What is Digg?187 Comments
- shmonk, on 10/12/2007, -17/+110> 4:00 AM every Sunday, when presumably most people won't be doing other work on their computer.
Should be:
"4:00 AM every Sunday, when presumably no computer is running."
They should think about implementing a file system that doesn't need to be defragmented, like XFS, ReiserFS and most other UNIX/Linux file systems. - MarkByers, on 10/12/2007, -21/+92"Doesn't XP automatically defrag itself when you leave it idle for long enough?"
Not really. The technical term for that is 'crash'. - NeilM, on 10/12/2007, -14/+57"They should think about implementing a file system that doesn't need to be defragmented, like XFS, ReiserFS and most other UNIX/Linux file systems."
Give 'em hell! That's exactly what they want to hear about! Linux! :) - invader, on 10/12/2007, -2/+44zadadka:
that's the point. he was saying that 4AM is not a good time to autoschedule.. - sadsac, on 10/12/2007, -14/+52Yes, automatic... as soon as you click on a half-dozen "allow this" prompts. Vista is about as automatic as cutting your lawn with a pair of scissors.
- adml_shake, on 10/12/2007, -2/+36hey now I'm still downloading porn at that time, I can't imagine that the defrag will work properly while i'm downloading 5 gigs of porn.
- random42, on 10/12/2007, -6/+39"When no computer is RUNNING?...what..?....how will it do anything then?"
I believe that was his point.... - Virak, on 10/12/2007, -2/+31What the *****? No. Journaling has nothing to do with automatically scheduling defragmentation.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -21/+50I don't know about you, but how many people actually shut down their computers anymore? I leave mine on 24/7.
- omega1045, on 10/12/2007, -9/+36If I have told my parents once, I have told them a millions times, "Leave your computer on." They always shut it off to conserve power. Their computer would not be on at 4 am. I bet most home users are like this. It is hard for techies to understand this behaviour since we are so computer oriented.
Perhaps Vista scheduler should have an option to start the computer automatically at a time, then shut down after a task is completed. - cliffzdude, on 10/12/2007, -23/+46I read this article halfway out loud with a co-worker as we're eating lunch right about now. I said out loud to "click on the comments", and I made a verbal quasi-bet that within 5 posts some wanker would say "just use Linux and you won't have to defrag" or something about a particular Linux FS being "better".
Well smack my ass and call me Sally, it was the first post. Guess I should have taken odds, I'd have made a few free beers on the spot.
Doesn't it get a bit fatiguing? Each and every story about Windows is followed up with a snotty nosed comment about Linux and/or OS X?
Reminds me of Nick Burns, your company computer guy.
"Ummm, like duh, if Bill Gates were smart enuff to implement a true FS than this wouldn't be an issue. Sch-yeah, like, dorky... Snort, snort, snort"... - xaxa, on 10/12/2007, -16/+38Please turn your computer off when you're not using it!
Would you leave the oven on all day because it's more convenient? No, of course not. So turn off the computer, save some energy, and do something good for the planet for once.
Please. - pbaehr, on 10/12/2007, -9/+28I love how watered down the Vista project has become. What started out as "We'll implement a whole new file system that's better than anything before it" turned into, "Well, we'll just schedule a defrag once a week to fix the problems with the old file system."
- TGMD, on 10/12/2007, -9/+28That's been a marketing lie from apple. Their File system doesn't prevent fragmentation nor does their on the fly defragging help it too much. Apple says that their system doesn't get fragmented but I've ran scans myself on this (wrote a paper on it) and it's just as bad as windows in most cases.
- gronne, on 10/12/2007, -3/+22Unless you have a superlow powered PC it makes sense to shut it off for the sake of your power bill.
- mpauley, on 10/12/2007, -2/+20@TGMD:
BUZZ, wrong.
check out http://www.kernelthread.com/mac/apme/fragmentation/
there is on-the-fly defragmenting of 20mb files and under on OSX, has been for the last 3.5 years. Not to mention the hotfiles-btree. The typical fragmentation on an HFS+ volume in OSX is in fact negligible, and marketing hasn't mentioned that since 10.3 came out. I'll start believing the MS hype when they stop talking and start writing software that is better than "good enough".
Perhaps you'd like to post a link to your paper? - boneill, on 10/12/2007, -5/+22How does journaling help fragmentation? You realise NTFS is a journaling file system.
