Mike Yates

No comment yet? Almost another two years of asking!

I have a wIn10 system where the "optimise" will not work. I think I opted for defraggler to "replace built-in defrag" when I installed it years ago in Win7, since upgraded. How can I get it back? - I use both on my main system.

If older files, which are less likely to get extended, are placed near the start of the volume (top in the display) then the next defrag will be due later and take less time because the static files form a block at the start. When files are selected (automatically) to fill gaps, the oldest should be preferred. Perhaps you do this already but I don't see much evidence of it. Perhaps the priorities should be selectable in the Settings menu? The most successful re-orderer was "dog" or Disc Organiser of 1987, which was sadly never updated for FAT32, never mind NTFS! It was very fast and effective, using innovative algorithms - much quicker than Norton SpeedDisk, which didn't bother re-ordering.

I've nagged you for this years ago! The most useful figure in the Windows Command-line "defrag /u /v c:" analysis is the "Free space count". If you get it into hundreds, rather than thousands, but better still dozens, it is a far better indication of defrag success than any percentage figure. It is the true indication of how likely new files are to be fragmented.

When you have a laptop which requires ">1 day" of defragging, it is not advised to leave the power plugged in for that long. If you defrag on battery, you have to be constantly available to "revive" it. If you change the power settings to remove sleep on idle and are away when critical battery level is reached, hibernation seems to be safe enough for defraggler. The problem is remembering to return the power settings (and what they were) afterwards. In an earlier thread, a sysadmin asked about desktops set to sleep on idle sheduled to defrag at night. Is it possible for a non-default option of defraggler to temporarily change the power settings in Windows 8.1?