Defragmenting

[Roderunner]

This is what & how I learned re defragging.
-
UltraDefrag Performance Considerations.

Initial usage
Before any disk defragmentation we recommend to disable the Windows paging file. It expands RAM, but works much slower. So, its removing will take much bigger effect on system performance than the disk defragmentation. If more RAM is needed than physically installed, setting up additional RAM modules always gives the best result.

Then, if you'd like to keep some files close to the beginning of the disk because of the highest speed of this area, don't ask the disk defragmenter for this job: just repartition the disk and use the first partition to keep the most frequently accessed files while the second partition - for backups, videos, music and other stuff tolerant for a bit slower access.

How frequently to defragment?
Defragment your system disk only when you notice a system slowdown - approximately on a monthly basis, not frequently. Data drives have even less need to be defragmented, especially if they contain primarily music, pictures and videos.

Optimization is reasonable when you have free space heavily fragmented on your system disk. To determine whether to run optimizer or not execute the analysis and look at the cluster map. If you see white space heavily scattered around the disk - it's time for an optimization. However, it isn't recommended to optimize disks too frequently. Run it once a year or so since it may take a lot of time.

And, once again, don't crave to defragment/optimize data files - music/video has no need to be continues on disk, other data files have tendency for temporary living on the disk.

Performance of UltraDefrag from best to worst.

Running at Boot Time
this is the fastest, since there are no other processes running

Running in Safe Mode
here are only a limited number of processes running, which are essential to operate Windows

Running with Anti-virus Software disabled
read and write operations are not interrupted by the AV process

Running when the System is fully used
this is the worst and not recommended at all, since many files are locked by running applications. You should never use this to process entire disks.

Using quick instead of full optimization
Quick optimization is much faster than full optimization due to only moving fragmented files to the end of the disk first.
This makes it perfectly suited for system and boot drives.

Note.
You must disable your virus detection software before using UltraDefrag. Any virus scanner running during the defragmentation extremely slows down the process.

Some Anti-virus programs allow to exclude processes from being monitored, if your Anti-virus program supports this, you can use it instead of disabling it completely. You may still encounter slower performance compared to running UltraDefrag at boot or in safe mode.

We recommend to exclude as much files as possible from defragmentation - this will dramatically decrease the defragmentation time. Temporary files and archives are usually rarely accessed and may be left fragmented without a noticeable system performance degradation.

[silverback]

Since moving data round a disk is likely to be just as fast whichever defragmenter gets used, since it is dependent on disk grometry and speed, I am a bit surprised by your statement! You may be using the Auslogics default, where 'empty space' is not consolidated towards the end of the disk, and just the fragmented files are defragmented? I've selected the 'Defrag & Optimise' Auslogics option, and it seems no faster than Defraggler... (This does not really surprise me.)

Fare 'nuff. I stand corrected.
Still, since I feel that Auslogics is faster, I'm going to continue to use it in preference to Defraggler.
Silverback

[stuck]

Until a few days ago I'd never had any cause to question the idea of defraging a HDD as a worthwhile thing to do but I've definitely changed my mind for Win 7 Home Premium. This is because although I can't prove it, there is an outside chance that a defrag of my son's Win 7 Home Premium laptop led to a serious boot failure that ended up with us having to resort to the OEM factory restore as the only way to revive the machine. Read more in this post and the rest of that thread.

Ken