Windows 7 defrag

[Two_dogs]

I have a laptop running Windows 7 Home Premium, 64 bit.
It's around 18 months old and runs pretty well for an entry level machine.
Intel I3 dual core processor running at 2.53GHz and 4 GB ram.

Defrag is set to run weekly and reports C drive as 0% defragmented.
I recently downloaded and ran Piriform Defraggler which reported 11% fragmentation.

I know that previous versions of the Microsoft product were lacking, but surely they have it sorted by now?

Should I replace the windows version of the defrag software with the third party software? Which is reporting the correct value?

Any opinions or recommendations from those in the know would be appreciated.

[Lancelot37]

Many so called experts who write in computer magazines claim that defragging and register programs make so little difference to speed that they are not worth bothering with. The difference can often only be measured in miliseconds.

[Load Toad]

But it makes you feel better.

And if defragging & registry cleaning are a waste of time - what - if anything should we do...?

[le Pingouin]

Are they measuring exactly the same thing? 11% isn't exactly a high level of fragmentation and unless your drive is very full should be insignificant.

[Milo Minderbinder]

defragging won't make any noticeable speed difference until the drive gets to around 75% full

To be truthfull, I quite like it when people try defragging drives on older machines, because often the extra extended workout will push any older tired drives (i.e. anything over three years old) over the edge. By defragging an older drive you run a very high chance of killing it

As to the registry, best to leave alone unless you are cleaning up after a malware infection. Vista / Win7 loads the registry in such a way that the "dead" parts of the registry don't get loaded.
Again theres a downside in running these registry cleanup programs - most are incapable of analysing the Microsoft .NET runtime files and often delete things that shouldn't be. Microsoft report this as one of the commonest user-caused software errors. Leave alone unless you really know what you are doing

[exeng]

Mindbender,

You state: To be truthfull, I quite like it when people try defragging drives on older machines, because often the extra extended workout will push any older tired drives (i.e. anything over three years old) over the edge. By defragging an older drive you run a very high chance of killing it

I have to ask - why do you like this? Do you also enjoy watching peoples houses fall down? Bizarre I have to say.

By the way I regularly defrag drives and have yet to have any hard drive fail in any way whatsoever. Maybe I have just been lucky over the last 25 or so years.


Regards
Exeng

[Lancelot37]

I've three computers, the oldest is nearly 8 years old and has been defraggeed weekly. No hard drive failure!