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Suzu Fujibayashi
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Posted - 2011.07.14 21:01:00 -
[1]
I, better my computer, just spent almost the entire evening with defragmenting the C: partition. I do this maybe once a year, but is it really necessery?
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Myfanwy Heimdal
Caldari Heimdal Freight and Manufacture Inc
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Posted - 2011.07.14 21:08:00 -
[2]
I don't think that it's as important as it used to be.
I have just rebuilt my main XP development machine and this time I am not putting Diskeeper on there.
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Blacksquirrel
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Posted - 2011.07.14 21:49:00 -
[3]
Yeah files still get fragmented. However the newer OSes tend to automate this job more. But heavy writing or deleting takes it's toll, and thus a need is still there. Disk management or plenty of other 3rd party tools will show you the % fragmentation.
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Alpheias
Euphoria Released HYDRA RELOADED
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Posted - 2011.07.14 21:59:00 -
[4]
I would argue that it is still important to defragment your HDDs as maintenance is still important to your computer's performance.
Download the excellent, and free, software MyDefrag. Use a schedule that would work for you.
♫ When your ship gets blown to bits ♫ And you lose your Faction fits \☻/ Don't worry ♪ ♫ ♪ ♫ ♫ ♪ ♫ ♪ Be Happy \☻/ |
Blane Xero
Amarr The Firestorm Cartel
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Posted - 2011.07.14 22:32:00 -
[5]
Defragging is still important mechanical drives. For SSDs? Degragging is actually counterproductive. _____________________________________ Haruhiist since December 2008
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Sook Statta Hahndah
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Posted - 2011.07.15 19:29:00 -
[6]
Microsoft recommends defragmentation in windows 7 and below.
As I recall Vista monitors for inactivity and defrags in the background. In 7 I think it's a scheduled event by default.
On my XP box, I have a daily schedule set to simply run "defrag c:", with the path included ofc. It runs every night at 1:00am while I'm not around. Every time I check during the day to see if I need to defrag, it tells me "You do not need to defragment this volume." I've been doing this for years on my ancient 120GB drive, and it's plenty speedy. I'm convinced that small daily defrags are just as beneficial as one taking an entire evening is at least as effective and probably a little easier on the drive as most defrags take only a few minutes according to the logs.
What I find to be more critical are NTFS file system errors. I try to run "chkdsk /f" and reboot at least a couple times a week. I also try to run "chkdsk /r" about once a month.
When file system errors arise, I often notice an increase in the number of application crashes, particularly explorer.exe.
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defiler
Mad Hermit Wayward Alliance
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Posted - 2011.07.15 20:05:00 -
[7]
Originally by: Sook Statta Hahndah What I find to be more critical are NTFS file system errors. I try to run "chkdsk /f" and reboot at least a couple times a week. I also try to run "chkdsk /r" about once a month.
That sounds... excessive... Don't think I've ever heard of file system corruption occurring unless there is a system crash or major hardware or software problem, so if your computer behaves normally (random app crashes are to be considered perfectly normal in this case) there is no need to run chkdsk manually.
Bash on Microsoft all you want, but NTFS (assuming that's what you're running) is actually a pretty decent FS and will cope with a lot of abuse. Not like FAT which would get corrupted if you just looked at it wrong...
chkdsk /r only forces a test of every sector on the disk... Thing is, unless your drives are truly ancient they should be SMART capable and therefore able to report and deal with bad sectors themselves (to an extent of course). If chkdsk actually helps then the disk is dying and should be scrapped or demoted to storage of unimportant files only.
As for defragging... Still sort of important for mechanical drives, but a couple of times per year should be more than enough for their performance to be indistinguishable from perfectly defragged. If it's an SSD... Just don't.
(notify) Lurking Device II is already ForumLurking. |
Sacredx Taredi
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Posted - 2011.07.15 21:02:00 -
[8]
Chkdsk and defragmentation are important to run every once in a while, but not as excessively as daily (multiple times a week.)
For one, on larger machines, that could not only take hours, but its simply not needed...
