Defrag Risks?

Since Vista normally does defragmentation in the background,
frequently, and regularly, it seems to me this increases the
risks of damage from a power failure. Obvious 1st level
solution is a UPS, but with the defrag program probably
running while we sleep, we don't hear the alarm within the
15-20 minutes typical of UPS performance. The 2nd level
solution would be a UPS with the ability to close all
running programs - especially defragmentation - and then
shut the computer down within 5 minutes or so of a power
outage.

My question: Is there such a UPS on the market? My local
sources (Staples, Office Depot) do not inspire confidence
that they even understand the question. Google searches
were similarly confusing, although that may say more about
my search skills than Google's inventory of information.

Your suggested solutions appreciated.

--
----------
CWLee
Former slayer of dragons; practice now limited to sacred
cows. Believing we should hire for quality, not quotas, and
promote for performance, not preferences.

"CWLee" <> wrote in message
news:%...
>
> Since Vista normally does defragmentation in the background,
> frequently, and regularly, it seems to me this increases the
> risks of damage from a power failure. Obvious 1st level
> solution is a UPS, but with the defrag program probably
> running while we sleep, we don't hear the alarm within the
> 15-20 minutes typical of UPS performance. The 2nd level
> solution would be a UPS with the ability to close all
> running programs - especially defragmentation - and then
> shut the computer down within 5 minutes or so of a power
> outage.
>
> My question: Is there such a UPS on the market? My local
> sources (Staples, Office Depot) do not inspire confidence
> that they even understand the question. Google searches
> were similarly confusing, although that may say more about
> my search skills than Google's inventory of information.
>
> Your suggested solutions appreciated.
>

Don't hold me to it because I have not used my Belkin UPS in a long time as
all of my stuff is in storage while I am program contracting around the US,
but I know my Belkin UPS with the Bulldog software will shutdown all running
applications. You'll have to see if the Bulldog software is Vista
compliant. I don't know if Bulldog will shutdown something like Dfrag. You
can always call Belkin to find out about a UPS's features and the software.


http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=589

http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=589

As far as I know, the defrag API still uses the journalling in NTFS, so it
should be as resilient to power failures as any other disk access.

SteveT

A UPS of course would be a great investment for your computer just in case
you experience power spike, power outages where you live. Regardless the
computer is running the defrag utility in the background or not, your
computer is susceptible failure if its not shutdown properly, bad device
driver, or defective software program.

One of the great things about modern operating systems such as Windows Vista
and even XP, they use a journalized file system which keeps a constant snap
shot of how the operating system was working. So in case of things like a
'power failure', you are able to recover the system to a working state in no
time.
--
Andre
Blog: http://adacosta.spaces.live.com
My Vista Quickstart Guide:
http://adacosta.spaces.live.com/blog...3DB!9709.entry
"CWLee" <> wrote in message
news:%...
>
> Since Vista normally does defragmentation in the background,
> frequently, and regularly, it seems to me this increases the
> risks of damage from a power failure. Obvious 1st level
> solution is a UPS, but with the defrag program probably
> running while we sleep, we don't hear the alarm within the
> 15-20 minutes typical of UPS performance. The 2nd level
> solution would be a UPS with the ability to close all
> running programs - especially defragmentation - and then
> shut the computer down within 5 minutes or so of a power
> outage.
>
> My question: Is there such a UPS on the market? My local
> sources (Staples, Office Depot) do not inspire confidence
> that they even understand the question. Google searches
> were similarly confusing, although that may say more about
> my search skills than Google's inventory of information.
>
> Your suggested solutions appreciated.
>
> --
> ----------
> CWLee
> Former slayer of dragons; practice now limited to sacred
> cows. Believing we should hire for quality, not quotas, and
> promote for performance, not preferences.
>

I live in an area with lots of power failures and never had any
problems, all I ever lost was 5 minutes work. much better than XP. And I
usualy have a very large no. of open files. ( I make a living using &
repairing Comps. ) lol Love Vista.


--
caretaker

'Most' UPS with USB interface are supported native in vista. Vista will
automatically shut down as power is exhausted.
If the UPS has a serial interface then Vista will not natively support it,
the UPS maker should supply a driver that does the same thing.
Check that the UPS has 'vista supported' statement on the box.

