This is going to take a while...

[temp02]

Hijacks you screensaver because you wanted it to when installing.

 

[Mussels]

Hijacks you screensaver because you wanted it to when installing.

actually, even if you tell it not to defrag, i've noticed it changes my screensaver behaviour (which is off) - sometimes it sets other screensavers on instead of leaving it alone.

 

[temp02]

Either you have a "buggy" build/version of O&O with bad OS integration code or this behavior its not related to O&O, because, at least on XP, mine was off when installing and is stays off while defragging.

Either way, with still more than 60% to go and 2 days have passed, at this rate, only next week we'll see the final results.
Also, newtekie1 can you tell us how many fragments does the most fragmented file have (bottom-left, File Status, hit Fragments if need to sort the list)?

 

[newtekie1]

actually, even if you tell it not to defrag, i've noticed it changes my screensaver behaviour (which is off) - sometimes it sets other screensavers on instead of leaving it alone.

It does not hijack your screensaver. It gives you the option when installing to install the screensaver or not, tell it not to and it does nothing to the screensaver.

And I've already told you the service is not required to run 24/7, it only needs to run when O&O runs.

It also only defrags when idle if you install the screensaver, that is the defragging when idle function.

Like I've said already though, the argument is kind of pointless. I've used both, and O&O is simply better, IMO. You can argue until your fingers fall off, it won't change this. And the fact that Ultimate Defrag is not available for free to me, means I'll never use it as a full time defragger.

Either you have a "buggy" build/version of O&O with bad OS integration code or this behavior its not related to O&O, because, at least on XP, mine was off when installing and is stays off while defragging.

Either way, with still more than 60% to go and 2 days have passed, at this rate, only next week we'll see the final results.
Also, newtekie1 can you tell us how many fragments does the most fragmented file have (bottom-left, File Status, hit Fragments if need to sort the list)?

It doesn't really bother me how long it takes, and I need the machine's functions to stay running. Since it is just a data volume, the slowed down transfer rates caused by the defrag running aren't really affecting anything.

And the most fragmented file has 41,804 fragments.

 

[temp02]

...
And the most fragmented file has 41,804 fragments.

You've beaten up my record by 35,000 fragments (+/-)

 

[Wile E]

I agree that O&O is better than Ultimate Defrag. It's the only defragger I will use now.

 

[Timothy B. Schmit]

You've beaten up my record by 35,000 fragments (+/-)

Yes this is completely insane!

 

[Wile E]

Any updates? Did it finish yet? You have my record of 1 day and a few hours beat. lol.

 

[newtekie1]

I meant to check it this morning before leaving for work, but forgot. So I'm not sure, I could remote into the machine and check, but that would kill my F@H clients. I'll give an update when I get home tonight.

 

[newtekie1]

Any updates? Did it finish yet? You have my record of 1 day and a few hours beat. lol.

Update: Still running. Still says 36% finished, but only 22 Hours left, and down to 37% fragmented.

And just to correct myself, I looked at the analysis report that was generated right before I started the defrag, and the most fragmented file had 54,867 fragments!

 

[Wile E]

So, ummm, yeah. I don't think I'll ever used Robocopy for a job that big. I bet you'll think twice as well, eh newtekie? lol.

 

[newtekie1]

So, ummm, yeah. I don't think I'll ever used Robocopy for a job that big. I bet you'll think twice as well, eh newtekie? lol.

Depends on the situation, if I had it to do over again, I would use RichCopy to do the initial copy, then Robocopy to do the automated nightly backups.

Though I think even that would cause a large number of fragments, since RichCopy copies 3 or more files at once to maximize throughput. And it would be writing all 3 files to the drive at once, I'm sure that would almost guarantee all the files would be fragmented to hell also...

Edit: I was looking at Teracopy, and it seems like it is just a frontend GUI for Robocopy, just like Richcopy is.

 

[Wile E]

I probably would've just used Acronis True Image. Not free tho.

 

[newtekie1]

I probably would've just used Acronis True Image. Not free tho.