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Sook Statta Hahndah
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Posted - 2011.07.15 21:12:00 -
[9]
Originally by: defiler That sounds... excessive... Don't think I've ever heard of file system corruption occurring unless there is a system crash or major hardware or software problem, so if your computer behaves normally (random app crashes are to be considered perfectly normal in this case) there is no need to run chkdsk manually.
Bash on Microsoft all you want, but NTFS (assuming that's what you're running) is actually a pretty decent FS and will cope with a lot of abuse. Not like FAT which would get corrupted if you just looked at it wrong...
chkdsk /r only forces a test of every sector on the disk... Thing is, unless your drives are truly ancient they should be SMART capable and therefore able to report and deal with bad sectors themselves (to an extent of course). If chkdsk actually helps then the disk is dying and should be scrapped or demoted to storage of unimportant files only.
As for defragging... Still sort of important for mechanical drives, but a couple of times per year should be more than enough for their performance to be indistinguishable from perfectly defragged. If it's an SSD... Just don't.
NTFS is a fine filesystem. Not bashing at all. File system corruption is probably too aggressive a description, but issues frequently arise that chkdsk /f fix. Let's call them "inconsistencies." Here's a sample resulting from a chkdsk /f and reboot during lunch:
------------------------ Checking file system on C: The type of the file system is NTFS. Volume label is Maxtor 120.
A disk check has been scheduled. Windows will now check the disk. Cleaning up 155 unused index entries from index $SII of file 0x9. Cleaning up 155 unused index entries from index $SDH of file 0x9. Cleaning up 155 unused security descriptors. CHKDSK is verifying Usn Journal... Usn Journal verification completed.
120053713 KB total disk space. 80507744 KB in 149438 files. 56912 KB in 12637 indexes. 0 KB in bad sectors. 604949 KB in use by the system. 65536 KB occupied by the log file. 38884108 KB available on disk.
4096 bytes in each allocation unit. 30013428 total allocation units on disk. 9721027 allocation units available on disk. <snip> Windows has finished checking your disk. Please wait while your computer restarts. ------------------------
I expect these are more akin to bookkeeping or accounting issues than anything else. A handle got left open when a program crashed, and the file system needed to correct it, etc.
If I let it go too long, I start to notice explorer.exe crashes in particular, and a chkdsk /f cleans things up and crashes go away. By running a /f a couple times a week during a reboot and a bathroom break, they are few and far between.
chkdsk /r is because I've had 20+ hard drive failures in my career over the past 20+ years, and I like to know if things are okay. It's really peace of mind more than anything else, and it all happens after I go to bed, so no time wasted. SMART has never saved me from a pending failure, but a system that's performing slowly has either shown bad clusters or given indications during the scan that a problem is pending. Furthermore, if a large drive with a lot of free space isn't accessing areas of free space where a defect may have arisen, you won't get any warning from SMART.
My experience is consistent over every computer and drive to which I have had regular access (50+ PCs, name brand and other, with every brand of HD you can imagine). In short, if a "chkdsk /f" hasn't been run in a couple weeks, it will ALWAYS find something to clean up on an NTFS partition that experienced any non-dedicated use.
In my experience, those inconsistencies fixed by chkdsk /f adversely affect system stability when left uncorrected. The longer they accumulate, the more unstable the system becomes.
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defiler
Mad Hermit Wayward Alliance
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Posted - 2011.07.15 22:55:00 -
[10]
Interesting. In my experience, in the few occasions that chkdsk detects problems it's almost always non-critical stuff that affects neither performance nor data integrity. And (once again) problems simply shouldn't arise when everything else works ok, which leads me to suspect that something in your system doesn't. Could be a bad power supply, motherboard, firmware (motherboard or drive), driver... A lot of different things that on their own may be fine but when put together result in weirdness, making diagnosing it rather difficult...
I don't mean to knock your practice of running chkdsk frequently, as you apparently have reason to do so. I'm just saying that a file system doesn't go bad by itself and the problem most likely lies elsewhere.
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Bane Necran
Minmatar Furtim Vigilans
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Posted - 2011.07.15 23:30:00 -
[11]
Edited by: Bane Necran on 15/07/2011 23:35:59 HD's store information magnetically on a disk that rotates at high speeds. By their very nature they're unstable. Shutting down your computer often will increase the amount of fragmentation, and system crashes will greatly increase them, but even without those there will always be some fragmentation from electromagnetic interference, or just usage.