- felchdonkey, on 10/12/2007, -0/+16Defragging... defragging... I think I remember something about that. Isn't that what operating systems had to do back in the early '90s?
Why is Windows the only operating system that still requires defragmenting? - mfratt, on 10/12/2007, -2/+18Correct, most people turn their computers off at night, at least most people who would need auto defrag because they have no clue what it is/how to do it themselves. So, instead, you make it happen while their using the computer. So now you have people calling tech support "My computer is slow and is making funny noises. It does this pretty much every week." Now the tech would probably recognize that as the auto defrag, but too much hassle if you ask me. What they should do is have auto fragmentation checks, and inform the user (in the form of a pop up or one of those task bar bubbles) as to what this means and that he should defrag, then provide a link to the defrag app right there.
- pumacub, on 10/12/2007, -6/+22Let me add:
5) Again, it's beta.
6) The latest build removed the extra prompts. - stomicron, on 10/12/2007, -9/+25@vandread
I shut mine down every day unless I'm actively downloading something big. Despite popular opinion, Windows XP boots extremely fast if you don't bloat the hell out of it with poor downloading habits. Mine boots up in less than 30 seconds (with hibernate mode only sparing a few more) and I'm using a three-year-old budget Dell. - MikeSD34, on 10/12/2007, -3/+17I turn mine off as well considering it's in my room and between the fans, and the heat it puts off, it's just not a good idea to leave it running.
- FinishdLawSkool, on 10/12/2007, -2/+15Haven't folks been able to do this since Windows 98?
- politech, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12Actually MS outsourced the Defrag tool. The XP code is provided by Executive Software, and is in actuality a stripped down version of Diskeeper.
- davidlow, on 10/12/2007, -2/+14NTFS has been around since about 1993; and no, there has never been a Windows OS that was free of the need for file fragmentation. I forgot how I used to have to defrag my Windows drives obsessively every few weeks.
When I switched to OS X (2 years ago) it took a while for me to stop thinking about all that crap I didn't have to do anymore, but eventually I did forget: defrags, virus sweeps, anti-virus subscriptions, spyware checks, periodic shutdowns, periodic re-installs, driver updates, and probably a few more things I don't remember (thankfully). Reading this article brings it all back like a bad dream. - alwaysmc2, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12Who says that Windows Vista can't wake up from sleep by itself? Because, by the way, it can. The power off button sleeps the computer by default, so it doesn't matter if your computer is "off" on Sundays at 4am. It will wake up, defrag, and go back to sleep anyway.
- politech, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13WinFS was more than just "cut". It was killed, junked and stripped down for parts. The few little pieces of WinFS that worked are to be added as check-box options to MS SQL.
WinFS is a sad sad story of missed opportunities and unfulfilled promises.
This is just insult to injury. - bribera, on 10/12/2007, -9/+21@everyone except schmonk/NeilM:
This is like offering people a dog that soils itself during the week, and then cleans itself in the middle of the night on Sunday. Sure, it's "nice" that you don't have to clean up after the dog anymore. But come on, why in the world would you sell dogs like this when the competition has trained dogs that don't involve either self-soiling or any sort of cleaning. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -5/+17Not at all, actually. Journaling does not prevent hard drives from being fragmented. Journaling helps prevent file system corruption.
- harryd, on 10/12/2007, -3/+14I haven't even had the patience to defrag since Windows 98.
I do hope they bring the nicely colored blocks back. - dmoney06, on 10/12/2007, -11/+22if you dont think that you have to click a bunch of allow this buttons in vista before you are allowed to do ANYTHING, then you have obviously never used it.
- Urusai, on 10/12/2007, -3/+14Repeat after me: NTFS is NOT a file system. Since it is layered over the Logical Block Addressing scheme, it's just a nasty hack put on top of direct block addressing.
Uh...brilliant? - Chronic, on 10/12/2007, -8/+18haha yea, vista seems less and less inovative each day.
- dombi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10Yeah, it does.
" When a file is opened on an HFS+ volume, the following conditions are tested:
If the file is less than 20 MB in size
If the file is not already busy
If the file is not read-only
If the file has more than eight extents
If the system has been up for at least three minutes
If all of the above conditions are satisfied, the file is relocated -- it is defragmented on-the-fly."
