Topic: Advanced Defragmentation for NTFS volumes.

[Mac]

15 MINUTE DEFRAGMENTATION and DRIVE PERFORMANCE FLASH DEMO

DEFRAGMENTATION and DRIVE PERFORMANCE EUROPEAN SITE

Very interesting demonstration, especially on the question of maintaining the master file tables at the right size to prevent fragmentation from occuring.

The only software program which I twist people's arms to use!

I find that the Frag-Shield part of it needs to be done first followed by a boot time defrag with chkdsk and defragmenting of the Master File Tables (MFTs) and paging file(s) and then it should be looked at again.

If the MFT's are alright then the result should be better. Then you can set the 'Set it and forget it' with free-space consolidation and the CPU priority set on high.




The novice user should take the time to go through the different sections and see how everything works.

[Lona]

Ran the demo, Mac.  Great for business users I would think but not for the likes of me.

I use Norton utilities. Switch it on while out doing the shopping and it's finished when I get home.

[Mac]

Much faster than Norton and runs in the background so you never have to switch it on.

Norton Utilities won't pad the master file tables on NTFS volumes, as far as I am aware. (?)

I have watched Norton struggle for hours on end whilst this takes seconds.

MS should offer it as freeware on their download site.

[Simon]

I have tried Diskeeper twice now, and can't get along with it.  It keeps popping up when I don't expect it to, and makes me wonder if it could possibly shorten the life of a hard drive, with all the constant defragging and rearranging.  Maybe I've got it wrong, or I have misunderstood how it works, but it's not one I would personally recommend.

[Mac]

It's just the full version of the default XP defrag. It definitely won't do any disk damage, exactly the opposite.

Not defragmenting is likely to shorten the life of the drive, as the heads have to work overtime. The electronics and pivots have to do a lot more work picking up data on a fragmented drive.

[Mac]

Just ran the latest version of Diskeeper 10 now sold as 'Home and Professional' with a choice to install either Home or Professional on the install screen. (Daft, as the Professional version works on both XP Home and XP Professional.)

I got an immediate improvement in read time of exactly 40% which is like adding...

  400MHz to a 1000Mhz processor
  800MHz to a 2000Mhz processor
1200MHz to a 3000Mhz processor

Some rise in performance with an effective increase from 3.0GHz to 4.2GHz, and a lot safer than overclocking.

--------------

Mac has requested an update to this post, but the original post has been left unedited, to avoid confusion further down the thread - Simon (Admin)

After running Diskeeper 10 Professional for the first time an immediate improvement in read time of exactly 40% was achieved which is equivalent to restoring your...

1000MHz processor from   600MHz back to full 1000MHz efficiency
2000MHz processor from 1200MHz back to full 2000MHz efficiency
3000MHz processor from 1800MHz back to full 3000MHz efficiency

A remarkable restoration of read - write times.

It also shows why some systems are crawling when the entire drive is badly fragmented.

(Note: The Professional version works on both XP Home and XP Professional and is the better choice.)

[Mac]

After getting the 40% increase I mentioned earlier this is the latest result...

Job Report
Volume Local Drive C:

Recommendations
---------------------
    Findings on C:

Diskeeper has completed a defragmentation run on this volume and there remain 0 fragmented files and/or directories and 0 excess fragments.

(There were 0 excess fragments before the defragmentation run, and now there are 0% fewer.)

    The average number of fragments per file is 1.00.

Congratulations!  There are no excess file or directory fragments on this volume. The files on this volume are as defragmented as possible. Still, you should use the Smart Scheduling option in Diskeeper to automatically keep fragmentation at a low level. Click 'Set It and Forget It' in the Quick Launch pane to specify a Smart Schedule.


Volume Health
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
The overall health of volume C: is not currently affected by fragmentation due to the low level of fragmentation.

There are no volume health issues related to fragmentation.


Access Time
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Time to read fragmented files on volume C:

Current read time:       1095 milliseconds

Optimum read time:     1095 milliseconds

0% improvement


Time to read all files on volume C:  [EDIT: 6,853,967,872,Bytes (6.38 GB)]

Current read time:       4 minutes

Optimum read time:     4 minutes

0% improvement


Statistics
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Volume Files
     Volume size                                       = 10,236 MB
     Cluster size                                       = 4 KB
     Used space                                        = 6,369 MB
     Free space                                         = 3,867 MB
     Percent free space                             = 37 %
     Defragmentation method                    = Free Space Consolidation

Fragmentation percentage
     Volume fragmentation                        = 0 %
     Data fragmentation                            = 0 %

Directory fragmentation
     Total directories                                 = 3,058
     Fragmented directories                       = 0
     Excess directory fragments                 = 0

File fragmentation
     Total files                                          = 31,201
     Average file size                                = 213 KB
     Total fragmented files                         = 0
     Total excess fragments                       = 0
     Average fragments per file                  = 1.00
     Files with performance loss                  = 0

Paging file fragmentation
     Paging/Swap file size                          = 236 MB
     Total fragments                                  = 1

Master File Table (MFT) fragmentation
     Total MFT size                                    = 70,160 KB
     MFT records In Use                             = 34,315
     Percent MFT in use                              = 48 %
     Total MFT fragments                            = 0

During additional free space consolidation, 1824 files were moved.
The number of free spaces decreased from 126 to 33.

