disk defrag

[tautvydas]

so i decided to look at what was my hdd defrag rate and it was at 18% (1TB hard) , so i thought i would run defrag but after 10-15 minutes i just had to go and could not leave pc on so i stopped the defrag it was at 23% i think in pass 1 or something

later i saw that i have lost 10GB of my free space from hard drive, is this really how it supposed to be  ? 

i ran defrag check just recently and it was at 16%  ,does this mean if i defrag all the way to 0% i will lose massive amount of free storage space ? (from the looks of it at least 80 GB more)

[WereCatf]

No, defrag has to shuffle files around and it's totally normal for it to temporarily use more space than the files previously did. If you actually let it finish it'll recover the lost space.

[Oshino Shinobu]

It will use up some space temporarily as it moves things around. Once it finishes, the space should go back to what it was. 

[Anghammarad]

And don't use the defrag windows is shipping with it... get if you want the best defrag tool "O&O Defrag", or if a decent one but free Defraggler.

 

A well cared for system that gets a treatment with O&O every now and then with the mode Access (speaking of a HDD) can have bootup times quite near system on a SSD. (Yes I used a stopwatch)

[tautvydas]

uhm i dont want to do any 3rd party programs, although what i found is that while defragging windows is making something called shadow copy and i managed to see it that it takes up 116GB of my HDD while max is 186GB , now i wonder though if i let it finish to defrag and if my free space is not there anymore should i delete that shadow copy or something ?

 

[Anghammarad]

The volume shadow copy is a kind of snapshot of the files that were being handled while defrag was running... It's a kind of safeguard.

 

Imagine a power loss or defective psu shutting down your system while defrag was running... in early days that killed your filesystem. With volume shadow copy there is always a ready to run version left (well even that is no 100% failure protection but very close). 

 

It usually gets cleaned up after it is done being used.

 

In your case stopping defrag and shutting down may have hindered that. But no don't delete is manually. Let another defrag run and keep your system going until it is finished and the disk activity led has stopped its fireworks.

 

And for not using a 3rd party defrag, to be honest, in my now 20 years in IT and storage etc, using the onboard windows defrag was just a placebo and didn't help at all. O&O really is the best choice on the market for defrag right now (for many years). You will see and feel a difference. 

 

To gain space you can first run O&O in mode space, which will give you all the free space available, more than using the windows defrag, then using access (as long as the drive uses NTFS) it checks latest access and sorts the files that way, that the ones used more often/recent are stored on better places on the HDD.

[tautvydas]

1 minute ago, Anghammarad said:

The volume shadow copy is a kind of snapshot of the files that were being handled while defrag was running... It's a kind of safeguard.

 

Imagine a power loss or defective psu shutting down your system while defrag was running... in early days that killed your filesystem. With volume shadow copy there is always a ready to run version left (well even that is no 100% failure protection but very close). 

 

It usually gets cleaned up after it is done being used.

 

In your case stopping defrag and shutting down may have hindered that. But no don't delete is manually. Let another defrag run and keep your system going until it is finished and the disk activity led has stopped its fireworks.

 

And for not using a 3rd party defrag, to be honest, in my now 20 years in IT and storage etc, using the onboard windows defrag was just a placebo and didn't help at all. O&O really is the best choice on the market for defrag right now (for many years). You will see and feel a difference. 

 

To gain space you can first run O&O in mode space, which will give you all the free space available, more than using the windows defrag, then using access (as long as the drive uses NTFS) it checks latest access and sorts the files that way, that the ones used more often/recent are stored on better places on the HDD.

ah i see , now i'm just reading bunch of stuff about shadow copies and such , since realistically speakiing i didnt had an power outage since 2 years ago , and since that would free up about 100GB of free space i'm considering to delete it ...

after that might try to make a system restore point (i dunno how that works with shadow copy files or lack of them)

i also lowered the max size from 20% to 16%

realistically i dont see the point of keeping shadow copies of files like that since i didnt had a blue screen or system crash for a half a year now surpisinglly

[Anghammarad]

Just now, tautvydas said:

ah i see , now i'm just reading bunch of stuff about shadow copies and such , since realistically speakiing i didnt had an power outage since 2 years ago , and since that would free up about 100GB of free space i'm considering to delete it ...

after that might try to make a system restore point (i dunno how that works with shadow copy files or lack of them)

i also lowered the max size from 20% to 16%

realistically i dont see the point of keeping shadow copies of files like that since i didnt had a blue screen or system crash for a half a year now surpisinglly

Having shadow copy running is like a insurance... you are happy when you have it and might have to use it, and may never use it.