I recommend defragging often. Advanced Systemcare Free does it along with a number of other things which are healthy for your system, and is faster than waiting for Vista or Windows 7 to do it on their own schedule, in the background.
I could be wrong, but i've always thought chkdsk is meant to find out if your HD is physically damaged in some way.
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Furb Killer
Gallente
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Posted - 2011.07.16 07:27:00 -
[12]
Yeah maybe check wiki what HDD fragmentation means, it isnt what you think it means.
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Sook Statta Hahndah
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Posted - 2011.07.16 19:14:00 -
[13]
Originally by: defiler
I don't mean to knock your practice of running chkdsk frequently, as you apparently have reason to do so. I'm just saying that a file system doesn't go bad by itself and the problem most likely lies elsewhere.
Not regarding you as knocking. My experience has been 100% consistent over too many installations and manufacturers to have me consider otherwise. I'm fairly certain that any crash of any program with open file handles can and usually does result in some sort of NTFS issue, though very rarely of any substantial importance. I tend to be a very aggressive user with many resource hungry applications pushing the system to its limits, and my systems tend to be min-specced as I'm both cheap and lazy-usually a couple "generations" behind when I upgrade every 3 years or so.
If you invest in a high-end system with installed RAM well in excess of your needs, I would expect your issues of this nature to be less than mine. To give you an example, my Eve machine is a 2GB RAM Athlon 64 X2 3GHz with ATI HD3850 and oodles of hard drives including a RAID. It can easily handle one Incarna client at max quality or two at minimum memory config. With additional utilization while running two clients, I occasionally spool to virtual RAM.
My work machine is similarly specced with 4G RAM (3.25G usable) and a 9800GT... less issues with virtual RAM, but still the relatively frequent file system goobers just like the home machine.
To summarize, so it's not lost in the rabble...
- NTFS is inherently fragmentation resistant. It should still be defragmented depending on how the system is utilized on a regular schedule.
- NFTS is far more robust than old FAT based systems, but it should still have regular diagnostics (weekly/monthly/stability dependent?) to insure maximum integrity.
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Alpheias
Euphoria Released HYDRA RELOADED
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Posted - 2011.07.17 08:39:00 -
[14]
Originally by: Sook Statta Hahndah
Originally by: defiler
I don't mean to knock your practice of running chkdsk frequently, as you apparently have reason to do so. I'm just saying that a file system doesn't go bad by itself and the problem most likely lies elsewhere.
Not regarding you as knocking. My experience has been 100% consistent over too many installations and manufacturers to have me consider otherwise. I'm fairly certain that any crash of any program with open file handles can and usually does result in some sort of NTFS issue, though very rarely of any substantial importance. I tend to be a very aggressive user with many resource hungry applications pushing the system to its limits, and my systems tend to be min-specced as I'm both cheap and lazy-usually a couple "generations" behind when I upgrade every 3 years or so.
If you invest in a high-end system with installed RAM well in excess of your needs, I would expect your issues of this nature to be less than mine. To give you an example, my Eve machine is a 2GB RAM Athlon 64 X2 3GHz with ATI HD3850 and oodles of hard drives including a RAID. It can easily handle one Incarna client at max quality or two at minimum memory config. With additional utilization while running two clients, I occasionally spool to virtual RAM.
My work machine is similarly specced with 4G RAM (3.25G usable) and a 9800GT... less issues with virtual RAM, but still the relatively frequent file system goobers just like the home machine.
To summarize, so it's not lost in the rabble...
- NTFS is inherently fragmentation resistant. It should still be defragmented depending on how the system is utilized on a regular schedule.
- NFTS is far more robust than old FAT based systems, but it should still have regular diagnostics (weekly/monthly/stability dependent?) to insure maximum integrity.
Seems like rather pointless quest as you cannot stop wear and tear on your components, hard drives in particular, and having a habit of running chkdsk a few times a week just makes you sound desperate enough about stuff not to break down.
I cannot help but wonder if it wouldn't be wiser to go with upgrades that aren't four-five years old, if not more (120GB Maxtor? Really?), that is more to your needs than clinging onto very old hardware just because it "works".
