Windows 10 auto defrag hard drives?

boobymax

Active member
I have a 240GB SSD for the O/S etc and one 500GB HHD on board the desktop
Pluss two 1TB portable HHD's.
I believe windows 10 auto defrags. Is that correct?
If so, does it auto recognise the SSD and bypass it?
Sorry if too many questions :D
 

debiruman665

Enthusiast
If you want something that acts a bit smarter you are best checking out this software, it's premium but they are the only defrag software that are microsoft gold partner as far as I know of and I personally use it myself.


As far as I know the auto defrag on windows is just a scheduled defrag and halt your disk usuage while its happening.
 

Scott

Behold The Ford Mondeo
Moderator
It should recognise the fact that you have a SSD in the system and optimise accordingly.

It will defrag in a manner of speaking, but not quite to the level that a conventional drive would do. It will also trim the drive to keep it clear.
 

boobymax

Active member
OK thanks, that's reassuring(y).
I used to use a paid-for defragger years ago, but happy to let windows do it.
I guess I have to set it up.... Right?
 

ubuysa

The BSOD Doctor
There is a difference between drive optimisation and drive defragmenting and the two are also different depending on whether the drive is an SSD or an HDD. The short answer here is that Windows does do some necessary drive optimisation on SSDs (TRIM for example and file system defragmentation) but it knows all about SSDs (and which of your drives are SSDs) and it does the right things based on the drive type so you have no need to worry. :)

For the long answer see this: https://www.hanselman.com/blog/TheRealAndCompleteStoryDoesWindowsDefragmentYourSSD.aspx
 

debiruman665

Enthusiast
Thank's Scott.
So when you say "iT" do you mean Windows 10 or O&O?
I mean Windows 10,

the software I recommended will lightly defragment your drives in the background when your computer usage is low.

As far as I know the windows derangement tool must be either scheduled or run manually and will perform the work in one single action that can take up to hours.

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The main advantage of using paid for defragmenting tools is that you can do some more advanced things like exclude certain folders from being defragmented (torrent folder) and focus on the ones to prioritise (steam library). Can also re-organise files on the disk so that the ones you use most frequently are placed at the sections of the disk that have faster access speeds. Although this is not applicable if you are using an SSD.
 

Scott

Behold The Ford Mondeo
Moderator
I don't think that's the case with Win10... I've not known any need to manually run it or set up a schedule since the transition from Win7. I was a late adopter though so possibly it was like that at the start.

The default schedule is weekly, I've not touched any of my systems (all running a mix of SSD & Conventional). Granted.... I'm not so fussed with defragmenting the storage drives anyway as speed is not essential.
 

Rakk

The Awesome
Moderator
As far as I know the windows derangement tool must be either scheduled or run manually and will perform the work in one single action that can take up to hours.

Agree with Scott

As far as I can tell I never had to set anything up, mind you my memory is awful, but yeah I never notice when mine is doing it so its not being a system hog, but it is definitely doing it (having checked, mine did it 5 days ago).
 

debiruman665

Enthusiast
Agree with Scott

As far as I can tell I never had to set anything up, mind you my memory is awful, but yeah I never notice when mine is doing it so its not being a system hog, but it is definitely doing it (having checked, mine did it 5 days ago).

When I do it manually using either windows tool, or any other third part software it will lock my disk usage at 100% for up to 8 hours depending on how heavily fragmented the disk is.

I feel like the only time fragmentation really starts to cause issues is when your disk is near full capacity and the problem of files being striped over the drive ends up becoming a bit ridiculous.
 

boobymax

Active member
Great replies guys, Thank you.
I don't think I'll have any problem with slowing due to full HDD's
As said, the O/S plus editing software is on my 240GB SSD and the Data is spread amongst the others.
I use cloud storage for my Photos, of which I have loads.
Do you think the future will be cloud storage?
 

debiruman665

Enthusiast
Great replies guys, Thank you.
I don't think I'll have any problem with slowing due to full HDD's
As said, the O/S plus editing software is on my 240GB SSD and the Data is spread amongst the others.
I use cloud storage for my Photos, of which I have loads.
Do you think the future will be cloud storage?

Yes and no, it's slower to access files on the cloud so its worse than a local HDD but the cloud storage is not likely to be lost unless the company goes bust.
 
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