Source: http://www.kernelthread.com/mac/apme/fragmentation/ - goofballjm, on 10/12/2007, -3/+13@ shmonk:
MS will never switch to a file system they didn't develop. NTFS is tied into their operating system and their security infrastructure, and that's the way they like it. It's the one edge they have on the Unix world. Despite the reverse engineering of great developers out there, it's a risk every time you write to an NTFS system in *nix.
Also, NTFS permissions are WAY different than those found on reiserfs, XFS, ext2, and ext3. It's a nice thought, but it doesn't make sense for Microsoft. - Arevos, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12"Because NTFS can also do what those other file systems are capable of."
All major filesystems for Linux don't need defragging to maintain smooth operation, so there's at least one thing that NTFS doesn't do that other filesystems can do. I believe OS X has that capability as well.
Reiser4 has a plugin architecture for arbeitary metadata, encryption and compression. To my knowledge, NTFS doesn't have this, either. - goatbag, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10In OS X, whenever a file less than 20 MB is read it is checked for fragmentation. If it's found to be fragmented, then it is automatically moved to a single contiguous block during idle time. Apple's term for this is "Hot File Adaptive Clustering".
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=25668 - cliffzdude, on 10/12/2007, -4/+13Linux, actually any FS can and will fragment. Reiser FS for example greatly reduces fragmentation with tail packing. Tail Packing is thought to cause a significant performance hit, apparentlyk Reiser4 will minimize this.
See: http://www.informatik.uni-frankfurt.de/~loizides/reiserfs/agesystem.html
See: http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-p-3081971.html - stomicron, on 10/12/2007, -4/+13@vandread
I'm no expert, but I know that spinning hard drives up and down frequently is a great way to shorten their life expectancy. That's why I wouldn't shut it down if I knew I would come back to it within minutes. But for the 6 hours or so I'm asleep or the 10 hours at work, I think in the long run it'd be better for the computer to just be off. - shakin, on 10/12/2007, -3/+11@TGMD
Monad is not part of Vista, but it can be installed seperately. - r121, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8"Show an example of a 'fairly tiny' modification to NTFS and I'll digg u back up!"
Show me the source to NTFS and I'll see what I can do :-) - xenolon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8@chronic:
actually, you can't reply to a message that was a reply to the parent. which is why i had to use an @ to direct this message at the proper person. and i realize we're both off-topic here, but i would like to see at least one more level of response available. i think the digg dev team allows only one level of reply to prevent flame-wars from polluting the comments section, slashdot-style.
(sort of like i'm doing now?) - peorth, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8The problem is that they are not FIXING the problem, they are just storing the dust under the carpet
- Chronic, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9so sunday morning while most people are reading newspapers, your at your computer reading a defrag log file? I just pictured that in my head, lol.
- skoles, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10OMGZ M$ has copied Apple once again and has done it wrong!
Apple runs optimization scripts at 3am on a Thursday because most people cut out of work early and leave the computer on to give the impression they've stepped out. When really they're just going to call out on Friday and make a long weeked.
M$ makes it defrag at 4am on a Sunday when people don't have computers on anyway because they're recovering from the hangover Saturday. - nTensify, on 10/12/2007, -25/+32GEEZ, WELCOME TO 10 YEARS AGO VISTA. (This is for those Microsoft-elitists who made fun of us for our one button mice :p)
Seriously Microsoft, you're so gunghoe to add an extra cache to the harddrives when you haven't even considered speeding up the filesystem by making the (fairly tiny) changes neccesary to keep the filesystem from fragmenting beyond use. Sure, sure, it's going to hurt backwards compatibility (oh noes, people will have to patch their systems to support NTFS-NF [Non-Fragment]), but think of how much time is lost to application start up times due to fragmentation alone.
It's a bit late in the game to be adding it to Vista, but hey, it's welcome. (And for that matter, it can be developed in isolation of Vista/XP/2000 and can be used across the board). - ezod, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9This is like releasing a microwave that you can't set a time on (while other microwaves are already around that you can), then years later packaging it with an egg timer to tell you when to hit the button, and calling it innovation.
- StatusQuoRules, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8They used in in 1996's Windows NT 4
- xaxa, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7It is selfish to use resources (which are shared with everyone on the planet in their way) without good reason.
I won't tell anyone to turn their PC off, but I'll ask. Please? - OrangeTide, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Yahoo IM lets you send offline messages. encourage them to switch.
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