Most Fragmented Files
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fragments       File size       Most fragmented files
None





Pity I didn't capture the one showing the 40% performance increase.

This one shows that there has been a 15% degradation in performance since the 40% increase, followed by a restoration providing a 15% return to peak performance.

All achieved automatically without user intervention except for the taking of the screen shots when I heard that Diskeeper was running.

[sam]

I got an immediate improvement in read time of exactly 40% which is like adding...

  400MHz to a 1000Mhz processor
  800MHz to a 2000Mhz processor
1200MHz to a 3000Mhz processor

Some rise in performance with an effective increase from 3.0GHz to 4.2GHz, and a lot safer than overclocking.

well not really, it is just hard disk speed time... you can't really claim this... maybe I am just being a pedant about terminology. Still though, you do get much better hard disk read times if you take care of your computer and you will notice it... either that or format your hard disk and remove windows! :-)

[Mac]

If the hard drive is the slowest part of the system, which it is, then a 40% increase has to make a difference.

Imagine increasing a 7,200 rev/min drive to 10,080 rev/min

Or increasing a 10,000 rev/min drive to 14,000 rev/min

So what sort of speed increase would one get if using a 10,000 rev/min drive ... and Diskeeper?

From 7,200 to 14,000 is nearly double.

[sam]

yes but not in processing speed / in read in / read out, which is why I was commenting that what you said is misleading. Still though, your overall system performance would be better.

[Mac]

I was using an equivalence as an example.

So the next item is to increase the drive speed, as it is the slowest part of the system. Going from 7,200 rev/min to 10,000 rev/min is about a 39% increase. Add the 40% increase in read time and processing speed is bound to increase as it doesn't take so long to find the data.

Overall it is like a car engine being in a good state of tune rather than a poor one.

E.G.

Contiguous file system...

DATA-DATA-DATA

Fragmented file system...

DATA-------time-------DATA-------time-------DATA

Simply, distance over time.

Try this one...

contiguous

f      r      a      g      m      e     n      t      e      d

It actually takes longer for your 'computer' (the brain) to read with the spaces, as your eye has to move from one letter to the next.

[sam]

yes, obviously. Nice example to use for anyone with little or no experience with hard drives.  Systems shouldn't get too fragmented, really. But they do, well if you use better filesystem then this is less of an issue... but then again you can't use windows.

[Mac]

You prefer Linux Sam?

I find that Windows runs perfectly with Diskeeper's automatic defragmentation, but not without it. All too often I have found undersized master file tables to be at the root of the problem and using Diskeeper's frag-shield has made an immediate improvement.

(They would do better to call it MFT-CHECK in my opinion, and change the marketing from 'Set it and Forget it' to, simply, 'Automatic'.)

Of course if you don't have access to frag-shield then the user will never discover the problem and it will never be corrected. (Ignorance is bliss.)

MS should simply include the full Diskeeper package instead of just their basic offering as you get far less fragmentation and practically no file problems.

Once it has been set up properly and the MFTs checked a couple of times you can just leave it to run automatically in the background. It now only takes about 10 seconds to fully defragment the 10GB C: drive on this machine, much to my surprise.

What do you use to defragment the Linux file system?

[Simon]

I have taken your advice, Mac, and re-installed DK, but so far I have run it 8 times, and still my drive is fragmented, and requires further optimisation.  It has got better each time, and I am sure it will eventually do the job, but I could probably have used Norton's Speed Disk, left the PC overnight, and it would have been done in one go.  I think DK will be useful once the initial defrag is done, but it's a bit of a pain to have to keep manually restarting the defragment process, for it to do a bit at a time.

That said, I think I know what your answer is going to be.  I could have 'Set It and Forget It', on High Priority, and it would have done it overnight, right?  Not too obvious for the novice user though, would you agree?

[Mac]

I find that the mft check needs to be done first followed by a boot time defrag and then it should be looked at again, then you can set the 'Set it and forget it' with free-space consolidation and the CPU priority set on high, as you say.

The novice user should really take the time to go through the different sections and see how everything works.