Defrag before flying

[UK_Widowmaker]

After installing fsx and off on a second drive, i got quite a shock...checked the drive, and found it to be 36% fragmented.

 

did a defrag, and both are running really quickly...certainly better than when i installed them the previous day...well worth the extra effort

[+Olham]

Good point, Widowmaker - I'll check that! Also worth to remember: setting the Anti-Virus program on "game mode: on"

After my system crash and reinstall, I had forgotten, that these settings were on "default" again, and wondered, why "OFF"

was running suddenly running stuttered.

[+RAF_Louvert]

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I defrag the HD's once a week, and I actually run it through twice back-to-back. Does wonders for keeping that "new computer" smell.

 

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[Tamper]

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I defrag the HD's once a week, and I actually run it through twice back-to-back. Does wonders for keeping that "new computer" smell.

 

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Lou, if I may, a friendly word of advice: That's too much, in my opinion :) Actually a lot too much. Defrag does need to be run, for sure, to keep things in order. But the other school of thought suggests that defrag - especially when done excessively - does in fact wear a drive (unless we're talking SSDs, which should never be defragged). Conventional, platter-based drives actually have quite a few moving parts in them - and as we all know, it's the moving bits that wear out and cause failure (why "solid-state" electronics were/are such a big deal, after all...no moving parts).

 

Also, doing it back-to-back..well, if once a week is excessive, then you do the math

 

With the kindest of well-meaning intent, I would strongly encourage you to consider doing this once a month, max. For machines that feature a (relatively) static load - meaning you're not constantly uninstalling/reinstalling SW or copying/deleting really big files (say, professional video editing) - even once a month is probably overkill. You really do need to balance the benefit v. the drawbacks - and I'm afraid you're erring on the side of premature disk failure (and with very little real benefit, at that).

 

Almost like going out in your car and smoking the tires for 30 minutes every week, just to make sure they wear evenly...*lol*

 

Just my opinion, again, with the best of intent.

Edited January 20, 2011 by Tamper

[+RAF_Louvert]

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Many thanks Tamper for that information and advice. I was not aware that the defrag operation was so physically taxing on the HD's. I will revise my maitenance schedule accordingly. The start to another good day...I've already learned something new.

 

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[UK_Widowmaker]

If you cannot learn something new on this great forum..there's nothing new to learn!...good headsup Tamper..I didn't know that either!

[Slartibartfast]

I always follow the plan if you don't learn something new every day I have done something wrong...