Suggestions for Smart Defrag v4

[Halliday]

The minute microscopic increase in performance is negated by the investment in time and redundancy plus wear on the drive by over defragmenting. A drive can never be "perfectly" set up. When you use it, it will fragment again.

 

Sincerely,

-Mel

Live long and prosper!

 

Yes, Mel. I know that a drive can never be set up "perfectly", especially not for the long term. (Of course, if Windows were not so "stupid" in its use of the disk, there would be far less need for defragmentation. My UNIX systems never needed defragmentation, even running 24/7, and often completely filling the disk, including running applications that expanded the swap file even to the point of swapping-itself-to-death.)

 

I was simply using the "drive is 'perfectly' set up" as a shorthand for attaining no further progress because there is no further fragmentation to be removed, nor optimization/prioritization to be gained, not due to lack of space for such work, nor issues with unmovable files, etc., but because everything is the best possible, for the time being. Basically, if no further progress can be made due to lack of free space, and/or unmovable files, I want SD to "fess up" to this issue, rather than the usual "No defrag needed", even when defragmentation is clearly "needed".*

 

(Of course, one could suppose that an even smarter defragmentation program would be able to attain usage information such as to be able to predict, to at least some degree, how much buffer space certain heavily used, and expanded files may need for near term future expansion.)

 

My system with my largest disk (a terabyte) performs just fine, even though my drive Map for my large disk is full of red, is reported as having nearly a 60% fragmentation rate, and shows almost no "Free Space", even though I have 202.6 GB free out of 931.5 GB, according to SD, right now.

 

My wife's laptop, on the other hand, with a half-terabyte drive, has been suffering from "WinRot" for the past year. It's performance has degraded to the point that it is downright painful to use! I have been using the IObit tools for the last several months to try and help bring it back to usability, but have seen no noticeable improvement. (I will be backing it up to a 3TB drive, wiping, and reinitializing it soon. Such seems to be the way with Windows, it seems.)

 

Anyway, just my two cents.

 

David

 

* I have a 189.8 GB file with 1,296,114 fragments, and a 34.2 GB file with 810,054 fragments that SD reports as "No defrag needed". The reality is almost certainly something else entirely, like a claim of "No Space to Defrag" (though, barring constraints due to unmovable files, even this can be worked around given sufficient time and good algorithms---at the very least, the fragmentation can be significantly reduced).

[Cicely]

Hi Halliday,

 

Thanks for your suggestion and feedback. It sounds reasonable. For th " No Defrag needed" issue you mentioned, we will make improvements in Smart Defrag v4. For me " No Space to Defrag" is a good notification. But we know the key point is to defrag more deeply and we will work harder to make improvements.

 

Merry Christmas.:-)

 

 

 

 

[Scannan]

 

* I have a 189.8 GB file with 1,296,114 fragments, and a 34.2 GB file with 810,054 fragments that SD reports as "No defrag needed". The reality is almost certainly something else entirely, like a claim of "No Space to Defrag" (though, barring constraints due to unmovable files, even this can be worked around given sufficient time and good algorithms---at the very least, the fragmentation can be significantly reduced).

 

I think that SD is being unfairly criticised in that while the amount of fragments may sound large they are in fact tiny when viewed as a percentage of the total file size, SD, I believe, calculates the

fragmentation as a percentage of the total file size and if this percentage is below a certain value, it will consider that the file does not need defragmenting.

 

 

[Halliday]

 

I think that SD is being unfairly criticised in that while the amount of fragments may sound large they are in fact tiny when viewed as a percentage of the total file size, SD, I believe, calculates the

fragmentation as a percentage of the total file size and if this percentage is below a certain value, it will consider that the file does not need defragmenting.

 

 

Ah. that is true if one chooses to set SD to only defrag files with greater than some percentage of fragmentation. I, on the other hand, have always chosen the "Always Defrag" option. If this option also skips files with fragmentation below some percent, then it is not doing what it says! (Besides, I have taken the analysis report, calculated the fragmentation percentage, and compared to the after defrag report: Files with lower percentage of fragmentation were defragged, even when files with higher percentages were stated as "No defrag needed".)

[Cicely]

Hi Scannan and Halliday,

 

@ Scannan, thanks for your explanation for Smart Defrag. :-)

 

@ Halliday,yes, if you tick "Always Defrag" , you can defrag more deeply as you mentioned.

 

@ all, our programmers are working hard these days to improve Smart Defrag v4. Any of your suggestions will be valued. Thus, if you have any ideas, please do not hesitate to tell us. Cheers.

[Whiplash]

Yo! I would have some suggestions for my favorite (the most unique) SD option - automatic defrag. That's basically the only reason why I'm using SD instead of any other defrag software - because I like when I can set the program up and not pay attention to it anymore.

Currently there are 2 of its options to set up:

- Start Auto Defrag when system idle exceeds (x min)

- Pause Auto Defrag when resource usage exceeds (x %)

 

I would like if you also could add:

- Don't start Auto Defrag if PC is running an application in Full Screen

 

Also, currently on my PC SD v3 system tray icon is static. I'm not sure if it's supposed to be like that, because I remember earlier versions had it dynamic (icon would change if defraging is started). So, I'd like to have that dynamic/changing icon back.

 

EDIT: Oh, I see that if I manually do "Analyze" or "Defrag", icon is dynamic. I guess it just doesn't work when Auto Defrag is going on.

It's either some bug, or it's something related to my PC only. I just know that I didn't notice the icon being dynamic while my HD is crackling. Once I've opened the SD, I could see that Auto Defrag is actually performing.

[fosterdrew]

Hi, I'm new to Iobit and I'm not entirely sure if this is already available but it would be nice to have a portable version to this.

[mikepengy]

Hello.

 

Just started using the program and I am bothered a bit by a user interface item...or lack thereof. When you first start the program, all the drives are selected. The only way to deselect the drives is scroll through the list and click on each one. Adding a "deselect all" and "select all" button on a section of the screen that doesn't scroll would help a lot. Thanks.

 

Michael

[Angel2A]

Hi all, i am new on this forum...

Smart Defrag my suggestion before making a boot-time scan should first make an automatic scandisk best for the system files before the move...

[Scannan]

Hi Angel2A

Welcome to the Forum.

I would prefer to see the Scandisk as an option. rather than automatic. Not everybody likes to run Scandisc.

Maybe 2 options could be made available.

1) Boot Time Defrag.

2) Boot Time Defrag with Scandisk.

 

[Angel2A]

Hi Angel2A

Welcome to the Forum.

I would prefer to see the Scandisk as an option. rather than automatic. Not everybody likes to run Scandisc.

Maybe 2 options could be made available.

1) Boot Time Defrag.

2) Boot Time Defrag with Scandisk.

 

Thanks for your reply, yet a scandisk before boot-time defragmentation is safer for most system files for MFT...

 

But your option (2) seems to me good !

[help_noob]

While Defragging:

 

1. select location on Defrag Map to move selected Folders or Subfolders.

2. select folder(s) to NOT move.