Problem is it is coping from multiple drives/sources into a single volume. Otherwise I would have, I have a copy of True Image Home 2009 I got through work.

 

[Mussels]

was looking at Teracopy, and it seems like it is just a frontend GUI for Robocopy, just like Richcopy is.

interesting.


about the only comment i have there is that my teracopy transfers dont fragment into the millions

 

[Stearic]

Reg the defrag analysis in the original post: I've never seen any volume fragmented that much.
Well, I use Teracopy too, and frequently move a few tens of GBs between different volumes, but I've never noticed it to fragment the files all that much. It queues up all the files for transfer and copies them one after the other. Admittedly, I have not copied from multiple source volumes to a single destination volume like the OP has, but any intelligent file transfer utility should queue up the requests to prevent fragmentation and/or thrashing the destination drive's read/write head unnecessarily.

Also, try Diskeeper 2009 pro; it's a very fast defragger and works really well in auto background defrag mode (better than O&O IMHO) with very low resource consumption. While you use the system, it will defrag/optimize the volumes using only idle resources; I've never had it interfere with other apps on my system.

 

[newtekie1]

Robocopy only copies a single file at a time, Richcopy is the only program I've come across that does multiple file transfers at the same time to maximize throughput. It still fragmented the files horribly.

Edit: I've copies some other larger files around on different drives using robocopy and none of them came out fragmented like this. So I did a little messing around, and notices that somehow "compress drive to save space" was enabled. I wonder if that caused the fragmentation when I was copying files...

Also, still says 36% but only 30 Minutes left.

 

[Mussels]

Robocopy only copies a single file at a time, Richcopy is the only program I've come across that does multiple file transfers at the same time to maximize throughput.

are you sure it does? if you're doing one drive to another, a single transfer is almost always faster - mechanical drives can only do one read/write at a time.


you can pretty easily test it by starting up a copy and checking bandwidth (task manager, whatever - anything not windows minutes) and then starting another - the throughput always drops, never goes up. (unless your source is far slower than the destination)

and to be honest, if it fragments your files that badly its not worth it, any speed boost you supposedly got is offset by the slow load times due to fragmentation, and the downtime as you defrag it

 

[kuroikenshi]

You can always try SyncToy 2.0 from Microsoft for your copying need's.

SyncToy 2.0

 

[Hayder_Master]

is this really completely fragmented , im go download O&O now , very nice

 

[newtekie1]

are you sure it does? if you're doing one drive to another, a single transfer is almost always faster - mechanical drives can only do one read/write at a time.


you can pretty easily test it by starting up a copy and checking bandwidth (task manager, whatever - anything not windows minutes) and then starting another - the throughput always drops, never goes up. (unless your source is far slower than the destination)

and to be honest, if it fragments your files that badly its not worth it, any speed boost you supposedly got is offset by the slow load times due to fragmentation, and the downtime as you defrag it

Yes, I'm sure it does. I've watched it when transfering over the network. Running a single Robocopy or teracopy usually pushes my gigabit to ~50% usage. Copying with Richcopy can send it to 75% or more.

Richcopy is going to fragment files, simply because you are working with multiple files, and as you said the drive can only handle one at a time. So it is going to write pieces of different files right next to eachother.

The fragmentation doesn't really hurt load times, it is just a data volume, so the slight speed loss due to fragmentation isn't noticeable. And there is no downtime when I defrag.

 

[newtekie1]

The fragmentation was definitely caused by having drive compression turned on. I formatted the volume, and disabled compression, then recopied everything using Robocopy. It came through with no fragmentation. So now we all know the cause, and not to enable drive compression.

 

[Mussels]

The fragmentation was definitely caused by having drive compression turned on. I formatted the volume, and disabled compression, then recopied everything using Robocopy. It came through with no fragmentation. So now we all know the cause, and not to enable drive compression.

good info, thanks for posting the cause.


drive compression is - it has to unpack into memory to decompress, so it can really hurt performance (and chew a lot of ram)