 

But when you don't have it and you need it you are a very unhappy camper...

 

It looks like you are running Win 7. Mine was rock stable all the time. But I had installations of Win 7 or Server 2008 where I was happy to have those restore points at work or a friends machine.

 

Oh I miss that Aero Glass UI from win 7... 

[tautvydas]

1 minute ago, Anghammarad said:

Having shadow copy running is like a insurance... you are happy when you have it and might have to use it, and may never use it.

 

But when you don't have it and you need it you are a very unhappy camper...

 

It looks like you are running Win 7. Mine was rock stable all the time. But I had installations of Win 7 or Server 2008 where I was happy to have those restore points at work or a friends machine.

 

Oh I miss that Aero Glass UI from win 7... 

yeah having insurance is a hella nice (had to expirience that first hand in real life not too long ago)

 

just like my college proffesor in software managment course said : up untill now i like windows 7 the most so i will keep using it, when win7 wont be getting support and windows 10 will be superior with its updates i will swich, was surprised he had such mindset so no wonder he became my favorite lecturer

 

off topic a little but the point is i should not break my installation deleting those files thats the main point i look for (also i want my free space back)

 

read this article and that basically said that there is no guaranty that i will get that 100GB back witch kinda weird me out (near the end)

http://blog.szynalski.com/2009/11/volume-shadow-copy-system-restore/ 

 

[Anghammarad]

1 minute ago, tautvydas said:

yeah having insurance is a hella nice (had to expirience that first hand in real life not too long ago)

 

just like my college proffesor in software managment course said : up untill now i like windows 7 the most so i will keep using it, when win7 wont be getting support and windows 10 will be superior with its updates i will swich, was surprised he had such mindset so no wonder he became my favorite lecturer

 

off topic a little but the point is i should not break my installation deleting those files thats the main point i look for (also i want my free space back)

 

read this article and that basically said that there is no guaranty that i will get that 100GB back witch kinda weird me out (near the end)

http://blog.szynalski.com/2009/11/volume-shadow-copy-system-restore/ 

 

If you want to be on the safe side... 

 

run defrag again until the end and wait until disk activity is back to normal... 

 

then make a clean reboot, deactivate the VS, reboot, see if the space is freed up again, then reactivate it or keep it offline. 

you'll have lost all system restore points up until then, but new ones are created after each update.

[tautvydas]

11 minutes ago, Anghammarad said:

If you want to be on the safe side... 

 

run defrag again until the end and wait until disk activity is back to normal... 

 

then make a clean reboot, deactivate the VS, reboot, see if the space is freed up again, then reactivate it or keep it offline. 

you'll have lost all system restore points up until then, but new ones are created after each update.

actually i found a way to do this the i guess intended way, although thanks for all of your input it was really Great 

what i did was just went with system cleanup function and it actually worked my free space went from 397GB to -> 469GB guess i will let my pc run defrag and i will just manually delete all unused files 

 

[Anghammarad]

Just now, tautvydas said:

actually i found a way to do this the i guess intended way, although thanks for all of your input it was really Great 

what i did was just went with system cleanup function and it actually worked my free space went from 397GB to -> 469GB guess i will let my pc run defrag and i will just manually delete all unused files 

 

I run that feature after every windows update run =) there is so much clutter of old updates and service packs if not done every now and then... 

[tautvydas]

1 minute ago, Anghammarad said:

I run that feature after every windows update run =) there is so much clutter of old updates and service packs if not done every now and then... 

well now i know , and i thought i was going crazy for thinking my hard drive is just losing its capacity like that thanks again

[Anghammarad]

Just now, tautvydas said:

well now i know , and i thought i was going crazy for thinking my hard drive is just losing its capacity like that thanks again

There is a folder in c:/windows that gets bigger over time in Win 7... I just can't remember the name if it was downloaded program files or service packs provisioning... I really can'T remember... but that folder holds ever update ever made from the beginning of the OS installation. They are left there for possible uninstallation of an update. That folder quickly gets 10+ GB in size...