Michael
Vista Home Premium, CyberPower 800AVR UPS

"CWLee" <> wrote in message
news:#...
>
> Since Vista normally does defragmentation in the background,
> frequently, and regularly, it seems to me this increases the
> risks of damage from a power failure. Obvious 1st level
> solution is a UPS, but with the defrag program probably
> running while we sleep, we don't hear the alarm within the
> 15-20 minutes typical of UPS performance. The 2nd level
> solution would be a UPS with the ability to close all
> running programs - especially defragmentation - and then
> shut the computer down within 5 minutes or so of a power
> outage.
>
> My question: Is there such a UPS on the market? My local
> sources (Staples, Office Depot) do not inspire confidence
> that they even understand the question. Google searches
> were similarly confusing, although that may say more about
> my search skills than Google's inventory of information.
>
> Your suggested solutions appreciated.
>
> --
> ----------
> CWLee
> Former slayer of dragons; practice now limited to sacred
> cows. Believing we should hire for quality, not quotas, and
> promote for performance, not preferences.
>

On Thu, 22 Nov 2007 00:06:00 -0800, "CWLee"
<> wrote:

>
> Since Vista normally does defragmentation in the background,
> frequently, and regularly, it seems to me this increases the
> risks of damage from a power failure.


Probably true, but these days even the increased risk is very slight.
I wouldn't worry about it.


> Obvious 1st level
> solution is a UPS,


I don't think of a UPS as being primarily to protect against power
failure while defragging, but my view is that a UPS is so cheap these
days that almost everyone should have one. I have three desktops here,
and they all run with UPSs.



> but with the defrag program probably
> running while we sleep, we don't hear the alarm within the
> 15-20 minutes typical of UPS performance. The 2nd level
> solution would be a UPS with the ability to close all
> running programs - especially defragmentation - and then
> shut the computer down within 5 minutes or so of a power
> outage.
>
> My question: Is there such a UPS on the market? My local
> sources (Staples, Office Depot) do not inspire confidence
> that they even understand the question. Google searches
> were similarly confusing, although that may say more about
> my search skills than Google's inventory of information.
>
> Your suggested solutions appreciated.

--
Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP Windows - Shell/User
Please Reply to the Newsgroup

A LOT of UPS's don't work with Vista as the run out of power to quickly,
and the change over takes to long, NOT RECOMENDET. Just change the time
you want to save a Doc. ( Running 4 Comps with no problem, I even run
them on Generators at times ) Lol


--
caretaker

In message <#> "CWLee"
<> wrote:

>Since Vista normally does defragmentation in the background,
>frequently, and regularly, it seems to me this increases the
>risks of damage from a power failure.

NTFS is fully journaled, unless you turn on the "Enable Advanced
Performance" checkbox in your hard drive properties, there is no risk.

In short, what happens is this: Vista copies the cluster to an otherwise
unallocated cluster. If power is lost, the new cluster is still marked
as free, so no harm done (and no chkdsk required to fix it either)

Next, a note is made in the journal that the file allocation tables are
being updated, and that write is committed. If something goes wrong,
that part of the journal is seen as incomplete and discarded, which
means the pointer to the data hasn't yet moved, and so your data is
safe.

Now Vista updates the NTFS allocation tables. If something goes wrong
here, it gets detected the next time the drive is mounted because there
is "unfinished" work in the journal. Vista completes the change based
on the notes in the journal, and the pointer to the data is updated
successfully.

Last, Vista notes in the journal that the task is complete.

At no time during this process is any data at risk of any failure mode,
although in some cases it may need a chkdsk to release all of the space
taken up. As I understand it, even without a chkdsk, there still is no
possibility of data loss when an application is using the defrag APIs
(or any other application level file system APIs on an NTFS partition)

On Nov 22, 5:53 am, caretaker <caretaker.30g...@no-mx.forums.net>
wrote:

1st favorable comment I have seen on Vista. I am not being snotty; I
am interested in how users like it.I have no experience w/ it myself.