Win10XPE - Build Your Own Rescue Media

eLPuSHeR said:

I have a small request for WinXPE authors: Could it be possible to include Windows defrag (command-line is fine)? I think it's the best defragger right now.

Hi there
These days who needs to ever use defrag on disks ==even HDD's --- I've never found defrag ever the slightest bit of good -- going back as far as Windows 95 when a 20MB (not GB !!) HDD was regarded as a "Monser beast". The process usually takes hours and invariably gives little if any reward.

Your best bet is to image (not clone) the relevant disk and then restore -- most of these imaging programs have intelligent copy and will usually optimise the file system in any case.

If you can afford it switching to an SSD is by far the best --these don't need de-fragging as there's utterly no rotational movement of HDD heads or delay on accessing data wherever it is on the SSD. Any address can be read as quick as any other and SSD's operate very fast so there's no need to "optimise" the file system.

Cheers
jimbo

jimbo45 said:

Your best bet is to image (not clone) the relevant disk and then restore -- most of these imaging programs have intelligent copy and will usually optimise the file system in any case.

A common misconception. Even with intelligent sector copy Macrium only defrags on the fly if you ask it to shrink the partition as it restores it. Otherwise it preserves the cluster layout.

From the Macrium forum...

This is not correct. A restored image to a partition the same size or greater than the original is exactly the same as it was when it was imaged. A disk image is an exact cluster by cluster representation of the file system and the restore puts every cluster back to exactly the same sector offset as it was when the image was created. The exception is if you shrink a file system during a restore, in this case the file system is actually defragged 'on the fly' and there is no fragmentation whatsoever in the restored file system.

Kind Regards
Nick - Macrium Support

Reflect v7... FEATURES?

Do I need to defrag the hard disk even if I format the hard disk

Tested and confirmed by myself and NavyLCDR a little later in that thread.

Bree said:

A common misconception. Even with intelligent sector copy Macrium only defrags on the fly if you ask it to shrink the partition as it restores it. Otherwise it preserves the cluster layout.

Do I need to defrag the hard disk even if I format the hard disk

Tested and confirmed by myself and NavyLCDR a little later in that thread.

Hi there

@Bree

on restoring the image I always delete the partitions on the target disk before restore anyway so I don't think the case above applies.

In any case whether you shrink the partition / or change it - even say 50 MB would be enough so I assume it's still by far quicker to use the restore image methods than spend hours defragging a disk with barely any perceptable performance improvement.

The only good way of improving I/O is to either get SSD's or get FAST (preferably 10,000 RPM but at a pinch 7200 RPM disks could do) HDD's with the largest size cache possible and for the best performance is to use at least a pair of HDD's using RAID 0 - risky but OK if you have backup as modern HDD's don't fail often --RAID 0 gives super performance but if one disk goes bonkers you lose the whole array so backup is essential -- however I've 2 servers running for over 2 to 3 years without any problems using RAID 0 on 4 HDD's in each array on each server.


If you have slow HDD performance any amount of defrag won't improve it significantly -- I'd like to see some stats of say copying over the same computer a 4GB file with file explorer to a decent HDD from one that "needs defragging" and then doing the exact same copy AFTER a defrag -- delete the file from the target HDD first to replicate the copy as much as possible.

An even better test would be to wipe (re-format -- not quick but full reformat) the source disk, restore a 4GB file to it and THEN copy that file to the target disk --interesting to see time differences for the source to target copy in all 3 cases.

One can surmise all sorts of "theoretical scenarios" but as an old fashioned engineer I still like to see actual results from real hardware experiment tests !!!!!.

Cheers
jimbo

jimbo45 said:

@Bree
on restoring the image I always delete the partitions on the target disk before restore anyway so I don't think the case above applies.

I think you'll find it does, but you can easily test that for yourself. Just use this command on the original before imaging it and again on the restored partition.

...To find out I have run a test. I made an image of a system with a 4% fragmented C: drive then restored it. From a Command Prompt (Admin) a fragmentation analysis can be run with this command:

DEFRAG /A /V C:

Do I need to defrag the hard disk even if I format the hard disk - post #9

Bree said:

I think you'll find it does, but you can easily test that for yourself. Just use this command on the original before imaging it and again on the restored partition.


Do I need to defrag the hard disk even if I format the hard disk - post #9

Hi there @Bree

Sorry to belabour the point - but I'm talking about Disk I/O times not on recovering a few measly MB of space !!!!!

I'm not trying to come to blows here but merely try and work out what (if any) is the benefit to defragging an HDD.

Maybe my English isn't good enough but if the point is merely to reclaim some space on HDD's then if you are that short of space buying a new bigger one would be a far better option (they are really cheap these days) or simply delete some files that are used infrequently or archiving them to a back up store.

I actually understood the process was used to SIGNIFICANTLY improve the I/O performance of the HDD -- that's IMO the only thing that matters as far as Disks are concerned when dealing with computer response times etc.

I can accept that in the days where a 1GB HDD was an absolute expensive thing (the old 20 MB HDD's were in today's money about the same price as almost a 1TB HDD today) then a case could be made for recliming space -- but as far as Disk I/O performance is concerned --I still stand by my claim that it's a 100% waste of time for the labour and time involved.

Cheers
jimbo

@jimbo I believe what @Bree was talking about is performance as it relates to how fragment a physical disk really is. For example, you create a fairly large file as its being written, based on how fragment that disk really is, blocks of data could and most likely will be spread across the entire volume. Now take a backup example where you are imaging a disk (Not sector copies ie clone), retrieving that large file could be very painful in elapsed time. Since this large file is broken up into many small block strewn across all of the sectors, sequentially retrieving it will result it extremely poor performance. The impact can really be seen when your sequentially accessing it and for every other block of data, it misses the sector, because of having to seek to this new location. If your late you have to wait another RPM before retrieving that block. Slow disks are penalized. Much better to defrag on a regular basis, to keep the performance in line.

Kyhi said:

Export your registry setting from host as reg file
select Create ISO > select "Reg Convert PE"
select exported reg file via file box
hit "Gooo Regfile" then save

this will give you "regwrite" values to include as "Additions"
only copy and paste the regwrite lines - not process or hiveload

am missing something here in additions - have tried all combinations i can see and nothing works - i thied a couple of res mods - no

so thought i would try adding files - again no - went on to try something simple - dont show the recycle bin - no that refused to be hidden

additions was ticked - i had missed that initially - so in the way i always point fingers - what am i doing wrong