Re: Speed Disk vs Defrag

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JCO wrote:
These do different things as far as keeping your harddrive tuned up.
Defrag removes all the pointers by putting entire programs or data
together on the harddrive (in sequence instead of scattered allover
the HD). Speed Disk (Norton) is suppose to reorder the data and
stack it up front (sort of speak) so that all the empty space is
together. If I understand this correctly (or close enough), it seems
that you
should use both tools.
My question is this: Which tool is better to use first? Does it
matter? Can one tool undermine the other?

Thanks



First, IMO, the term defrag does not necessarily imply its going to
order anything. Defrag is just the process of joining all the
segments of a fragmented file into one file on contiguous sectors of
the HD. Not necessarily any special place. There are defraggers like
O&O
defrag that I like that will let you order them by date used, date
created, name or just do a fast defrag filling holes.
I'm not sure if there is any logic to the built in version in XP.
And I truely can't talk about Norton.

So when you say Speed Disk does an ordering, and stacks it up front,
that's basically the same thing the internal XP one does, maybe not
the ordering, I don't know about XP's logic if any. It does pull all
the files forward (if you wish to use that term) and leaves the
remainder of the drive in the back. I do think however that XP's
Defrag does hop around the NTFS MFT files and any unmovable files.
Norton might be more bold and move a bit more. I've seen utilities
that say they do
shuffle and rebuild the registry (which is normally unmovable) and MFT
area but I'm not sure I want those things moved on a running system
anyway.
I think just running XP's defrag would suffice most system maintenance
plans.

You're absolutely right; XPs defrag is fine and there's no reason to
avoid it. Speed Disk is a little better and does allow you to put your
choice of files first, middle, last, next to last, or combinations of
those, on the disk. For one who knows what files he works on the most
and which cause the most fragmantation to occur, those features can be
very handy. Those same features in the hands of a non-thinking
inxperienced person though can slow the machine down as much or more
than normal fragmentation does. Example: Putting all Word docs on the
outer tracks and all temp and .BAK docs on the inner tracks just outside
the system area, would cause a LOT of disk seeking/thrashing every time
you press a key! So, it's like most other things; use your head and
know what they do, then follow the mfgr's advice wherever possible
unless you are certain you know better.

HTH


.

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