Really Slow defrag using Contig

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yukka

Posts: 1,085   +211
Hi all.

I discovered a good defraging program called "power defragmenter" which uses contig.exe to move files to spots on the hard drive and make sure they are in one fragment.

the benefit when i first used it (couple of years ago now, on a amd 2600xp computer) was that it was insanely fast. The dos window it brought up streamed text so fast that i couldnt read it. it defraged specific folders for me in minutes, if not seconds.

now i have recently downloaded this program and i have a sata 400gig drive, a amd 6400x2 cpu (tried it on a 4000xp single core too) and its really slow. the dos window appears to almost scroll in slow motion and it takes longer to defrag than if i use the windows default defrag which works well but doesnt let me select particular files (like newly installed games directories) specifically.

anyway anyone got any ideas? I am using avg antispy and avast antivirus, both fully updated. tried turning them off and it makes no difference to the defrag.

im using windows xp sp2, just upgraded to the sp3 release candidate 2 but it was as slow before as it is now.

help me techspot.. you are my only hope...



(well maybe the official support forums but i couldn' find one...)
 
first, I would never use a DOS program to defrag an NTFS file system.

secondly, there's lots of issues that degrade defrag
  1. running programs
  2. network connections
  3. user switching foreground windows
  4. screen saver becoming active
  5. existing fragmentation condition

when there's little free space on the HD and it's badly fragmented, it will take
a long time to get things contiguous again.

some defrag pgms allow you to set the number of threads or streams to be used
concurrently -- be careful here -- don't go crazy!

Norton's Speed Disk has always been a good performer
(that and the win-doctor are just about the only remnants of norton worth having :) )
 
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