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Originally Posted by chicago
How often do most of us defrag ? I was doing my system every month, but not sure if that's best. Windows system says you should wait until fragmentation is over 10%. Any input would be appreciated as I have been given different advice on this.  |
If you have an SSD then never, because they don't work the same way,. In that case you will be 'trimming'. As for how frequently, it depends a bit on what you, what kind of files you have and also how slow your cpu and drive are. The slower the drive and CPU, and the less RAM you have, the more effect fragmentation has on performance. So the guidelines are just that - guidelines. try experimenting by defragging at different percentages and seeing if it makes a difference you can notice. I used ot degrag at 2% because with my set-up, it made a difference. Especially if you choose your defrag settings, put large files ta the end of the drive and so on. I also make the swap file a fixed size and put it in the centre of the disk (you may have to fiddle about a bit to achieve that). That way, the system is not constantly re-sizing the swap file, so you gain a little performance. I turn off indexing and I clean up junk before defragging (inclusing system junk like installation files for windows updates - try CCleaner, it is free and quite safe, unlike many, and use the windows tools clean-up tool. With faster machines, fragmentation isprobably not anb issue below something like 5-8%