Defrag is taking an unfeasible amount of time

[Zogundar]

Okay, so I may not have run it in a while (Though the above is partly why.) But still, two nights in a row now I've run it for around 8 hours, (Probably closer to 20 hours total) and it's not even close to finishing when I return.

I've been running the System Disk Monthly scan.

The first night I ran it with my anti-virus turned on, so I thought maybe that was messing with it. Last night I ran it with NOD32 disabled. I'm not sure I noticed a difference. I think it did make more "progress" but I don't know if that was due to the anti-virus being off, the fact that I'd just run it recently, or the fact that it ran for a couple of hours longer, or a combination of the three. IIRC, the first time I ran it, it was around 0.0001% (Or something to that effect) at Zone 3 of 6 when I checked on it (And it quit itself due to too much disk activity, or some such, when I checked in on it.) Today it ran longer, making it to Zone 3 of 6 at 20% (I'm not sure how much longer, it's not leaving a log file beyond the MyDefrag.txt file.) Comparing the two (I kept a copy of the one from yesterday) it doesn't look like a huge difference was made.

19th:

Code:

Before:
  Unfragmented items:   286,280,759,808 bytes           566,095 items
  Fragmented items:     118,400,679,424 bytes            66,554 items
  Gaps:                  93,902,884,864 bytes           402,255 gaps
  Average gap:                  232,960 bytes
  Median gap:                     4,096 bytes
  Biggest gap:            1,523,367,936 bytes

20th:

Code:

Before:
  Unfragmented items:   286,465,367,552 bytes           567,559 items
  Fragmented items:     118,274,416,128 bytes            65,176 items
  Gaps:                  93,844,283,392 bytes           437,124 gaps
  Average gap:                  214,528 bytes
  Median gap:                     4,096 bytes
  Biggest gap:            1,523,367,936 bytes

Not exactly a huge amount of progress comparing the two.

I remember back with jkdefrag it also took a long amount of time to finish, but it did finish eventually (Windows defrag was not, which is why I made the switch.)

[BloodySword]

Okay, so I may not have run it in a while (Though the above is partly why.) But still, two nights in a row now I've run it for around 8 hours, (Probably closer to 20 hours total) and it's not even close to finishing when I return.

I've been running the System Disk Monthly scan.

It sounds to me that the computer does some writes while defrag. You should close down all other programms, stop the superfetch service, kill explorer.exe etc.

If you want more information about the defragmentation speed:
MyDefrag is very slow, what speed can I expect?

The first night I ran it with my anti-virus turned on, so I thought maybe that was messing with it. Last night I ran it with NOD32 disabled. I'm not sure I noticed a difference.

AFAIK ESET NOD32 does not interrupt MyDefrag at all.

I think it did make more "progress" but I don't know if that was due to the anti-virus being off, the fact that I'd just run it recently, or the fact that it ran for a couple of hours longer, or a combination of the three. IIRC, the first time I ran it, it was around 0.0001% (Or something to that effect) at Zone 3 of 6 when I checked on it (And it quit itself due to too much disk activity, or some such, when I checked in on it.) Today it ran longer, making it to Zone 3 of 6 at 20% (I'm not sure how much longer, it's not leaving a log file beyond the MyDefrag.txt file.) Comparing the two (I kept a copy of the one from yesterday) it doesn't look like a huge difference was made.

19th:

Code:

Before:
  Unfragmented items:   286,280,759,808 bytes           566,095 items
  Fragmented items:     118,400,679,424 bytes            66,554 items
  Gaps:                  93,902,884,864 bytes           402,255 gaps
  Average gap:                  232,960 bytes
  Median gap:                     4,096 bytes
  Biggest gap:            1,523,367,936 bytes

20th:

Code:

Before:
  Unfragmented items:   286,465,367,552 bytes           567,559 items
  Fragmented items:     118,274,416,128 bytes            65,176 items
  Gaps:                  93,844,283,392 bytes           437,124 gaps
  Average gap:                  214,528 bytes
  Median gap:                     4,096 bytes
  Biggest gap:            1,523,367,936 bytes

Not exactly a huge amount of progress comparing the two.

