space preference algorithm is such that if it can, windows will fill up the pieces of free space in order on the disk from the beginning of the partition itself rather than go over to the great swathes of free space further down and plop the file there. Quite stupid, but that's what we have and what we need to live with. In it's defense, windows has no idea how much each file will grow (or shrink) in the future so it cannot preallocate space to it under normal circumstances and steal that space from other files which may need it in the future. This preallocation may not be an issue when the disk has a lot of free space left, but what when it begins to get filled up? Even the MFT fragments once it's outgrows it's preallocated zone, or disk space begins to get full and other files encroach into it's zone. Fragmentation is therefore a dynamic problem and needs a dynamic solution w.r.t disk volumes that see heavy I/O activity. That's why automatic defragmenters are becoming the preferred solution on the server (and even workstation) side of things in the enterprise segment; because unlike the older occasional scheduled/manual defrag processes, they are a continuous approach to tackling fragmentation. The icing on the cake is that auto defragmentation is also largely autonomous and the admin's workload is greatly reduced. As long as there is windows in the current form, we are stuck with fragmentation. Maybe we ought to ask MS to create a new non-fragmenting filesystem for Vienna (Yes please, and large fries with that order) :p

Re: centrally manage defragmenation Yeah, scheduling or manually defragging can be a headache at times, waiting to schedule for a window (pun unintended) of opportunity when server activity is low, you are around to monitor it etc etc. Scheduled defragging is quite outdated and inefficient IMHO, especially when automatic defragmentation (for servers + workstations) is becoming the norm. Automatic ensures that you can let the defragger run in the background, and whenever it gets a chance to do so it will defrag, thereby keeping fragmentation low continuously instead of only for a short time period of the defrag interval.

Re: Defrag Question Why dont you look at an automated defragmentation solution? Manual defrags are not the most efficient way of doing things as far as defrag is concerned since it is a constantly occuring problem which builds up between the bouts of manual/scheduled defrags. With automatic defragmentation, disks are constantly monitored and defragged as required during periods of free resources, without sacrificing server performance. Higher uptime for the server, lower workload for the human in the loop, and overall better results/efficiency. :cool:

Re: defraging I recommend the latest edition of Diskeeper-pro. It has the option of automatic defrag (much better than Vista's) as well manual defrags if you want it. I've been using it for a while now (on the automatic mode) and it has not given me any trouble at all.