Sloooowwww by comparison...

[WickedGirl]

Hello! I don't want to start a war in here, but I have a question. I have just started using Defraggler after being a CCleaner user/donater for some time now. I love CCleaner, and I expected to love Defraggler, but it is SLOW! I have a brand new hard drive that I have used it on, as well as a HD that has been in service for about a year. Using Defraggler on either was so painful that I stopped the process and used Auslogics defragger instead. Now, I do not want to use their product. I want to use Piriform's. I really like your products. But why is Defraggler so slow? I have searched this forum, and I see that others have experienced this, but I have not seen any truly constructive responses on why this is the way it is.

 

I have WinXP Pro x86 on one disk and Vista Business x64 on the other. Each disk is part of a separate system. One disk was fairly fragmented (the XP) and one is a three day old install. I tested the thoroughness of the Auslogics defragger just to see if it was faster due to a lack of actual proper defragging. I did this by running Auslogics first and then running Defraggler right behind it. Defraggler showed that Auslogics had done it job completely, so I am stumped as to why Defraggler cannot do it just as speedily?

 

Any ideas? I want to keep using Defraggler, but I am not a patient gal!

[Andavari]

You must just be clicking the Defrag button, which will process the whole hard disk and defrag everything, i.e.; a "Full Disk Defrag".

 

If you want Defraggler to just be a files only defrag tool allow it to use the file list, and only defrag the files which are in the list.

[WickedGirl]

Thanks for the great suggestion, and certainly the individual file defragger is why I want to keep Defraggler, but that is not the issue. Auslogics spanks Defraggler at the total defrag function. I am not interested in deviating from Piriform however, so I am just curious as to why this is so slow.

 

I have noticed something else very interesting as well. With the latest version of CCleaner, the process has slowed down significantly. CCleaner's speed has always been fabulous, but the latest edition fills up the scanning bar repeatedly, as if it is rescanning the same data several times. This never used to happen before. Again, this is occurring on two different, un-connected systems, neither of which had exhibited this behavior with CCleaner prior to me installing updated versions this week.

 

Is there something common to both the Defraggler v1.02.085 Final and CCleaner version 2.11.636 that just recently began to be used in both? From the release dates in the properties on both install files, it looks like Defraggler was packaged up on August 18th and CCleaner on August 22nd. That is close enough in date to make me wonder about the commonality of something in both their codes that may be A) causing Defraggler's slowness all along and causing CCleaner's NEW slower functioning.

 

Just asking. Again, please don't kill the messenger/inquirer. I will drop the subject now.

[thm]

I certainly do have ideas! Even better, an explanation...It all depends upon how you use it. Defragging files with Defraggler is very quick, much quicker than most of the competition. But it can do much more than that: it can defrag folders and whole disks too, and rearrange them to consolidate the freespace. Now that *does* take a lot of time if your disk is well fragmented, as it implies moving vast quantities of data.

 

Auslogics' Defragger *only* defrags files. That's it. And to be fair, that is all you need to do most of the time if you defrag reasonably often.

 

Now, a few words about using Defraggler [v1.02.085]...

 

If you just select a drive and click on [Defrag], you will do a full defrag of the selected drive, i.e. files, folders and freespace. As I mentioned above, this can take a long time, particularly if it hasn't been done for a long time. This would be much the same for any defragger if it consolidates freespace.

 

To defrag just the files (generally very much quicker), then do the following...

Select the drive and click on [Analyze], then Defraggler will rapidly analyse the disk and tell you how many fragmented files it has found. The either click on the "File List" tab or the [View Files] button, and it will show you the files that are fragmented. Then click on the "tick box" above the file list on the left hand side and all files will be selected and the text in the [Defrag] button will change to [Defrag Checked]. If you click on that button then Defraggler will defrag all those files. Quickly too.

There are other ways that you can do this, for example, clicking anywhere in the file-list and typing Control-A to highlight everything and then the [Defrag] button changes to [Defrag Highlighted] - you get the picture [i hope !]. You can also use the right-click context menu within the file-list as an alternative.

 

If you use the "Actions" menu instead, you can choose to defrag a folder. Actually, this will defrag the chosen folder and all files and folders within it recursively. This can take longer than defragging just the files, much much quicker than defragging the whole drive & consolidating the freespace.

 

With this latest version of defraggler, if you defrag files only, using one of the above methods from the file-list, then you will get a progress window that locks out the rest of the GUI (a bit of a pity because it didn't used to do that), which means that you won't be able to [for example] minimise the Defraggler window whilst it is doing its work. One [almost] workaround for this is to use the Actions menu instead (as also described above) to defrag a folder - and selecting the root of the drive that you want to defrag. Then you won't get a separate progress window (but progress is shown in the drives window) and you will be able to minimise the Defraggler window so that you can get on and use for PC for something else.

I say "almost" a woraround, since this will defrag both files and folders, so it may take a little longer than just files alone, however, you should still find it nice and quick !

 

Now all this may *sound* complicated, but it isn't: just try it out a few times and you'll soon get the hang of it !

 

- thm

 

[---edit ---]

 

I took so long writing this that Andavari beat me to it ! The above was in answer to your first post in this thread !

[WickedGirl]

I actually tried each method out last night before I saw your email...LOL!!!

 

I particularly like the ability to defrag the empty space. I also LOVE being able to see the individual files that are still fragmented. There is a use of some kind somewhere in there for combatting trojans. Which I have been doing for three weeks now. Defraggler allows me to see files that are obviously hidden in some extra special way besides the "Hide Protected Operating System Files" and "Show All Files and Folders" options. While in Defraggler, I could see some files in my C:\Users\XXXXX\AppData\Local\Temp that were simply not there when I actually navigated to the folder itself. I know now that because Vista's file structure relies on "junctions" which are like shortcuts without the arrows to other file folders, that I really have no idea what I am looking at half the time.

 

Microsoft linky on the file equivalencies between XP and Vista in case someone hasn't seen it:

 

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929831

 

Anyway, I kept wanting to click on the files that I saw that were suspicious, and delete them from within Defraggler!

 

Thanks again for all the help!

[Andavari]

Anyway, I kept wanting to click on the files that I saw that were suspicious, and delete them from within Defraggler!

Defraggler isn't a good choice for dealing with your malware issue, as you can easily get re-infected! Have a read here to deal a death blow to the malware:

http://forum.piriform.com/index.php?showtopic=17457

[LostMyfiles]

The Big Windows 7 Defragmenter Test

www.hofmannc.de/en/windows-7-defragmenter-test/benchmarks.html

A test of many defrag tools, and tips

[mta]

The Big Windows 7 Defragmenter Test

www.hofmannc.de/en/windows-7-defragmenter-test/benchmarks.html

A test of many defrag tools, and tips

since it mentions competitors products, is this allowed?

[hazelnut]

since it mentions competitors products, is this allowed?

 

Not really, but the results are so outdated anyway that I doubt if anyone would base their choices on them.

[Augeas]

Results outdated? Look at the date - and relevance - of this thread.