♫ When your ship gets blown to bits ♫ And you lose your Faction fits \☻/ Don't worry ♪ ♫ ♪ ♫ ♫ ♪ ♫ ♪ Be Happy \☻/ |
Reiisha
Splint Eye Probabilities Inc.
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Posted - 2011.07.17 16:20:00 -
[15]
Made me think of this.
"If you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all"
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Something Random
Gallente The Barrow Boys
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Posted - 2011.07.19 17:50:00 -
[16]
Originally by: Reiisha Made me think of this.
Hehe.
Nothing wrong with defragging your drive, just set windows to do it every week in the background with the handy dandy task scheduler. Why buy a defragger ?
"chkdsk /f /v /r" <-- a friend in so many ways...
Enjoy your slightly improved computing.
Originally by: CCP Fallout :facepalm:
Aint that right? |
defiler
Mad Hermit Wayward Alliance
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Posted - 2011.07.19 20:05:00 -
[17]
Originally by: Something Random "chkdsk /f /v /r" <-- a friend in so many ways...
<nitpick> /v is only relevant on FAT partitions, and who uses that these days, except for flash drives? and /f is redundant when using the /x or /r switches.
Personally I always use just /x, or /r /x on really dodgy drives. I know /f will be the same on drives either without open handles or locked ones, but it saves time not having to think about which one to use. (come to think of it, maybe that's your reasoning, so I guess you can disregard this post... )
Reminds me of another command... xcopy /q /d /i /c /k /h /e /r I don't know what all the switches do, but it's easy to remember and does exactly what I want.
(notify) Lurking Device II is already ForumLurking. |
Taedrin
Gallente Zero Percent Tax Haven
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Posted - 2011.07.19 20:07:00 -
[18]
IIRC, so long as you don't fill your drive to capacity, NTFS will avoid most fragmentation. It isn't until a drive starts getting close to its capacity that NTFS will start causing significant fragmentation.
What I'm trying to say is that defragmenting your hard drive is not NEARLY as important as it used to be in the days of FAT formatted hard drives. Yeah, you should still do it occasionally, but it doesn't really help your average consumer at all. ----------
Originally by: Dr Fighter "how do you know when youve had a repro accident"
Theres modules missing and morphite in your mineral pile.
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Zagam
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Posted - 2011.07.19 20:28:00 -
[19]
I defrag once a month... Very little difference in speed overall, but its part of my routine now, sooo... ---------.oOo.---------- Chaos, Madness, and Destruction. My work here is done. |
Barakkus
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Posted - 2011.07.19 22:55:00 -
[20]
You should be doing it at least once a month, and cleaning out your temp folders in your user profile.
I have all my computers boot up at about 6am, they all run a defrag around the same time on Saturdays before I get up. You don't need anything other than regular old defrag program that comes with windows and set up a task in the task scheduler. - [SERVICE] Corp Standings For POS anchoring |
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Jak Silverheart
Minmatar
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Posted - 2011.07.21 05:44:00 -
[21]
Edited by: Jak Silverheart on 21/07/2011 05:44:48 Edited by: Jak Silverheart on 21/07/2011 05:44:20 I just use auslogics disk defrag, the normal "defrag" option seems to just defrag fragmented files and not optimize (rearrange) the files so it's usually gets done pretty quick. (anywhere from 30sec to 6min from most of my computers)
I had one family member who had one requirement for a computer, for it to just freaking work no matter what. So I set it up with firefox (auto update), the defrag to happen nightly (it takes less than a minute usually), followed by an windows update/MSE update, and MSE quick scan. And on top of that I have CCleaner clean up junk files upon bootup (we usually put the computer in hibernate, so that happens mabey once every couple of weeks). Is that excessive, yeah I admit it is but it runs like new still and meets their requirements and I have yet to have a problem with it. Only thing I've been meaning to do is setup check disk to auto run once a month.
As for defrags, I personally run one after I instal a new game or something along those lines, than every once in awhile. I don't do the above to my computer because I don't like my computer doing anything without my permission and my schedule changes constantly and I don't want it to start updating or scanning without my permission when I am doing something. Both are win7 machines, but I do the same as above on a vista machine, and somewhat simmilar on XP machines.
