Disk Defragment Issues

Hey all,
I have heard rumors that running a disk defragment on a disk drive
that does not necessarily need a defragment is bad for the computer.
Can anyone enlighten me on this issue?

On 25 Jul 2006 19:33:41 -0700, wrote:

Hey all,
I have heard rumors that running a disk defragment on a disk drive
that does not necessarily need a defragment is bad for the computer.
Can anyone enlighten me on this issue?

That's a good question. If a drive doesn't need a defragment, then it
would put unnecessary wear and tear as things are moved around on it.

I am going to look into how my system defragments. I use Diskkeeper's
Set it and Forget it mode but I don't remember if there is a
threshold.

On Tue, 25 Jul 2006 21:42:40 -0500, journey wrote:

That's a good question. If a drive doesn't need a defragment, then it
would put unnecessary wear and tear as things are moved around on it.

I forgot to take into account that fragmenting a drive that isn't
fragmented very much doesn't need to move things around and completes
fairly quickly.

So, please disregard my first reply -- I really don't know.

I do know that Diskkeeper does a good job of keeping all my drives
defragmented (including externals), without any intervention on my
part.

On 25 Jul 2006 19:33:41 -0700, wrote:

Hey all,
I have heard rumors that running a disk defragment on a disk drive
that does not necessarily need a defragment is bad for the computer.
Can anyone enlighten me on this issue?

I use Diskkeeper 10 Professional:

http://www.diskeeper.com/diskeeper/p...ional.asp?pe=3

I just set all my drives to be defragmented, if Smart Defragment
decides it's necessary, between 3am and 9am on weekends, when I am not
likely to be using my computer. I also set the task priority to low,
so if I am doing something else it won't affect system performance as
much.

So, if you want more control I recommend that program.

As I see it, there are two extreme camps on this:

1) The "Defrag constantly and you will resolve all your problems."
2) The "Defragging doesn't help and will only result in drive failures."

The truth is somewhere in the middle. The importance of defragging has
declined due to improvements like drive speeds and files systems like
NTFS. Will defragging improve things? Sure, but you'll likely never see
the difference. Will it decease the time until drive failure? Sure, but
likely by such a small amount as to make virtually no difference...

Regards,
Hank Arnold

wrote:
Hey all,
I have heard rumors that running a disk defragment on a disk drive
that does not necessarily need a defragment is bad for the computer.
Can anyone enlighten me on this issue?