Fragmento

[perris]

lynchnot

going on line will fragment your disc

conan, clearing the folder temporary folders does not lesson fragmentation, it increases fragmentation, as eliminating any data on the hardrive will cuase that fragment...

now, with ntfs, fragmentation will not cuase you any measureable and respectively noticeable degradation of performance unless your drive is about 85% full...what you are expeiencing as a performance problem is a differant issue then fragmentation.

as far as the actual defrag, here's some good information;

The defrag utility that comes with XP, a light version of diskeeper, does a fine job of bringing the fragments together, but it does not bring the files on your hardrive together.

in other words, there will be empty space on your harddrive,in between files, even though you defragment.

I don't have the link, but diskeeper has a free light version of their product, and with it, you can view the position of your files..for a free program, this is an excellent choice for those of you that can't afford to spend the amount of money an after market defrag program costs.

Now, Norton speed disc actually brings these files on your harddrive together, and when you are throughm all the information on your drive is contiguous, and less fragmentation occurs because of this contigous nature, as files can now in fact be added sequentially, however, when speed disc does perform this function, it does so with no file strategy, and the free space is simply occupied by your files...

IN ADDITION, NORTON ALSO CIRCUMVENTS THE XP FILEPLACEMENT STRATEGY, and moves the master file table and zone to the front of the disc...this is counter productive, as these files perform 10% faster towards the center of your informaition, so I don't recomend this utility.

now, perfect disc also not only defrags, but so too moves your files together contigously, BUT better...PERFECT DISC DOES NOT CIRCUMVENT THE XP FILE PLACEMENT STRATEGY, IT SPEEDS THE FUNCTION...perfect disc uses a very affective file strategy, and places the most used files in the most efficient area on your disc, as xp does...this includes the boot files.

Furtherm perfect disc performs these functions in one pass, as compared with multiple passes required by the other utilities that perform this file movementt function

this is an excellent program, and has a 30 day trial, written for XP, so you should give this perfect disc a go.

in addition, aftermarket utilities will also defrag the pagefile, as well as other system files which the native utility cannot do.

The cost of perfect disc is well worth the investment, however, let me admonish those of you that defrag everyday with ntfs.

no need, and unneccessary wear on your hardrive