3rd party defrag tools on laptops - a new view

On my core duo laptop, Vista defrag works quietly in the
background, which is a good/bad thing. It's good because
fragmentation never exceeds 3%. It's bad because some percentage
of system resources are absorbed by that process.

My laptop is a desktop replacement and is ON many hours a day,
including periods when I'm away from it and Vista can go to
work. The result is fine.

However, consider a laptop that is ON for short episodes of
actual use. Vista defrag senses that use, and idles. Defrag
probably does not happen until fragmentation hits some trigger
point, at which time the utility demands resources, which slows
down other things. I don't know that, and am just speculating -
but with finite resources and two things to do it makes sense
that neither would be done optimally.

This summer, my laptop will do a lot of traveling and I will be
working on it whenever it is ON.

Does it make sense to turn off the Vista defrag function and do
a competent 3rd party defrag once in a while?

Ike

And assuming that logic makes sense, which 3rd party
defragmentation tool is best?

Just run the Vista defrag. Remove it from being scheduled to just running
it on demand. As to which 3rd party, Perfect Disk originally deleted
restore points. I don't know it that has been fixed as I don't have access
to the most recent update. I believe that DiskKeeper does not have the
problem.

"Ike" <> wrote in message
news:f6qvrb$kbh$...
> And assuming that logic makes sense, which 3rd party defragmentation tool
> is best?

If you want to go third party, most of the defraggers are decent, and
your final decision rests on what runs best on your system. I personally
chose Diskeeper because it was the fastest on my system(s) and was not a
resources glutton. It also seems to be the most troublefree to use i.e.
no nasty suprises, from what I have read on various forums.

I always recommend that you try before you buy, so you know what you
are getting. 'Diskeeper' (http://www.diskeeper.com) has free trial
versions to try out; I'd try out the Pro version, and skip the Home
version, but your choice may be different depending upon your
requirement.


--
Benjamin

Ike wrote:
> On my core duo laptop, Vista defrag works quietly in the background,
> which is a good/bad thing. It's good because fragmentation never exceeds
> 3%. It's bad because some percentage of system resources are absorbed by
> that process.
>
> My laptop is a desktop replacement and is ON many hours a day, including
> periods when I'm away from it and Vista can go to work. The result is fine.
>
> However, consider a laptop that is ON for short episodes of actual use.
> Vista defrag senses that use, and idles. Defrag probably does not happen
> until fragmentation hits some trigger point, at which time the utility
> demands resources, which slows down other things. I don't know that, and
> am just speculating - but with finite resources and two things to do it
> makes sense that neither would be done optimally.
>
> This summer, my laptop will do a lot of traveling and I will be working
> on it whenever it is ON.
>
> Does it make sense to turn off the Vista defrag function and do a
> competent 3rd party defrag once in a while?
>
> Ike

Search for AusLogics Disk Defrag, you'll be happy you did.

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