Well, this topic will be in a loop soon enough and I have dealt with it for many years (like others here).
In the beginning: Like the 80's.
- & still true today A rotating disk drive is about the slowest activity.
In the Middle: Like the 90's.
- Cache was added to drives to speed up access to the 'next part' of the files in-use.
In the later middle: Like 2k
- Fetch, pre-fetch and super fetch was added to obtain the next block of data BEFORE the actual program asks for the data.
In the end:
- SSD eliminates the slower need to do a rotational disk read/write.
- HDD have so much capacity and internal cache applied BEFORE the OS applies it's caching algorithms that it pretty much covers all issues of slowness.
Summary:
I see no need or very little need to defrag more than once per year.
Defrag activity IMHO is 10 times the volume of disk-io volume of ANY other activity a normal user would ever encounter.
We all want speed and we want to test real life speed (not the hypothetical speeds based upon fake data scenarios or BUY my software charts).
The only files that need a defrag are those that the OS loads at startup (because they do over time with hundreds of OS updates get defragmented) So to save that additional 76 milliseconds on startup time may be important).
Other files "like that copy of a movie that was scattered all over a drive and not as neat as you think it should" will be loaded, fetched, pre-fetched and super-fetched long before your application program needs the data (hence the term buffering ahead).
I have a better question for the modern user:
What % of your disk-IO's life span are assigned to non-user activity?
Like Scans for Malware, Viruses and defrag's?
Computers are like trucks. You paid $50,000 for a truck and found out that 85% of all cost were for Parking 'off the road" user activity.
My .02
Do not allow your idle time to be consumed by looking for things to do. 99% of all the computer users out there would not notice the difference between a defragged computer and a non defragged computer.
ps...... My main computer boots in 15 seconds. The other 4 take about 2 min.
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Donโt bother me. Iโm living happily ever after. ๐
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