Thats probably because the files are unmovable or other files where written while defrag and the files were wrapped around. This can cause fragmented files, but this type of fragmentation won't actually slowdown the read process of this file.

Here you can find some information about this phenomen:
Why does MyDefrag not perfectly optimize my disk?

To understand what MyDefrag has done to your volume, see this legend:
What are the colors on the diskmap?

If you don't let MyDefrag finish, it is normal that there is not optimized much on the disk. Depending on how full the partition is and on your hardware it can take a long time to finish.

Tips to avoid this case:

- Disable the Defragmenter service completely and permanently (Windows 7 only)
- Disable the Windows built in defragmenter of windows by renaming dfrgntfs.exe, dfrgfat.exe and defrag.exe in System32 directory (Windows 2000, XP and Vista only)

- Copy user data such as media files, big data files, downloads, documents etc. on a second partition or better physical drive. After copy these files are defragmented because Windows knows the size of every file ans searches for a free block on the target partition. If you have VMWare or VirtualBox images, you should only copy them to another physical drive at first because they should be on the fastest disk part as possible.

Before defrag:
- Delete all system restore points
- Clear browser caches
- Close down all programs, even background watchers and notify tray icons (except for ESET NOD32 tray icon)
- Kill explorer.exe
- Stop the Superfetch service (on Vista and 7)
- Clean all temp dirs.

After defrag:
- Start all closed and killed programs and services
- Create a new system restore point if you want to use it (what is useless in my opinion)

I hope the Monthly script runs a bit faster now, and it will optimize your disk better.

[Zogundar]

It sounds to me that the computer does some writes while defrag. You should close down all other programms, stop the superfetch service, kill explorer.exe etc.

That wouldn't surprise me, though I'm not sure what it would be, since I tried to close just about everything (One thing I am adamant about leaving open is my UPS application - if the electric goes off, and it did recently, I want my computer to shut itself off!)

If you don't let MyDefrag finish, it is normal that there is not optimized much on the disk. Depending on how full the partition is and on your hardware it can take a long time to finish.

But does it keep "progress" you make? Or does it absolutely have to go from start to finish in one run?

- Disable the Windows built in defragmenter of windows by renaming dfrgntfs.exe, dfrgfat.exe and defrag.exe in System32 directory (Windows 2000, XP and Vista only)

..that sounds a bit spooky, to be honest. Is that really necessary?

- Close down all programs, even background watchers and notify tray icons (except for ESET NOD32 tray icon)

I don't suppose there's a list of common non-essential processes? Like.. cshelper.exe for example. Most of the stuff running in the background is under "SYSTEM," so I'm not sure how much more I can shut down.

[Darlis]

If you don't let MyDefrag finish, it is normal that there is not optimized much on the disk. Depending on how full the partition is and on your hardware it can take a long time to finish.

But does it keep "progress" you make? Or does it absolutely have to go from start to finish in one run?

MyDefrag does not remember the process it made, but it will continue where it left off if (ideally) the disk content has not changed. Unfortunately, this can't be assumed on a system volume. Plus, the monthly starts all over, if a single file has changed. The Weekly and Daily scripts do not sort and should be faster.

- Disable the Windows built in defragmenter of windows by renaming dfrgntfs.exe, dfrgfat.exe and defrag.exe in System32 directory (Windows 2000, XP and Vista only)

..that sounds a bit spooky, to be honest. Is that really necessary?

No, you don't have to do that and I wouldn't recommend that. For these versions (2000-Vista) you can simply set the registry value HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Dfrg\BootOptimizeFunction\Enable to "N". This will disable the automatic optimization of the boot files.

- Close down all programs, even background watchers and notify tray icons (except for ESET NOD32 tray icon)

I don't suppose there's a list of common non-essential processes? Like.. cshelper.exe for example. Most of the stuff running in the background is under "SYSTEM," so I'm not sure how much more I can shut down.

The standard Windows processes and services do not conflict with MyDefrag. How much free space do you have? Is the volume encrypted?

[Zogundar]

MyDefrag does not remember the process it made, but it will continue where it left off if (ideally) the disk content has not changed. Unfortunately, this can't be assumed on a system volume. Plus, the monthly starts all over, if a single file has changed. The Weekly and Daily scripts do not sort and should be faster.