Incarna, giving pilots a single room bachelor pad with a mirror and no beer since 6.21.2011 |
Sook Statta Hahndah
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Posted - 2011.07.22 00:40:00 -
[22]
Originally by: Alpheias Seems like rather pointless quest as you cannot stop wear and tear on your components, hard drives in particular, and having a habit of running chkdsk a few times a week just makes you sound desperate enough about stuff not to break down.
I cannot help but wonder if it wouldn't be wiser to go with upgrades that aren't four-five years old, if not more (120GB Maxtor? Really?), that is more to your needs than clinging onto very old hardware just because it "works".
Desperate? How is the occasional chkdsk /f and reboot when I take a bathroom break desperate? Where is the desperation in short, infrequent routine tasks that have a measurably positive effect on system performance?
You just don't even bother paying attention, do you? This has been going on for years, on fresh installs of new hardware. My upgrade cycle time has nothing to do with it. This 120G drive is just one example. Another system, which exhibits identical behavior, has a 500GB+ system drive that's not more than a year old - same thing. All drives in question have zero logged SMART errors and pass their respective manufacturer's diagnostics. I'm not a fool. Hard drives are dirt cheap. I buy 1-2 a year to upgrade, replace or fill an enclosure as needed. However, there's a lot to be said for "just because it works" when productivity matters.
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Alpheias
Euphoria Released HYDRA RELOADED
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Posted - 2011.07.22 03:29:00 -
[23]
Originally by: Sook Statta Hahndah
Originally by: Alpheias Seems like rather pointless quest as you cannot stop wear and tear on your components, hard drives in particular, and having a habit of running chkdsk a few times a week just makes you sound desperate enough about stuff not to break down.
I cannot help but wonder if it wouldn't be wiser to go with upgrades that aren't four-five years old, if not more (120GB Maxtor? Really?), that is more to your needs than clinging onto very old hardware just because it "works".
Desperate? How is the occasional chkdsk /f and reboot when I take a bathroom break desperate? Where is the desperation in short, infrequent routine tasks that have a measurably positive effect on system performance?
You just don't even bother paying attention, do you? This has been going on for years, on fresh installs of new hardware. My upgrade cycle time has nothing to do with it. This 120G drive is just one example. Another system, which exhibits identical behavior, has a 500GB+ system drive that's not more than a year old - same thing. All drives in question have zero logged SMART errors and pass their respective manufacturer's diagnostics. I'm not a fool. Hard drives are dirt cheap. I buy 1-2 a year to upgrade, replace or fill an enclosure as needed. However, there's a lot to be said for "just because it works" when productivity matters.
Is that how you wanna play? How about the fact that you got agitated over how I called you desperate for holding onto this routine of yours (for dear life?) For something that is (admittedly to me) little more than a strange obsession by someone desperate enough for a placebo.
What is that if not desperate? And measurable system performance? Fool somebody else.
And yes, I pay enough attention to keep multiple backups of, what I consider to be, important files - onsite, offsite and online so hard drives failing on me is an annoyance, not a source of screaming horror. I also consider myself to have enough money to readily replace them SHOULD they fail, dirt cheap as they are.
♫ When your ship gets blown to bits ♫ And you lose your Faction fits \☻/ Don't worry ♪ ♫ ♪ ♫ ♫ ♪ ♫ ♪ Be Happy \☻/ |
Sook Statta Hahndah
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Posted - 2011.07.22 20:29:00 -
[24]
Originally by: Alpheias Is that how you wanna play? How about the fact that you got agitated over how I called you desperate for holding onto this routine of yours (for dear life?) For something that is (admittedly to me) little more than a strange obsession by someone desperate enough for a placebo.
What is that if not desperate? And measurable system performance? Fool somebody else.
And yes, I pay enough attention to keep multiple backups of, what I consider to be, important files - onsite, offsite and online so hard drives failing on me is an annoyance, not a source of screaming horror. I also consider myself to have enough money to readily replace them SHOULD they fail, dirt cheap as they are.
LOL... let's see...
