Alcibiades Posted March 23, 2010 Share Posted March 23, 2010 I heard from someone smarter than myself that defragging a lot puts physical wear and tear on the hard drive. Is this true? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Manhart Posted March 24, 2010 Share Posted March 24, 2010 Only by it spinning alot. Defragging doesn't cause any different movement than when data is written or read from it. Hard drives are rated to spin constantly for years. In fact, I'm still using a hard drive that I used to defrag nightly that I bought new (80 GB, so you know how long ago that was...) I would argue the fact that if you defragged your drive every night it will last longer, since it is forced to spin less than if you did it once a month because of how much more it will have to be "spun" in order for a much longer defragging time! Phil Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alcibiades Posted March 24, 2010 Author Share Posted March 24, 2010 Interesting. Thank you. I have a second HD in my machine, also an 80GB that I had put in when my rig was built, just for FSX so I could run it all by its lonesome. I figured 80GB would be big enough to hold FSX plus extras, but small enough so that everything could accessed quickly (I have no idea if that makes any sense, but it sounded good at the time). But when you get FSX+GEX+FEX+UTX+FSGenesis+PNW + other stuff you realize how little 80GB just might be. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maurice_King Posted March 24, 2010 Share Posted March 24, 2010 Buy quality HDD's and keep them in good order by defragging often you will have less likely hood of failure that the excess work the HDD needs to do to find stuff because it is badly fragmented. Remember the only part that really wears is the stepped motor's controlling the heads, there is NO physical contact or shouldn't be between the Head's and the Platter's. I have drives in excess of 50000 hrs old and they are as far as I know still in fine form they are running 24/7 so they will likely have far less likely hood of failure than a PC that gets turned on and off all the time ( minimal thermal stress ) ever wondered why HDD's have such a solid chassis ie milled alloy? so they keep expansion and contraction to a minimum. IMHO Defragging will not shorten the life of a HDD but in fact may well extend it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arismac Posted March 24, 2010 Share Posted March 24, 2010 Solid State Drives (SSD's) excepted. Do not defrag these drives, such as the OCZ Vertex Series ... ever Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maurice_King Posted March 24, 2010 Share Posted March 24, 2010 essentially an SSD is RAM and as such No defrag is either needed nor advisable under any circumstances. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest J van E Posted March 24, 2010 Share Posted March 24, 2010 And that's why I will never buy an old fashioned HD anymore (well, I will, but only for cheap backup purposes): SSD is the way to go for me! I have Windows 7 and FSX on a 80 Gb SSD (rather small) and after some three months it is as fresh and fast as the day I bought it. Which can't be said of any of my older systems with regular HD's. I installed and uninstalled all kinds of things, but no matter what you do, it stays fast. Awesome stuff. Knowing you can install PNW and enjoy it right away without having to go through cumbersome defrag sessions is great. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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