How long does defragmenting usually take?

[Raziaar]

Alright, I have a 120gb hard drive, set at about 115 gb capacity, with 50.79GB of free space on it. I'm defragmenting it and after 30 minutes, it is only at 4% defragmented. How long does defragmenting a disk of this size usually take? Maybe I should have done this later at night so I could just go to sleep. Or perhaps for the remainder of the day and next day I can just watch tv or play GTA: San Andreas as it does its work.

 

[The Dark Elf]

larger the hard drive + the time since you last defragged/how defragmented it is = time it takes.

 

[Homie]

Wow thats a big hardrive. I keep my computer on at night so when you go to bed leave computer on and start degraging when you wake up it should be done. NOTE: your hardrive is big could take long then a night but its worth performance diffrence.

 

[Raziaar]

I haven't defragged it in many many many months, almost since I first bought it. Ick.

EDIT: Also, I generally keep very good care of my computer, frequent file cleanings and virus scans/adware scans etc. All that good stuff. I only ever keep critical processes and programs that I desire running on startup and such.

I'm pretty clueless when it comes to defragmenting though. After I defragment once, will it be wise or better to defragment immediately after that again for a more thorough job?

 

[Raziaar]

Almost at 50%. Damn this is taking forever! lol

 

[Asus]

If you want a good defragmenter, look up Diskeeper.
Trialware

 

[Raziaar]

If you want a good defragmenter, look up Diskeeper.
Trialware

Umm, there's software out there for defragmenting? LoL. Dang. So using Window's XP defragmenter won't be as good?

 

[Wraith]

use this defragger instead:

http://www1.execsoft.com/dklite.exe

 

[blackeye]

When I defrag my hard drives it only takes me about 7-12 minutes per drive. So 14-24 minutes to do both.

Diskeepers defragger is actioly included in windows xp it is just toned down.

 

[THATWACKYDANTE!]

I'm a lost little boy...what do those defraggers do?

 

[pieman108]

wow long time

I got an 80gb hd and 63.4gb free and it takes me around 3 mins to do defrag. Plus I only use windows defrager.

 

[Subatomic]

Takes me a few hours, I have ~90-GB of stuff on mine

 

[Raziaar]

Hmmm... Odd, when i woke up it was still defragging. So I stopped, and started it again, this time with diskeeper lite. This is seeming to take even longer than the default version XP had.

 

[Raziaar]

Grrr, i'm getting incredibly pissed. I wont be able to have a completely defragged hard drive probably even a week after Hl2 is released! At the rate i'm going, its never gonna happen.

After stopping the first defrag, which was around halfway after about 17 or so hours... I started a new one with diskeeper lite and its been running for about 15 hours and its only at 55%, and seems to be staying around this number. In about an hour its moved from 54% to 55%. I'm depressed. <sigh>

EDIT: It has about 16% fragmentation right now, with 1.01 average fragments per file, 577 fragmented files, 1,753 excess fragments. Hmmm. I stopped it, and i'm gonna start it over.

 

[VirusType2]

Grrr, i'm getting incredibly pissed. I wont be able to have a completely defragged hard drive probably even a week after Hl2 is released! At the rate i'm going, its never gonna happen.

After stopping the first defrag, which was around halfway after about 17 or so hours... I started a new one with diskeeper lite and its been running for about 15 hours and its only at 55%, and seems to be staying around this number. In about an hour its moved from 54% to 55%. I'm depressed. <sigh>

EDIT: It has about 16% fragmentation right now, with 1.01 average fragments per file, 577 fragmented files, 1,753 excess fragments. Hmmm. I stopped it, and i'm gonna start it over.

I know this thread is like 3 years old, but I was searching for something and came across it. Here is some advice:

-Don't pause or stop the defrag, you may end up with immovable files, in my experience.
-Don't use your PC for anything while it's defragging.
-It's good to have more than 15% of your HDD free before defragging.
-Don't use XP defragger because it sucks, but it's better than nothing.
-The longer you go between defrag sessions, the longer it takes.
-Defrag it before installing new software, so if you think you are going to buy a new game, you should get your drive ready, so you won't have to wait.
-Defrag after making large changes on your drive
-Defrag whether it says it's necessary or not.

Is there a good, free defrag utility that is not a trial? I have Norton System Works, I'm just wondering if there is something else out there.

 

[Reaktor4]

http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Hard-Disk-Utils/Power-Defragmenter.shtml
Very good app. You can choose to defrag a file or a folder as well as a drive and it is an order of magnitude faster than XPs defrag.

 

[VirusType2]

http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Hard-Disk-Utils/Power-Defragmenter.shtml
Very good app. You can choose to defrag a file or a folder as well as a drive and it is an order of magnitude faster than XPs defrag.

Power Defragmenter seems to be merely a GUI for Contig, which runs on Windows NT

EDIT:
oh, i get it, so the gui makes it work in xp

EDit2:

This thing is thorough dude. It said, "found a free disc block in sector...
and started moving some shit

it got all excited.

 

[Bastion]

lol, never defrag with in windows normal boot.

1. restart xp.
2. during boot up press F8.
3. choose safe mode.
4. always defrag in safe mode, why so none of your crap is running while its trying to defrag.

 

[VirusType2]

lol, never defrag with in windows normal boot.

1. restart xp.
2. during boot up press F8.
3. choose safe mode.
4. always defrag in safe mode, why so none of your crap is running while its trying to defrag.

good tip, thanks