So maybe I should just do the weekly one first? I think that defrags large files, which it would need to do, since it's a few of those that are the most badly fragmented.

No, you don't have to do that and I wouldn't recommend that. For these versions (2000-Vista) you can simply set the registry value HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Dfrg\BootOptimizeFunction\Enable to "N". This will disable the automatic optimization of the boot files.

What is this intended to accomplish exactly? Is it for preventing it from interfering during a scan, or at all times? Just in between these unfinished scans?

The standard Windows processes and services do not conflict with MyDefrag. How much free space do you have? Is the volume encrypted?

About 19%. >_>
As for whether it's encrypted.. not that I know of?

It made it to 50-something percent of Zone 3 of 6 today. What comes after Zone 3 again?

[Darlis]

No, you don't have to do that and I wouldn't recommend that. For these versions (2000-Vista) you can simply set the registry value HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Dfrg\BootOptimizeFunction\Enable to "N". This will disable the automatic optimization of the boot files.

What is this intended to accomplish exactly? Is it for preventing it from interfering during a scan, or at all times? Just in between these unfinished scans?

It prevents two defragmenters fighting over where to place the boot files. MyDefrag (and Win7) put them at the begining of the volume while 2000-Vista put them wherever there is free space. So, if you don't disable the Windows defragmenter your boot files will continuously be moved from one place to another, which is unnecessary.

[Zogundar]

When does this "fighting" occur, though?

[Darlis]

If you place the files with MyDefrag and then let Windows place them somewhere else, then again with MyDefrag, and so on...
You just get a lot of unnecessary file movement, that's all.

[Zogundar]

If you place the files with MyDefrag and then let Windows place them somewhere else, then again with MyDefrag, and so on...
You just get a lot of unnecessary file movement, that's all.

But WHEN is Windows trying to do this placing? Do you have to run something? Does it do it every week/month? If the computer is idle for 5 minutes? When the stars are aligned?

[Darlis]

The automatic optimization starts every 3 days when the PC is idle. Or when you start the Windows defrag utility manually.

[BloodySword]

What is this intended to accomplish exactly? Is it for preventing it from interfering during a scan, or at all times? Just in between these unfinished scans?

Large files exept for pagefile and hiberfil should NEVER be on a sytsem partition.

[poutnik]

What is this intended to accomplish exactly? Is it for preventing it from interfering during a scan, or at all times? Just in between these unfinished scans?

Large files exept for pagefile and hiberfil should NEVER be on a sytsem partition.

It very depends on nature of large files and their accessing patterns.
Some large files are far from being spacehog but just by size. They can have frequent small size read/write accesses over the files body.
On some HW configurations like 1 disk/2 partitions scenario, or Fast system disk/Slow data disk,
system partition can still be the best place to keep them.

[Zogundar]

I tried System Disk Weekly last night/this morning, and..

6% of Zone 3.

[quanthero]

What is this intended to accomplish exactly? Is it for preventing it from interfering during a scan, or at all times? Just in between these unfinished scans?

Large files exept for pagefile and hiberfil should NEVER be on a sytsem partition.

About movies, music and photos, I agree. But I think huge database files, virtual machine files, etc. should remain on system partition because it's faster.

[matthelm]

What is this intended to accomplish exactly? Is it for preventing it from interfering during a scan, or at all times? Just in between these unfinished scans?

Large files exept for pagefile and hiberfil should NEVER be on a sytsem partition.

About movies, music and photos, I agree. But I think huge database files, virtual machine files, etc. should remain on system partition because it's faster.

If you put that crud on there, it sure won't be the fastest drive very long!  Plus all programs would be slightly faster, if the data is on a different drive, as then accessing the base OS, other programs, etc., would not interfere with the data access.  And, that assumes the system disk is the fastest drive, which is not always true.   Most systems I build, the "C" and "D" drive are the same model, so same speed.

Personal, I try to put as little as I can on the system disk (partition), so the full metal copy takes the least time/space.  ALL my "normal" data, is on other drives, and you shouldn't need a full metal copy of these drives, as any normal copy program can make backups of these!   (you do backup all you stuff, don't you???)