Agitated? - Don't give yourself so much credit. for dear life? - drama queen placebo? - just lol
Given these conclusions you've drawn, you clearly haven't paid enough attention to actually read the information I've given in this thread, or you are too detached or self-absorbed in your own little reality to see another's point of view. Either way, it's clear you have no grasp of my personality or situation whatsoever.
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Alpheias
Euphoria Released HYDRA RELOADED
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Posted - 2011.07.23 00:17:00 -
[25]
Originally by: Sook Statta Hahndah paid enough attention
But I have, and based on your own statement, that you run chkdsk /f on occasion and that you can see a "measurably positive system performance" which means you see a noticeable difference between before and after, and this is coming from you, that can only mean that there is something wrong with the drive(s). That is the logical conclusion.
Why you keep running chkdsk /f instead of replaced said drive(s) makes you look desperate indeed for that placebo effect. I am truly sorry but that is the harsh reality of it. Again, so sorry to pop your comfortable soap-bubble world but it is time to wake up.
♫ When your ship gets blown to bits ♫ And you lose your Faction fits \☻/ Don't worry ♪ ♫ ♪ ♫ ♫ ♪ ♫ ♪ Be Happy \☻/ |
Taedrin
Gallente Zero Percent Tax Haven
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Posted - 2011.07.23 18:35:00 -
[26]
a chkdsk is hardly a time expensive or intensive hard drive operation. On the other hand, I have yet to see a *SINGLE* hard drive of mine die. Granted, I have only used about 10-15 hard drives in my life - but I DID setup a Linux File Server for my dad and used many old hard drives for system partitions and etc. I think the oldest one was a 2GB drive.
And our old 486/33 still has a 500MB hard drive which works - and that's almost as old as I am.
Long story short - for your *average* consumer, you can spend an extra 10-20USD on a decent hard drive and not have to worry about it dying for at least a few years.
And if you are REALLY worried about data integrity, then set up a RAID 5 array and the only thing you have to worry about is two hard drives failing at the same time. ----------
Originally by: Dr Fighter "how do you know when youve had a repro accident"
Theres modules missing and morphite in your mineral pile.
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J Kunjeh
Gallente
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Posted - 2011.07.23 19:09:00 -
[27]
Defrag is still an important part of your PC maintenance. I highly recommend AVG's PC Tune Up; in addition to defrag, it has a ton of other great PC maintenance functions. Here are just a few:
Fix registry problems that cause freezing and crashing Recover accidentally deleted files Permanently delete files and wipe disks Monitor your hard drive health and space usage
______________________ ~Gnosis~ |
Ami Hayashi
Caldari Tea Tactics
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Posted - 2011.07.23 19:32:00 -
[28]
Its not really that important but it will improve performance a fair bit sometimes on old mechanical disks depending on how badly fragmented they become.
I recommend perfectdisk, I use that and have it set to run in the background every 12 hours with an idle time of 1 minute, so basically it kicks in when ever I leave my machine for over 1 minute to go make coffee or what ever, it keeps things nice and snappy.
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Lady Spank
Amarr Trillionaire High-Rollers Suicidal Bassoon Orkesta
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Posted - 2011.07.23 20:53:00 -
[29]
Using o&o defrag my harddisk is apparently 17% defragmented (has been for ages) but it absolutely refuses to actually defragment the drive.
I've tried another defrag program and get the same problem.
Anyone know what is going on?
I have about 4gb of space on my harddrive so it should have enough room to move things about surely? ~~~
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Alpheias
Euphoria Released HYDRA RELOADED
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Posted - 2011.07.24 02:16:00 -
[30]
Originally by: Lady Spank Using o&o defrag my harddisk is apparently 17% defragmented (has been for ages) but it absolutely refuses to actually defragment the drive.
I've tried another defrag program and get the same problem.
Anyone know what is going on?
I have about 4gb of space on my harddrive so it should have enough room to move things about surely?
Without knowing the size, I am guessing your drive is packed full. It doesn't have the free space to defragment properly.
Try freeing some space, moving the large files like video to a different drive or consider upgrading.
♫ When your ship gets blown to bits ♫ And you lose your Faction fits \☻/ Don't worry ♪ ♫ ♪ ♫ ♫ ♪ ♫ ♪ Be Happy \☻/ |
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